Brand identity—we all have a basic idea of what it is, and which companies and products have an identity that works. In this three-part blog series we’ll define what brand identity is, discuss how to determine your own brand identity distinction, and perhaps most importantly—how to promote it.
Let’s begin with a basic premise: every company needs to define their value proposition. Your value proposition explains your raison d’être, and lets people know why they need to hire you, buy your products, or use your services. Remember, though, it’s not just your reason for being that’s important, but how you are an important element in the success of your clients and customers. According to Joe Marconi, author of The Brand Marketing Book, “Ultimately, successful brand building involves identifying with the customer’s desires and giving what he or she wants as to value (price and quality) plus the characteristics of image being sought, aspired to, or accepted.”
So in a word, brand identity is the VALUE to the consumer, customer, or client. It’s your significant point, your offering, and your integral benefit to someone else. Simply, it’s how your business helps someone else’s business, life, garden, health, wellbeing, focus, bottom line, reputation…whatever your product or service intends. That’s why it’s so important to consider your brand identity, or your core value, as your pivotal point from which to create your Web site, design your logo, create your advertising campaigns, and deliver your products and services. It’s how you communicate to your audience that your business, expertise, focus, delivery, and so forth are their best option.
Consider Coca-Cola®—there’s hardly a person in this universe that doesn’t know that name, and equate it with the bubbly, caramel-colored “must-have” pop that revolutionized the soft drink industry. The popularity of Coke virtually spawned a cultural movement of soda drinkers that’s continued for over a century. Coca-Cola’s brand identity, in fact, has evolved to the brand pinnacle it enjoys today: a world-recognized name for the product and the company itself, as well as a representative icon for the values it touts—real, refreshing, American, cool, hip, “the wave,” and “it.” In short, Coca-Cola has wildly succeeded in its brand identity because it has positively met both its consumers’ desires (why I think I want it—it quenches my thirst and tastes good) and image needs (what it means to me—by drinking Coke I am cool, etc.).
So we see that brand identity is a successful mixture of human interest, psychology, financial analysis, value proposition, and pleasing presentation. In our next article, we’ll share with you a few tips on how to begin identifying and researching your own unique branding.
