Look, by definition, "Branding" is the process of creating a strong, positive perception of a product, service, organisation, or individual in the minds of their target audience. It's about establishing a unique identity that differentiates you from competitors and builds trust with your audience.
But honestly, think of branding your start-up or business as making your child socially and culturally fit for the rest of their life. You’d want to make sure that they are perceived as a well-brought-up child, respectful to everyone and helpful, essentially you’d wish all good things to be associated with your child’s perception. That is exactly what the role of branding your business or startup is.
When a business cultivates brand power, it enables a transformation. They go from being just another pick-me business to becoming an unforgettable brand that customers can trust and rely on for quality. Apple for creatives, coke for soda lovers, Marlboro for the smokers, and Durex for condoms, are all examples of brands that have very well conquered the mind share of the public through their witty, emotional, powerful and in some cases off-the-edge-branding by keeping in mind the following principles:
Brand power is the collective trust, loyalty and respect that customers have for a brand. This can come from years of customer feedback and/or recognition in the industry.
1. Consistency: Consistency is not just about repeating the same thing over. It's about setting a standard, a tone, and a personality that your customers can recognize and relate to. It’s a feeling of familiarity a customer must feel towards the brand, irrespective of the medium or place of brand interaction. For E.g.. a Starbucks has the same colour palette and packaging design whether you go to one near your house or to one, 100 km away but when you walk into the cafe even without looking at the hoarding, if you see wooden furniture and slightly greenish walls thoughtfully complimented with cream coloured walls, you know you’ve entered a Starbucks. Even with their website, as soon as you log into their Wi-Fi, they direct you to their online menu which again has the same colour palette and the same typography that they use at their offline stores. It feels like Starbucks. As a startup founder or businessperson working on the branding, your goal should also be to get the line, “The is so Starbucks” out of your customers’ mouths, except just hope they replace the word “Starbucks” with your brand’s name. Otherwise, you probably did not pay enough attention to our blog.
2. Storytelling: In this world, where nobody has any time on their plate, especially not for something that just looks desperate or too preachy, it is imperative to brand your business with a creative touch of storytelling. Thanks to Mr. Zuckerberg, people are concise in attention spans. They cannot give more than 15 seconds to any sort of content (at least most of them). If you want to hook your audience and want them to look at your brand and get you those sales figures, you need to incorporate a secret ingredient that most people ignore, the ones who try, to get it wrong and very few excel in. The secret ingredient is called- storytelling. You want to make your brand sound entertaining, informative and interesting 1. This is what builds an interesting brand story. Above all of this, you need to give your audience an answer to their “why”. Why should they go to your brand, what's special about your brand and how can you help make life easier for them? This needs to be explained in a very immersive, engaging and thoughtful manner. A stand-out example of this is Apple. Look at any of their yearly keynotes, there is nobody in the world that knows how to stir that feeling of “I want this” than Apple. They never sell their products, they always sell a feeling of comfort and social status to their consumers. Apple explains the benefits of using their products in multiple scenarios wherein their new features and products help make life so much easier for the users. The way they explain their products and their functioning is marvellous, they always seem to be hitting the nail on the head with that.
3. Stirring an Emotion: Another way of hitting the power button is to successfully ignite the emotions in your target audience’s hearts that you want to ignite. Getting them to feel the same emotion that your branding efforts are trying to instil is a victory. “Open happiness” by CocaCola. Now every time you have friends over and you feel like entertaining them, your go-to drink is not a Sprite a Pepsi or a Campa, your go-to drink is generally a Coke. Specifically in CocaCola’s case, some of the ways playing the emotional chord helped them were,
* Social Connection: The campaign emphasised sharing happiness with others, which could have fostered a sense of community around the brand.
* Improved Brand Image: By promoting positivity, Coca-Cola aimed to project a more wholesome and appealing image.
* Emotional Connection: The campaign aimed to create a positive emotional association with Coca-Cola. Positive emotions can lead to increased brand preference and loyalty.
