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Digital Strategy

The Importance of Brand Development

Brand Development is something that every business, be it an aspiring start-up or even an established corporate giant, should leverage in order to grow. Its the business equivalent of updating your portfolio and re-working your CV. 

Brand development should always be one of your main go-to-market strategies. Any form of advertising you produce should contribute to your brand promise and develop your reputation further. But what is brand development and, more importantly, why should you invest in it?

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The brand promise would be that person’s personality, the way they approach problems in life and how they act on a day to day basis. Branding design would be their sense of fashion. It would make sense for someone who is calm and thoughtful to be dressed smartly. Likewise, your branding design should reflect your brand promise

By focusing on brand development you are effectively giving your brand depth and thus, making it easier for clients to relate and remember you. Brand development can also empower your business to grow as well as:

  • Nurture customer loyalty
  • Confirm your credibility
  • Clearly deliver your message
  • Motivate the buyer to make a purchase
  • Emotionally connect prospects with your product

Why should you invest in brand development?

In the world of marketing, you need to make yourself heard, seen and remembered. By investing in brand development you are creating another means of associating yourself in people’s minds. 

Brand development can be so powerful that, in extremely successful cases, the brand name itself trumped the actual product. Take Jacuzzi, for instance, the brand became so powerful that the name became synonymous with hot tub, the actual product itself. The same can be applied to Coke and Aspirin. In some countries, people actually use the brand name Colgate to refer to toothpaste.

Brand development enables you to develop a rapport with your clientele. This helps to create a sense of trust. Not only that, but a strong brand commands a lot of respect which in turn can increase the worth of a company. Employees also respond positively to being part of the brand as it fosters a sense of belonging as they feel part of something bigger, especially when they realise that they are contributing to the greater good of the company. 

If you’re just starting out, then creating a brand for yourself is a must, if you haven’t already. If you already have a brand then brand development helps you to maintain and grow your brand further. We can help with both! 

Brands don’t usually respond well to ageing and its important that you prevent it from stagnating. Take McDonald’s for instance, as times changed their brand mascot had to be retired as Ronald McDonald stopped appealing to demographics. Seriously, very few people really like clowns.

Before getting into the how, it is worth considering whether to go with rebranding or brand development, brand development for established brands and how brand development works when dealing with b2b marketing.

Rebranding or Brand Development?

Rebranding is quite a significant undertaking and is not something which should be done lightly. There a number of reasons a company might consider investing in rebranding. These include international growth, new management, addressing a bad reputation or an outdated image.  

However, a rebranding strategy, which may have the best of intentions, might end up being completely counterproductive by alienating yourself from your pre-existing clientele. As a result, a rebranding campaign has to welcome new demographics while still being recognisable to previous demographics. Unless, of course, a completely new slate is necessary, in which case a brand would want to remove itself completely from its previous image.

As a general rule of thumb, brand development is the way to go unless the brand needs to go in a completely new direction.

I already have an established brand with a strong client base. I don’t need Brand Development.

Just because a brand is already established, that doesn’t mean it’s immortal. Older brands, some of which were even household names, are losing traction as newer and more innovate startup brands are taking over.

  • Kraft Heinz said this year that the value of its Oscar Mayer and Kraft brands — with products like Oscar Mayer hot dogs, Jell-O and Kraft Mac & Cheese — was worth $15 billion less than it had previously stated.
  • Coty, which purchased the Clairol and CoverGirl brands from Procter & Gamble 3 years ago, recently wrote down the value of those brands by $3 billion, following a previous write-down of $965 million.
  • Sales of Campbell’s namesake soups have fallen in 8 out of the past 10 fiscal years, per the Wall Street Journal.

The reason? Newer brands are keeping an ear to the ground and hearing the latest trends and developments in the industry. In this case, the current trends of the food industry are drifting more towards a health-conscious approach as most consumers are seeking plant-based meals. 

Most companies are afraid to step out of the “professional” comfort zone, even though the more time progresses, it is the edgier, more adventurous companies that are succeeding. Brand development keeps you up to date with trends is a must in the fast-paced world of today.

Brand Development and B2B Marketing

When dealing with B2B marketing, branding is much more focused as many clients stick to their preferred provider as they established trust over the years. Businesses tend to stick to their preferred brands because of its either too much effort to change or because of the trust that has developed in the product over the years of conducting business with the brand. In reality, this shows us that businesses (as well as people) do not choose a brand just because of hard facts and figures.

When dealing with B2B marketing, business needs to want a product more than a similar product. Ideally, you need to provide the best value for money, but realistically not everyone makes these sort of rational decisions. We make our decisions based on emotion. It’s like giving a speech, many people are swayed by the pathos (passion) of the speaker rather than the logos (the reasons the speaker presents).

In B2B marketing, when businesses partner with a brand they aren’t simply endorsing the product, they are also endorsing the brand promise and the values upheld by that brand. As a result, it isn’t just about providing better value for the product, but it’s more like forming an alliance. Both the brand and the business should share the same core values as this allows both of them to grow.

How Brand development works

Brand development begins with the consistency of presentation, it is the consistent image that becomes the identity. Your brand name is your seal of approval on your product’s quality and reliability.

Having a clear vision can help you to understand where you want your brand to go. Another way to develop your brand is by making an association between the brand and a car, or the brand and an animal.

You could even ask yourself what sort of music your brand would listen to, or its preferred holiday or what its career would be. These sort of techniques can help you start seeing your brand as a person. This is a crucial part of brand development.

The next step to brand development is to address your clients directly. 

While your brand should be unique, there are certain characteristics that are universally admired, such as reliability and efficiency. Focus on solving your client’s problems and creating a better product for them. Your actions speak louder than words in this case. Having a strong brand development campaign will quickly backfire if your product is defective.

Earlier we mentioned how people don’t necessarily choose a brand based just the price. Most of our decisions are driven by our emotions. Your brand development should work in tandem with brand design to elicit emotions in your consumers. The infamous “I’d like to buy the world a Coke” springs to mind. By creating a narrative for your brand you are simultaneously eliciting emotions in people as well as making yourself more memorable. 

Brand development can be quite a tough nut to crack. That’s why we’re here to help! At GrowthGurus we have created over 30 brands and are partners in 4. If there’s one thing that differentiates us from other agencies, it’s that we truly understand and care about our customers and their businesses. This is reflected through our perfect 5* customer ratings.

We follow a clear structure with definite deliverable at the end of each section to help define your brand promise and develop your brand into the best version of itself. Our system includes;

Branding done right is truly powerful. Consumers may make up their minds about the credibility of your business based on your branding alone. Your brand is your promise to your customers and should be resonated with positively by your target audience.

Find out how we can help your brand to reach new heights! Get in touch