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Hey everyone! This week, we’re kicking off the first installment of a five-part BrandSight series! Over the next few weeks, we’ll be discussing some simple steps your brand can take to make huge leaps of improvement.
Know yourself as others know you
You know that guy, that friend of a friend, who shows up to every holiday party or backyard barbecue whether he’s invited or not? You know, that one? He’s the life of the party, tells the most sidesplitting jokes and is a total charmer to boot.
Or at least, in his mind he is.
His perception of himself couldn’t be any less in line with that of pretty much everyone he comes in contact with, and his interactions with others likely suffers as a result.
The same goes for your brand. You know it as well as anyone, but does everyone else know it in the same way? Are the messages you’re sending communicating exactly what you want them to? How will the audience you’re trying to reach receive them? Knowing as much about your market is crucial for such an endeavor. Examining quality research on your audience means that you can have a better, more objective view of your own brand.
Be consistent, but flexible
As a human being who is reading this article right now and thus uses the internet, we’re going to assume you’ve been to Google a time or two in your life. Have you noticed how their logo, so iconic that it creates a social media firestorm when it gets updated, doesn’t always appear on their homepage? On special occasions, holidays, or important historical dates, the media and tech giant will replace its signature design on its homepage with an illustration, animation, or other image that still displays the company name, but in a playful and topical way.
In the world of branding, such optical foolery could be considered heresy. Your logo should be the personality of your brand, visualized, and some would say it should never be tampered with, regardless of the circumstance. This, however, is counterintuitive to how Google likes to portray itself aesthetically; fun, relevant and visually appealing. And really, what’s more fun than replacing your logo with a fully-functioning game of Pacman, like they did in 2010 to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the legendary game.
On the other side of things, Chevrolet caught some heat when they released a memo stating that their brand is only to be referred to as Chevrolet, and not its endearing pet-name given by longtime enthusiasts of its products, Chevy. It was an internal memo intended solely for employees within the company, and was never intended to be an edict to its millions of customers who often use the less formal designation. It was still seen as a misstep by some, however. If you have customers loyal enough to give your brand a nickname that is known almost universally, why not embrace it and engage them with it?
It’s important to stay the course, but also to recognize the situations in which you can have some fun with your brand.
Stay tuned for next week’s edition, when more branding knowledge will be dropped!
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