An Updated Approach for Branding in 2018

As a key decision maker and all around all-star at your company, you’re probably already aware of this on some level.

But to recap, here are the reasons why it’s more important than ever.

The barrier to entry for new businesses is basically non-existent.
Anyone with an internet connection can start a new business these days, which means the market is absolutely flooded with competition. The best way your company can fight it’s way to to the top of this pile is by creating an experience that people will love.

An early investment in brand is what separates category leaders from the also-rans.
With a powerful brand, you can establish your company as the industry leader from the get-go. Just ask Uber, Dollar Shave Club, and Casper to what they credit their massive success.

People’s relationships with brands have never been this deep.
Our ever-increasing reliance on (addiction to) technology gives brands way more opportunities to engage with their target consumers than were available just one decade ago. But that increased access doesn’t always work to the company’s advantage. In fact, unless every interaction a person has with your brand is consistently impactful and expertly managed through each touchpoint, you could lose all of that hard-earned brand equity with just one misstep. As if those stakes weren’t high enough, today’s consumers hold brands to way higher standards than the consumers of previous generations. Your grandma probably didn’t care whether the company who produced her laundry detergent voted for Bush or Dukakis, and it is unlikely that your dad chose his first car based on the brand’s deep commitment to sustainability. But in 2018, consumers are incredibly conscious of how the brand’s they champion fit into their larger worldview and life philosophy.

It can take a long ass time.
Traditional branding processes can take anywhere from six to eighteen months. But with pressure from investors and existing collateral you can’t stand to look at, you’ve gotta make moves fast. It’s difficult to justify a major investment when you won’t be able to leverage it in the foreseeable future.

Branding can be arbitrary and undefined, which leads to non actionable deliverables.
Because the concept of “branding” is so elusive, and because people discuss it in different, highly subjective terms, it can be difficult to know exactly what you’re signing up for, or what to expect at the end of the process.

The temptation to take on the project yourself.
Nobody wants to pay someone else to do something they’re capable of accomplishing themselves. But when it comes to crafting an entire brand experience from conception to launch (or to fixing major plumbing issues), we promise that you’re better off deferring to the experts. Cobbling an entire brand strategy, identity, and consumer touch points together piece by piece with the help of various freelance designers and copywriters isn’t going to result in a cohesive brand experience. And it’s definitely going to bring you more stress than it’s worth.

We listened to our prospective clients, and we heard their concerns loud and clear. Then, we set out on a mission:

To improve the efficiency, efficacy, and impact of the way brands are built.

Here’s how we help brands make love:

We move fast.
Our process takes just 4 weeks to complete, start to finish. We’ve broken it into four 1-week sprints, so we never lose our momentum in between major milestones.

We design all of the brand touchpoints to create a cohesive consumer experience.
We work with your key stakeholders to identify and design essential deliverables that your new brand needs for a successful launch, and we create those first. Moving forward, we design each touchpoint according to the guidelines we have established for voice, tone, and visual identity to create a cohesive brand experience that extends to every piece of branded collateral, including an entire database of stunning product and lifestyle photography that we shoot for you over two full days. We’re not going to load you up with a bunch of FPO or spec work; we actually build pieces that you can begin distributing on behalf of the brand immediately.

We make it easy to leverage and manage your brand.
In addition to a beautiful, narrative-based Brand Bible, we also set up an online Brand Dashboard that any member of your team can access instantaneously, no matter where they are in the world. Providing easy access to these rules, usage guidelines, and assets ensures that every deliverable is leveraged to its full potential, and that any of your current or future employees can confidently act as a brand manager.

To put our money where our mouth is, here’s an outline of our 4-week process:

Objectives:
-Achieve alignment between our respective teams.
-Establish strategic imperatives.
-Identify value propositions
-Locate differentiation opportunities.
-Categorical positioning.

Deliverables:
Brand Attributes & Positioning Statements — Unearth and articulate the six key elements that guide and define the brand.

Buyer Personas — Understand your customers’ goals & the role the brand plays in their lives.

Competitive Landscape — Observe what the other guys are doing, and take advantage of opportunities for differentiation.

Moodboards — Explore three distinct, concept-driven visual directions for the brand.

Touchpoint Roadmapping — Prioritize the creation of your most essential branded collateral.

Objectives:
-Establish core messaging, along with guidelines for voice and tone.
-Create brandmark and wordmark to establish the foundation of the visual identity.

Deliverables:
Messaging Suite — Expertly articulate your message, whether you’re speaking to team members or your customers.

Brandmark & Wordmark — Represent the very essence of your brand at every scale, across every medium.

Objectives:
-Design a cohesive experience that extends to every piece of branded collateral.

Deliverables:
Visual Identity Exploration — Explore two concept-driven visual directions before moving forward with a singular style.

Product Photography — Earn the trust of your customers with a database of stunning imagery.

Lifestyle Photography — Showcase your product in use by real people to illustrate its role in their lives.

Consumer Touchpoints — Craft each piece of collateral for a cohesive brand experience.

Objectives:
-Create the guidelines and resources for managing the brand.

Deliverables:
Brand Bible — Document the brand’s story in an engaging narrative format.

Brand Dashboard — Ensure brand consistency is maintained by all current and future representatives with usage guidelines and brand assets that instantly accessible from your dashboard.

This is an exciting time for brands to be able to connect with their fans, users, and customers on a deeper level, and we’re excited to help facilitate those connections.

To talk more, give Chapin Herman a call at 310–365–0209, or shoot us an email at hello@herman-scheer.com.

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