When you hear the term branding, what’s the first thing that pops into your head? Color pallets? A range of sleek images and logo designs? A glitzy website?
This is not branding, it is designing. The visual language you develop is part of a branding project. And while visual language is essential, it’s a by-product of the branding process, not the branding itself.
So What is Branding?
We like to use the description by Branding Magazine:
“Branding is the perpetual process of identifying, creating, and managing the cumulative assets and actions that shape the perception of a brand in stakeholders’ minds.”
In other words, it’s finding your SUI GENERIS – what’s unique about you, what is this new thing you are bringing to the world. Sounds pretentious? Not really. You’re creating a new entity – a company – so why are you doing this? What’s your goal?
Why is Branding important?
- Because it tells your unique story, the story that you tell your customers, your partners, your echo system, yourself. The story that sets you apart from your competition, not because you are better but because you are unique: you have brought something new into this world. With over 6,000 active startups in Israel alone, trust us when we say that in order to get an investment and those first customers – you need a good story. For a company to be successful, it has to be memorable, and for a company to be outstanding, it has to have a unique story.
- Because the process of distilling your unique offering to your customer and weeding out everything that isn’t necessary/superfluous/your competitors offer, helps you focus your scarce R&D and business efforts on the right market and the right strategy. for a startup, the focus is everything and a branding process brings you this focus and helps the whole organization stay focused.
The Brand Frame
The brand frame is the deliverable at the end of the branding process, which brings out your story and ensures consistency across all company communications (something that doesn’t seem important now, but once you get your first SDR and first sales manager – it will be). Consistency means that no matter from what angle a customer begins their journey with you – they will always receive that same riveting message that cuts to the core of their world.
Creating a Brand Frame
Creating a brand frame can take time and emotional energy, and it also sounds expensive. But a startup can do for a lot less and a lot faster. It simply requires the understanding that you need it, and some resources; mainly the attention and time of the company leaders.
Stay tuned for next week- Part 2: What constitutes a brand frame