Do you need a Branding Agency?

You may wonder why does your company need a Branding Agency? You are doing just about fine, or better you could be surpassing expectations. So, why fix something when it is not broken? You shouldn’t. But, remember Branding is as much about building as it is about fixing.

You may be wondering that you have an in-house Design team or a pool of freelancers who can do a fair job, so why hire a Branding Agency? Well, Design is not a commodity, nor is Branding done on whims. Brands are built on Promises and Experiences (the whole wide world of Branding can be deciphered in these two words)- you need to Identify what your Brand is Promising to its Customers or what it can/should Promise and then translate that Promise Visually and Verbally into Brand Experiences across touchpoints.

A Branding Agency understands your Customers better. You may have Marketing mavericks who are well travelled and have multifarious background but they are in most cases restricted by their own views of Marketing Strategy and Aesthetics. Branding Agencies specialise in defining the Core of your Brand and translating them into Brand touchpoints. A Branding Agency sees your Brand in ensemble, beyond a deliverable like Identity Design, Positioning, Communication Design or Verbal Identity.

You must talk to a Branding Agency about your company’s Branding if:

1. Your company is an SME and have big Aspirations

2. Your BHAG is daunting

3. You want to grow your Market or Market Share

4. You want to build a stronger Brand

5. You have a superior Product or Service but your Customers don’t know about it

6. You're growing and want to perceived differently

7. The vision of the Brand has evolved and matured

8. You have just started your business, or starting up

We’d love to hear from you, please write in to us hello@yellowfishes.com

Brand strategy is the key to effective marketing.

Branding defines. Marketing communicates.

Branding preceeds all Marketing and Communication. Infact, defining a Brand should be the first step in any Marketing strategy. To define a Brand, a Branding Agency needs to study and understand the Market Dynamics, Category Trends and Consumer Behaviour. Once the Agency is acquainted with the Dynamics, the next step is Analysis of the Data and closer look at the Competition to see what they are doing best and what are the learnings. Brand Positioning is not about identifying an empty spot in the Market and pitching in the Brand there, it’s about owning one-something that your Brand can stand for and leveraging that. The next step is translating the Brand Positioning and Proposition into Visual Language and Verbal Language of the Brand. Hereafter, it’s a two-pronged Approach. One is to maintain Consistency in Visual and Verbal Languages (for Recall and Recognition) and the Second is to create enough Variations in Visual and Verbal languages so there is no monotony in the Marketing of your Brand.

What is a brand? What is branding?

What is a brand? What is branding?

‘Brand’ is perhaps the most overused word in today’s marketing & business vocabulary. You will most likely agree when I say that a brand is any product or service that is trademarked and/or is differentiated from its competition by virtue of name, symbol etc. Great! You are not wrong, but not completely right either. That is what ‘brand’ meant about 50 years ago, or may be 75 years!

Today, in this ever changing world amidst liberalisation and globalisation, there is more competition for every company than ever before. That means there is more need for marketing. Companies are deploying their push and pull strategies to get maximum customer base. The customers that we are talking about are discerning, well-traveled and extremely conscious about his/her choice. How can that customer be tricked into a marketing gimmick? Or a fancy advertisement campaign? 50 years ago, a trademarked name was enough to make the purchase decision, or at least induce purchase behaviour. Today, even a unique value proposition may not be enough to inspire purchase. Every trademarked company (read brand) is talking about what it has to offer and how its products meet the needs. So, effectively in today’s world- every company has a value proposition that they want to talk about- some big, some small, some rational, some emotional. Thereby, everyone ends up talking the same language, confusing the customers even more – ”I have salt in my toothpaste, other says- I have sodium, third says- I have potassium chloride.” The companies may think they have differentiated offerings, but the truth is none of those offerings are remembered (poor recall and poor recognition) because all of them talk the same language. They are all fighting for ingredients, or in other words functional RTBs.

We can talk about 10 different things a brand has to offer but only one such thing is remembered. Every brand today needs to stand for one-something, and they have to communicate that effectively and live by it. In simpler words, the word ‘brand’ can be deciphered in two words:

1) Promise and 2) Experience.

Brands are not built on whims or competitive behaviour, they are built on values. You will only be able to keep such a promise that is true to you. If you overpromise- you will doom your brand. All advertisements are great, but they only increase awareness and seldom inspire any action. Branding determines what is to be communicated. Branding therefore is the art (more than aesthetics) and science (not rocket-science) of identifying that one-something. It is the belief, it is the core, it is your brand’s purpose built on value system of your company that will steer your organisation for the years to come.

Today, branding is not placing your logo on every touch point. It is the art of determining how can you visually and verbally translate brand’s core promise and use it across touch points in order to gain recall, recognition, awareness, et al and all other parameters that make a brand stronger.

Get Branded!