4. Unique Value Proposition: There are so many brands out there in almost all possible professions, how is your business unique? Why should I take your services or products? Rather, how well are you compelling me to buy from your brand and not the brand next door? All these questions are to be answered through your unique selling point. This is the exact point where you as a business need to highlight how you help make society’s life easier and how you help make this world a better place. (a bit too much?) Well, that's what sells nowadays.
5. Simplicity: Nobody understands a very complex branding idea. It should be a cute mix of simple and layered. For example, let’s talk about our logo. Some people who do not want to give it much thought or time just look at our logo and think of it as a simple purple-white eye. But there's another category of people who look at it and think of the eye as looking through a new perspective or seeing things from another eye. So to sum it up, I think the perfect blend is when it is simple for the commoners or the proletariat to understand and develop a correlation with your brand. On the other hand, intellectual enough for the bourgeoisie to respect your depth of thought.
6. The power of your Brand Names: Brand names aren't just a collection of cool-sounding syllables and letters thrown together on a whim. Oh no, folks! They're a lot more than just that. They are the embodiment of your brand's story, a tangible representation of your brand promise. In essence, they're that first introductory handshake between you and your customers. The main thing a brand name should encapsulate is your brand story. The name should be exactly a teaspoon of mystery and curiosity and exactly a teaspoon of frankness. I Believe it’s the most important decision because that's going to be your name for the rest of your professional career. Think of it as keeping your own child’s name, you don’t want to mess it up. There’s a thought system of values, systems and processes you would want your child to inculcate and follow, hence the name is kept in the optimism of the same. However, those thoughts are further communicated to the child a bit later. Similarly, for the brand name of a business, the same pre-thought processes and systems are noted down which eventually follow the launch of the name and the company functions in resonance with its brand name happily ever after. E.g.- Take our brand name, Mesuka as an example, Mesuka can be identified as the initial 1-3 letters of the names of the founders encapsulated into one word. Hence, forming Me (Mehul)-Suka(Sukansh). But the true story behind it is that it's also a ripoff of the Japanese word, Masuka which means “masker”. Our idea of keeping this name was that when we take on new brands, we mask their existing identity and replace or beautify it with a new brand identity. That is the role of advertising, the products when made and manufactured, are simple. They are made to look glamorous through advertising. Now, this meaning is of course catered to the Bourgeoisies.
7. Brand Positioning: The mind share of your brand. Your brand positioning communicates the unique value that your brand brings to the table, wedged comfortably in the client's psyche, right between 'awesome' and 'can't live without it.’ This segment is a crucial one to count on because where and how you set your product is what defines the perception, reputation and legacy it will build and be associated with. Brands thrive on reputation. While a bad one can stunt your business’s growth, a good reputation will lead to an increase in customers and sales. Some important things to help set a good brand position, one should address the following questions: What does your brand bring to the table? How is it helping society get better? What does your brand stand for? (its social standings and contribution). How will it make the lives of your customers easier than it already is? Etc. Once these questions have clear, definitive, and conclusive answers, you have already set up a great brand image. A modern and highly successful way of reaching the mind share of your target audience is by utilizing Social Media. Social Media marketing is the king when it comes to maximizing mind share and brand visibility. Everyone has at least one social media app. This is the best and most crucial time to utilize Social media. Some brands have succeeded in positioning their brand the right way by solely utilizing the advantages of social media marketing. Once your business starts working and paces up, the next most important step is to make sure the after-sales services and client handling are completely on point. The customer should always be satisfied with the purchase of your service or product. It’s human psychology to sometimes analyze and overthink the purchases made, whether they were good investments or otherwise. It's natural but can turn out to be make-or-break situations for businesses. Therefore one additional thing to keep in mind is to underpromise and over-deliver.
