How to Develop a Unique Brand Identity for Your Business
Close your eyes for a moment and picture your favourite food or beverage product. (We know it seems weird, but trust us – this is important.)
What comes to mind first? Is it the logo? The visual design or colour palette? The product’s name and tagline in its signature typography?
Or is it how the product makes you feel – comfort, desire, satisfaction, excitement?
Even in a world of near-constant advertising, we all have favourite brands that cut through the noise and become important to us. Thinking about them triggers a flood of associations and emotions – from memorable ad campaigns to enjoying their products with family and friends – increasing our loyalty and making us more likely to choose that brand over a competitor.
What all these brands have in common is a powerful and distinctive brand identity. And it can mean the difference between your success, or being lost in the crowd.
Why Building a Strong Brand Identity is so Important
Let’s face it – the marketplace is growing exponentially, with new food, beverage and retail brands emerging every day. So how can you attract an audience, ensure your customers remain loyal, or maintain a competitive edge?
Simple: by making people care. Care not just about your product, but about your story, your values and your company. A recent worldwide study found that consumers wouldn’t care if 75% of existing brands disappeared, driving home the importance of having a meaningful connection with your customer base. Pair this with the fact that the power of consumers in the retail relationship is only increasing, and engaging customers becomes more than just a marketing tactic. It’s essential to ensure the future of your business.
That’s why all the best brands are focused on creating a brand identity that is unique, authentic and consistent. A strong brand identity is your superpower – it makes your customers care.
The Key Elements of Successful Brand Identity Design
In essence, your brand identity is everything that the customer sees, from your product packaging to your social media presence. So it makes sense that you would need striking graphics and a catchy name. But good branding design runs deeper than that.
Each branding element needs to be cohesive, telling a consistent story that your customers can understand. If you say your brand is eco-friendly but use non-recyclable materials, or claim to prioritise customer satisfaction but ignore enquiries on your social media, customers will consider you inconsistent and inauthentic. With only 47% of brands deemed trustworthy by consumers globally, it doesn’t take much to damage a brand’s reputation these days.
Customers also prefer purpose-driven organisations, who stand for something more than the products they sell. Just as we expect to be treated like people by brands, people expect brands to act more human, focusing on positively impacting society rather than on profit. The more transparent, engaged and sociable your brand is, the deeper your connection with customers will be.
Creating a brand identity that people will love is hard – creating a brand that customers will remain loyal to is even harder. Luckily for you, we’ve got the key elements covered.
#1: Know Your Audience Inside Out
When you create an amazing product, you can’t help but want to share it with as many people as possible. After being in that intense creative headspace for so long, it seems inevitable that everyone will be as excited about your product as you are. Why shouldn’t you just market it to all demographics and audiences, and shape your brand identity later to suit the customer base that responds?
Unfortunately in trying to appeal to everyone, you run the risk of becoming just another generic brand, ultimately appealing to no one. Successful companies know their target audience inside out; they know how to appeal to them and what they need. Crucially, clever businesses know the gap in the market which only their product can fill, flipping the switch from disposable to essential in their ideal customer’s mind.
Figuring out your target audience is a huge step towards creating a brand identity that lasts. So close your eyes again (yeah we know, it’s still weird), but this time picture your product and how it makes you feel. We guarantee there’s people out there who want that same experience. That’s your audience.
#2: Define and Refine Your Brand Position
At the heart of brand positioning is the ongoing quest to set your brand apart from your competitors and make your product the most favourable in the eyes of consumers. We know it can be tedious, but thorough research of the marketplace is the best way to discover your unique flavour, whether that’s the quality or convenience of your product, your unprecedented level of customer service, or your innovative approach to retail.
With the rise of e-commerce, success can no longer be measured simply by owning the aisle or having the best eatery in a particular postcode. It’s about creating a brand identity that truly means something to your customers.
We know that consumers trust meaningful brands, those who offer ongoing value beyond their products and work to create deeper emotional ties with their audiences. And in the digital age, one of the best ways of sharing your company values and brand mission is by cultivating a strong social media presence. If you demonstrate a genuine interest in your customers and work to create an engaged online community, your brand will become associated with authenticity, credibility and most importantly, humanity.
#3: Command Attention with Clever Visual Design
Ever heard the saying that we eat with our eyes? There’s a reason why branding design focuses so much on the visuals. Having an eyecatching logo or bold packaging that leaps off the shelf is a brilliant way to connect companies with customers, and if cleverly utilised the visual design of your brand can come to symbolise your entire brand identity.
Our creative team has decades of branding and packaging design experience, so you can trust us when we say that products that stand out, sell. The first thing customers will see and judge your product on is the visual design, and the decision to go with one product over another is made almost instantly, sometimes even subconsciously. Since that decision could be based on any number of branding elements from the typography to the colour palette, it pays (literally) to put the extra effort in.
It’s not just about being aesthetically pleasing, either. A memorable brand is one that intelligently disrupts the status quo, making a potential customer stop in their tracks and think, or smile, or laugh, or reminisce. Never underestimate the power of effective packaging design.
#4: Use the Art of Storytelling to Connect with Customers
Since the dawn of time, there’s nothing that we as a species have liked better than sitting around the fire and sharing a few yarns. Stories are not only how we understand the world around us, but also one of the most effective forms of communication available to us.
Like we said earlier, the success of both your brand identity and your business relies on making your customers care. Storytelling is one of the oldest forms of branding. By forging an emotional connection with your audience through story, whether you’re making them grin or tugging at their heartstrings, you ensure that they keep choosing you over your competition.
Believe it or not, one of the best ways to create an enduring and authentic relationship with customers is by telling them your personal story. Great brands are built on great stories, ones that create interest, warmth, trust and connection. And if you’re worried that you don’t have a unique or interesting enough story to tell, check out our work with some of the most recognisable food and beverage brands in Australia. Sometimes it’s simply a case of asking the right questions to uncover the perfect yarn.
#5: Combine Creativity with Brand Consistency
By now you’ve probably realised the essential role that creativity plays in developing a strong, distinctive and authentic brand identity. A cohesive brand identity is actually made up of multiple creative branding elements that need to be refined and cultivated to tell your unique story. Whether it’s introducing a food product into the market or opening up a new restaurant, you should never miss an opportunity to be creative in your branding design. However when it comes to retaining the loyalty of customers, consistency is key.
We can learn from industry giants like Coca-Cola Amatil about the importance of maintaining a consistent brand identity – if someone mentions cola, the Coke logo and its iconic red and white colour scheme immediately comes to mind. Coca-Cola doesn’t just sell cola-based beverages, it has come to represent cola itself in Western popular culture. By continuing to deliver high-quality products while repeating key visual design elements across their range, Coca-Cola is both instantly recognisable and beloved by its audience. People may appreciate innovation in the short term, but it’s familiarity and consistency that will keep them aligned with your brand for years to come.
