Is your brand building trust in the age of uncertainty?
Remember when we used to be able to plan events and book holidays? We’ve had a wedding postponed twice in as many years, now we’ve just said – let’s wait, there is no point in planning anything until we know what is happening in this world.
With uncertainty at the centre of everything, building trust is the most critical part of your brand strategy.
Branding has changed so much over the last 5 years. More than logos and typefaces - brands need to engage, build trust and go further.
Despite being in on and off lockdowns, clients and customers are very busy and time poor. They don’t have the time or the energy for brands that are ambivalent or confused.
One question I often receive from my clients is how to create brand consistency without becoming a snoozefest?
Here are four ways to help you identify your brand values to enable your to create a brand language that builds trust without the same samey.
01. Brand Values — knowing who you are.
Brand values are keywords that describe the feel of a brand, what you stand for and who you are as an organisation. They help you stand out from the competition and identify what is unique about your customer experience. Most of all, they help you to define context (the key to all creativity) and help you define a unique story that can be referred back to in every brand touchpoint.
Don’t know what your brand values are? Don’t worry, these questions will help you uncover yours:
Imagine your brand is a person.
What is their personality, who are their friends, what do they smell like?
What are their gender markers?
Do they care about the environment?
Where do they go for lunch, what car do they drive or do they take the bus?
Do they go to the gym or prefer yoga?
Are they young and energetic or mature and wise?
These simple questions are a great way of finding unique insights, that you can use to write your brand values, synthesising them into a simple, powerful and meaningful brand story.
By defining and establishing your brand values helps you:
Make decisions that align with your brand’s mission
Boost employee engagement
Make your brand memorable
Build a deeper connection with your audience
Keep your brand stay authentic
Boost brand consistency
Inspire brand loyalty
02. Don’t follow trends — make fetch happen
You always know the brands that are lost without brand values, they often are the ones who derive their brand story from the latest trends. Avoid this at all costs.
Browns and nude colour tones might by trending on Canva right now but data tells that 68% of consumers are less likely to respond to this colour trend.
Individuality is what makes your brand story stand out. As soon as something becomes a trend, everyone else is doing it and you no longer have a voice.
Make fetch happen and do your own thing. Ensure your brand values have a rich context to enable you to use them effectively.
Avoid empty words such as innovation or game-changer if you’re not investing in R&D and willing to take risks.
Instead use visual words such as adaptive and transformative that evoke emotion and results.
03. Take a look at yourself
Check your company is expressing its brand values is by auditing your brand identity.
Look at every touchpoint for the brand – from colour, imagery, typography, layout, sound to animation and much more. Literally, review the whole thing.
Then ask yourself, does it all work together as a brand system? Do they all align with your brand values? If not, how could you make them more cohesive?
04. Express Yourself
Design is a business tool, not art. It’s either helping you make money or it’s not.
Now you have honed your brand values and updated your strategy you need to express them verbally across different brand touchpoints. My favourite part of the branding process is developing and evolving the Brand Language. More than catchy copywriting developing your brand language is your tone of voice and messaging.
What are you saying? How you are expressing your key messages. What is the character of your voice, how does it sound and the personality that is coming across?
List all the touchpoints you communicate in – from social media, emails to terms and conditions on your website.
Compare the messaging and tone of voice. Does the message reflect what you stand for as a brand? Does the tone of voice express your brand personality?