8. Brand Identity: It's the visual representation of your brand persona that brings all the elements together into one cohesive experience. It needs to stay consistent, it should have an easy association with the brand itself and it should spark a sense of familiarity. This too, helps get into the mind share of your customers. Let’s play a game. I'll try to describe a few colour palettes of some big brands, and you can comment on the brand name down below, in the comments section. Answering these correctly would indicate that you’ve understood this point to its core.
* Red & White
* Yellow, White & Green
* Blue, Red & White
* Yellow & Red
9. Brand Marketing: This is the art and science of making your brand synonymous with a particular lifestyle or set of values. It goes beyond just a logo, a tagline, or a catchy jingle. It's about resonating with your audience, building brand equity, and ultimately, fostering long-lasting relationships. The best way to explain this point is by sighting 2 examples. NIKE and APPLE. Nike & Apple have succeeded more than anyone in building brand equity and fostering a long-lasting relationship with their customers and consumers. Let’s start with Nike, Nike has always, ever since their inception made ads around athletes and how they are always so dedicated and committed to their craft or sport. They track their journeys, their grit and determination and while expressing that, they highlight the uses and benefits of their apparel or shoes in the lives of those athletes. Another brilliant tactic they use is filming ads with some of the biggest names in several sports. They signed Michael Jordon when he was at his peak and now they together have created a legacy with “Jordans”. Cristiano Ronaldo For Football, Tiger Woods for golf, Rafael Nadal for tennis, etc. The list goes on. All these factors make the common man feel more inclined towards buying from the brand. It also hugely increases their credibility as a brand and makes them more appealing and likeable. This is Nike, leveraging emotions and icons to get a bigger pool of consumers. Now, let’s talk about Apple. I think Apple has had a completely different approach in stylising their brand. The credit for their marketing goes to Steve Jobs, the genius. The genesis of their public perception started with the famous line that Jobs used to launch the iPod, “I’ll give you 1000 songs right in your pocket”. Sounds cool, right? Hell yeah! I’d want a thousand songs in my pocket too! (back in the 2000s). Ever since, apple has always made using their products sound, seem and feel “cool”. Their whole campaign on Mac vs PC was also all about that. They overshadowed PCs by that campaign. All creatives shifted to using Macs and all the people who craved being “cool” did too. Then came the iPhone, the first smooth touch phone of its time. “Just tap your finger for anything you want.” Was the line used then to describe it. Yet another “wow factor”, ain’t it? For the time of course. So essentially this is how Apple has developed the kind of faithfulness it gets from its audience, same with Nike. They never advertise their products, they always advertise the feelings associated with using their products. That is what crafts a strong and faithful brand following. That’s what Brand marketing done right looks like! Cheers!
Some Examples of brands that were built on branding principles:
* Marlboro Friday: Phillip Morris, the inventor of cowboys, smoking, and smoking cowboys, was facing increased competition in the cigarette industry in the 1990s. When the company cut the prices of its heavily-branded cigarettes, investors pushed the panic button and drove the stock down 26% in a single day. Despite a decline in smoking rates, the Phillip Morris brand won back consumers at a lower price and re-established its dominance.
* New Coke: In a textbook illustration of what not to do, Coca-Cola found itself competing against its brand and lost badly. Coca-Cola was worried about upstart Pepsi eroding its domestic market share and decided to shift production to a new formula: New Coke. In doing so, they halted the production of the original Coca-Cola—an extremely profitable product they had been making for over a century. The backlash was so great New Coke was scuttled within months and Coca-Cola Classic re-entered the market.
* Apple: The 1990s saw computers getting faster, better, and, most importantly, cheaper. Microsoft was making billions by providing operating systems on all of these machines. Apple was making expensive machines and, as the company's struggles showed, nobody wanted expensive computers when cheap would do. In 1997, Steve Jobs returned to Apple with the novel idea of making even more expensive computers. The difference was Jobs redoubled Apple's branding efforts, culminating in the "PC vs. Mac" campaign. Apple still makes really expensive machines, but it has gotten a lot better at making people want them.
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