When we think of brands we tend to think of the biggies - Coke, Microsoft, McDonald’s and Google, just to name a few. These powerful and influential brands are a maelstrom of authority in the market and own titanic personalities that are closely cared for and nurtured by a team of experts. We all recognise them, we all know what they do and we all know what they sell.
Regardless of whether it commands the same worldwide media coverage or not, you too have a brand. It is the face of your business. It is what your audience first sees. It is how you want them to perceive you and it is your outward facing personality. So bearing in mind its absolute necessity; ask yourself – is your brand working as well as it could?

THE VALUE OF A BRAND
“Your brand is what sets your proposition apart from those of your competitors,” explains Pixel8’s joint Managing Director, Jamie Watson. “It is the non-tangible part of your offer – the extra promise and credibility that your product or service can be expected to deliver – the ‘reasons to believe’. For example, if Innocent introduced a new range of pasta dishes, I would instantly trust those products on the basis of my perception of that brand.” Pixel8 Ltd. is a branding agency whose largest European clients include InterContinental Hotels Group and are currently engaged in brand development work with both Hotel Indigo and Crowne Plaza. Its client list also boasts Manchester United Football Club, who has been a Pixel8 client for ten years.

“Companies can charge a premium for a branded product because it has an association to its target audience that the unbranded equivalent doesn’t,” says Watson.“Although they may be very similar physically, branding increases the emotional appeal of a product or service to a particular group of customers.” There are common pitfalls that see companies struggling with their brands. Often what they want their brand to be is often nowhere near how the customer perceives it. To make your brand work you need to know it, and know how it is viewed by your target audience; and in turn this means you need to know who you are targeting – inside and out.

PERCEPTION IS KEY
“Maintaining your brand is one of the hardest things out there because the consumer changes and is so fickle,” says CEO of 1HQ, Mark Artus. “Your brand has to be phenomenally strong, it has to be differentiated and it certainly has to have a point of view and have value to it. There are many companies out there where the brand is perceived to be something different than the internal perspective of it.”

Artus has over twenty years experience in growing brands and has won many awards, including Design of the Decade for his work with Chrysler.
“From a basic perspective you need to know who you are,” Artus says, “and you need to know where you’re going. Once you’ve got that information you can concentrate on what needs to happen and how you can achieve that. If you stick to these ten basic principals then it’s a good structure to work with.”

• Your brand is more than a logo
• Find the best way to communicate
• Know your customer
• Do what you say
• Take a distinctive stance
• Stay close to your customer
• The personality of what you’re doing is important
• Don’t abandon your family principals
• Getting your customer to trust in your brand
• Focus is essential

GROWING INTO THE FUTURE
Like consumers, the ways in which a brand can reach its audience is changing all the time. Recent developments have seen the emergence of social media, which can be used as a platform to reach audiences. This, however, is greatly regarded as having a downside as well as the benefits of reaching a large number of your targeted consumer at once.

Stuart Whitwell, joint Managing Director of Intangible Business, a company that focuses on developing intangible assets, says social media is “an important channel, not just for communication but for sales. But it’s also dangerous. If something bad is said about your brand - that may or may not be true - and it goes viral, then it can be very bad indeed.

“There’s the good and the bad that goes with it [social media]. The good is that you’re attracting a large audience, but with that you have to be careful as people don’t want to be bombarded when they use some like Facebook.”
The importance of developing your brand in the right ways and avoiding the pitfalls and overexposure - in terms of not harassing your audiences through social networks - are a vital part of caring for and growing your brand the way you would a child.

Mark Artus expresses the need to care for your brand perfectly by concluding: “A brand is a living thing. It’s not just a logo; it’s what that business stands for. They have a tone of voice and they have a personality. It’s important to make sure the personality of the brand doesn’t stray too far from its origins, making sure that the way it communicates is managed properly.”