Our Branding Philosophy: How to Tell an Impactful Story
As marketers and communicators, there are few things more alluring than the idea of a rebrand. It can feel like an opportunity for a fresh start, to reconnect with your audience, and a chance to tell a story that’s never been told before.
Building an impactful brand or a rebrand strategy requires deep analysis, research, strategic planning and input, and of course, a healthy splash of creativity. Whether you are considering a massive overhaul of your current brand (like the infamous Jaguar rebrand), or a lighter refresh (more along the lines of Walmart’s recent CTRL+B mini make-over), you’ll want to carefully ensure not to alienate your core audience, come across as inauthentic, or perhaps worst of all, leave your audience wondering, “What was the point of that?”.
So, if you’re thinking about a rebrand or building a new brand for your business from scratch, we’re here to help ensure you are telling an impactful story that resonates with your audience.
First Thing’s First: Why a Rebrand?
Before digging into the meat of our branding philosophy and process, we need to understand why we’re here – what is your reason for a rebrand?
A rebrand can be driven by many different aspects of an evolving business. Perhaps you’re entering a new market as you roll out a new suite of products. Perhaps sales are dwindling as audience demographics shift. Perhaps there has been a significant change in leadership and a new vision for the company. Or maybe you’ve just noticed a lack of customer loyalty or brand engagement on your digital channels over time.
Whatever the reason, knowing and understanding your goals is a critical first step in this process in order to get it right.
From there, there are three key steps in our approach to building powerful brands at Vested.
Step 1: Develop a deep understanding of your target audience
Seems obvious, right? Yet time and again, we see brands taking massive leaps simply to stand out from a crowd of competitors that end up completely missing the mark with their audience. Our process always starts with an audience deep dive and persona mapping so that we are sure to understand the needs, wants, challenges, and aspirations of your audience. We’ll also want to dig into current brand perceptions – not only to understand where we’re starting from, but to map out how we potentially want that perception to evolve.
Once we’ve developed this thorough understanding of your target audience, it becomes the foundation for all that comes next. At each point in the process, we will continue to come back to this key question: does it address the pain points of your audience and improve their experience with your brand?
Step 2: Uncover your “why”
Our branding philosophy is rooted in Simon Sinek’s theory of “the Golden Circle” (and if you missed that Ted Talk, I highly recommend checking it out here). Sinek explains that most companies are really good at talking about “what” they do, and perhaps even “how” they do it, but they fail to truly articulate their “why” – their company’s true purpose or raison d’etre, if you will.
The important thing to remember about finding your “why” is that it needs to explain not just why you care – as company leaders or representatives at the helm of this rebrand – but why your audience should care that your company exists. Why should they choose to engage with your brand over others? Your “why” should inspire and strike an emotional chord with your audience, because ultimately, this is what drives engagement and brand loyalty above all else.
Step 3: Define your brand personality
Creating a compelling brand is really just telling a great story, right? And what’s a good story without its main character? If your company is the hero of this story, what would they be like? What do they look like, what do they wear, what do they sound like? Are they serious or playful? Traditional or rebellious?
Your brand personality can take on many shapes, but again, it needs to be a character that your audience will actually relate to in some way. Someone that they understand and want to listen to on this particular topic. What does your audience need from you to feel they are getting the experience they need from your brand: a friendly face or a more authoritative figure? Once we have our main character, the story can really unfold.
There is so much more behind the branding process, this is truly just the beginning. If you’re considering a rebrand or want to learn more about our process, feel free to reach out. Also, be sure to check out our branding case studies here on our website to see some of the exciting work we’ve done for our clients already.
