Branding, Brand Strategy and Visual Identity System: What’s the Difference?
Branding: it’s important. But, how do you know where to begin?
We've found that business owners sometimes struggle to distinguish the differences between branding, brand strategies, logos and visual identity systems. Although these elements are interconnected, they’re actually very different things. And all are invaluable pieces of the full picture.
Today, we want to explore what makes branding, brand strategies and visual identity systems what they are, why they’re all important and how they work in tandem to turn your business into a household name.
What is Branding?
You may know you need to work on your branding as an item on your checklist. But, what does branding really mean? What makes a brand, and what’s involved?
Many perceive branding simply as having a logo, product, vision statement, company voice or visual representation.
While each certainly has its place in the grand scheme of things, your brand is so much more. It’s the result of all of your efforts, products, people and services. Every pitch you make, email you send out, product you create and customer experience you provide – they all encompass your brand.
In other words, your brand is your reputation.
The elements listed above are merely snapshots of the full picture. Your brand is your customers’ perceived perceptions of all of these pieces together.
When assessing your brand’s reputation, ask yourself:
What feeling do we give people? What feeling do we want to give them?
What have we achieved?
How does this piece (your logo, marketing collateral, website, services, anything you do or offer) influence our reputation?
Your brand is created not only by your logo and visuals but by your people. Every department contributes to the overall brand of every company. Because every interaction a customer has – from sales to customer service to product experience to browsing your website – contributes to their overall picture of who you are.
Realistically, everyone will have a slightly different perspective on what this reputation is. Still, every business needs to keep its brand as consistent as possible. A clear and defined reputation is always better than a loose and mismatched one.
What is Brand Strategy?
Businesses often either mistake the term "brand strategy" as being the same thing as a marketing strategy, or they skip over a brand strategy altogether. It can be tempting to check off "build a brand" from your to-do list and jump straight to marketing strategies and growing revenue.
Don’t make this mistake.
How can you market your business if you don’t know how to build your brand reputation? What if you don’t even know what you want that reputation to be? Companies who develop some branding elements like a logo and visuals but proceed without a brand strategy are left with a great aesthetic with little substance.
A brand strategy answers the following questions:
What is our brand goal? (put another way, as we just learned: what do we want our reputation to be?)
How are we going to get there?
It’s a framework to build brand equity. Many of our clients have developed some pieces of their brand in the past – a logo and other visuals, a company vision statement – but may not truly understand how these pieces work together to help them achieve their brand goals. Developing a brand strategy is a valuable part of our branding packages. It’s a step we don’t let our clients skip. We want them to know how to use their branding tools with a purpose.
When building a brand strategy, we ask questions like:
What do you want people to think of or feel when they see you?
How can your business bring this feeling, thought and reputation alive through your brand?
What does your company do, stand for or seek to accomplish?
Who does your business serve?
How can you develop these brand messages?
These questions help us identify the best roadmap clients should take to reach their goals. Armed with a brand strategy, you understand who you are and how to communicate that to the world.
How Logos and Visual Identity Systems Impact Branding
To create a flourishing brand, you need every piece of the puzzle. A few pieces might help you get along for a time, but your reputation won’t be strong or consistent. There’s a grand harmony that sounds when every element is working together. Let’s look at how logos and visual identity systems impact branding.
The Logo
Your logo is a symbol. A small visual representation seeking to capture all your business has to offer in a moment. Logos are a valuable tool to build your reputation. Consider the Nike swoosh, McDonalds’ golden arches or the iconic Apple. Each of these logos can be drawn up with a few small brushstrokes, yet we instantly have a bombardment of thoughts, opinions, and emotions when we see them.
The Visual Identity System
A visual identity system takes the logo to a whole new level. Let’s use the Nalgene water bottle brand as an example to explore what a visual identity system looks like.
What visuals come to mind when you think of a Nalgene water bottle? Perhaps it’s mountains, hiking boots, camping, the great outdoors, certain shapes or aesthetics of nature. When you think of the Nalgene brand, you’re probably not picturing suits and ties, fancy calligraphy, or modern art. This is the power of a visual identity system.
A visual identity system brings the elements of your brand together in a visual way. We create these systems for our clients by identifying the following unique elements that best communicate their brand:
Colors
Themes
Patterns
Fonts
Physical settings
Any other visual aesthetic examples
Your logo and visual identity system work together to clearly communicate that business reputation. They cannot be successful alone or even outside of your other brand development and brand strategy work. They are dependent steps designed to grow your business in a steady and sustainable way.
Why Invest in a Visual Identity System?
We live in a visual world and the demand for photo and video content is higher than ever. Consumers today want to know who you are within a few seconds of scrolling through your Instagram feed or website. They want to feel your brand through these visuals. If your business is unfocused or your brand hard to interpret, they may move on.
Businesses today must constantly be pushing out visual content to keep up with public demand. Consider how many pictures it takes to operate a successful social media page, website, or any other time a business shows up using a photo, video, or other visual content.
We include a visual identity system in our branding package because it may be just as important as a company’s logo in the present day and in the future. Our clients deserve more than a logo and brand development. Like brand strategy, a visual identity system gives businesses a guide to follow when they produce visual content.
Branding vs. Marketing
Every business knows they need marketing to survive and grow their business. Many have entire departments dedicated to this pursuit. But marketing your business without branding is like deciding to enter a maze blindfolded after being offered a map and a guide. You may reach the end, but why waste so much time and energy wandering in the dark when there is a better way?
Branding fuels your marketing. The two are connected, but just like our pieces of branding can’t thrive alone, neither can branding and marketing thrive without the other. Branding defines your business and who you want to become. Marketing builds a plan to reach the right people with the right message.
Businesses who have done the branding work first can go farther than those who neglected their brand development and visual systems. Marketing is stronger and yields faster results when backed by branding. It has a foundation to build upon.
Memorable Branding Travels Beyond a Logo
We believe great branding goes beyond a logo. Your brand isn’t a tangible element you can simply point to. It’s the reputation you have, the gut reaction people feel when they think of or see you. What do you want that to be? And how do you get there?
These are the problems strong branding work solves.
Everything we’ve covered in this article today is based on the work we include in our branding package. We believe the key to consistency is identifying your true north and depending on a strong visual identity system to get you there.
We’d like to invite you to a 30-minute free consultation to assess where your marketing is today, determine whether we’re a good fit for each other, and to point you in the right direction. Whether that’s partnering with our team or taking actionable steps on your own, contact us today to get started.
