Making brands more distinctive

Communication is about individuals not mass markets

Keep the individual at the centre of your thinking. By doing this, no matter how well researched, segmented and ABC’d your target markets are, you’ll always communicate with them in the way they want – as individuals. This thinking will make your brand communications much more powerful.

The only thing that can’t be copied is your brand’s personality

Products, processes and prices can all be copied, poached or nicked. The one thing that can’t be taken away is your brand’s personality. So, make sure it, and more importantly how it’s projected, is unique, differentiated and compelling.

Communication not information

Too much information can drown a potentially gorgeous brand. Whether you’re talking about advertising, design, on or offline – make the audience love you for your personality first. Data, information, options and inside leg measurements should all come second.

Reduce risk by taking a little more

The tried and tested route may well keep you and your boss in a safe comfort zone, but any effective marketer should strive to ensure that their brand is head and shoulders above the competition. By being bold and dynamic in your thinking, it’s possible to actually reduce the risk of your advertising and design becoming mere wallpaper or landfill fodder.

Don’t beat the competition, lead them.

By all means benchmark your activity against your competitors but don’t simply mirror what they do. In fact, do all the things that they don’t so that you can ‘own’ certain activities. If your competitors use press advertising, then consider online, radio or outdoor as a means of achieving cut-through. If your competitors focus on price, then consider focusing on service.

Be one thing to many, not many things to no-one.

Make sure your brand has a strong personality and be known for excellence at one thing. It’s vital that you consistently communicate it as you will be perceived as more coherent and constant. Don’t worry about filling in all the gaps as your audiences and customers are intelligent people. Really, they are.

The brief should be the desired outcome, not the creative solution

Always question and ask ‘why?’ If the brief says ‘we need a brochure, an ad campaign or an event’ then challenge it! In turn, this should lead to an answer along the lines of “to sell more x, y, z” or “to increase market share by X%” and that’s what should inform the actual brief.

Brand guidelines are a framework for creativity, not a set of boundaries.

Ticking the brand box and making sure that guidelines are complied with is very important to ensure consistency. However, don’t forget that that is only the starting point and usually only applies to design elements of communication materials. Don’t forget that competitive communications rely on big ideas that are brilliantly executed in-line with the specified guidelines. Working to guidelines may well be efficient but it is not in itself effective communication.

Joe