SME’s – they’re the lifeblood of the UK’s business scene. With over 5.7 million registered as of late 2018, it’s not surprising that 30% of businesses fail during their first two years. Five years down the line, this figure jumps to 50%.

With this in mind, how can you ensure your business stays strong, powerful and above the competition? Brand.

1. BRANDING IMPROVES RECOGNITION

How many logos do you come across during a day? Chances are, the number is pretty high. Even if you were to look around right now, you’ll likely spot a good few logos just on your first glance. If you want to attract attention, a memorable and well-designed logo is the best place to start.

However, a great brand goes far beyond a memorable logo. We all know that logos are important; they need to be instantly recognisable, convey your brand’s identity, and stand out across your entire marketing mix. Going “beyond” and making your brand truly recognisable is weaving these factors through absolutely everything you do, because if you want your brand to be recognisable, it must first be consistent.

Think: if your brand were a person, who would they be? What would they wear? How would they talk? What are their beliefs, goals and dreams? Before considering how your brand is going to be represented, you’ll need a clear set of guidelines describing your brand’s identity and personality, and exactly how you’re going to express this.

2. BRANDING GENERATES NEW LEADS

It’s hard to sell to people if they don’t know you exist in the first place. First impressions matter, and your brand is the first thing a potential customer will use to deduce if they want, need or trust your business. Your business might tick all their boxes, but does your brand tell them that?

Having a solid brand strategy will push you closer to new business, helping to bring in relevant leads who are ready to convert into customers. Brand awareness through channels such as social media and search engines could help customers to not only find you in the first place, but also understand that your brand is providing something they want.

Not only can branding make or break your success at the top of the marketing funnel, but branding can also influence customer loyalty and encourage repeat customers. If your brand becomes a familiar face for previous customers, consistency with your message, ethos and customer experience can help them choose you time and time again.

As well as making your brand consistent and recognisable, you also need to consider how it’s going to grab attention from potential customers. Your brand needs to be heard above the noise, but that doesn’t necessarily mean shouting louder. You just need to say something different.

3. BRANDING INSPIRES EMPLOYEES

Don’t be shallow – your brand’s true beauty comes from within. It’s essential that your brand has substance and incorporates a business mission.

Your business mission refers to your business’s purpose, ethos and values, and shouts out loud about how and why your company is different. When employees understand this and feel that they can relate to your mission, they are likely to feel the same pride and work in the same direction to achieve your business goals.

This can impact productivity and customer satisfaction. According to Korn Ferry’s Executive Survey, 70% of business executives say embracing the company mission boosts employee productivity to a great extent.’

Not only will a strong brand mission give prospective candidates a clear view of who you are as a business, but you’ll also show potential clients what your business stands for and influence their decision to use your products or services.

EDGE CREATIVE

EDGE Creative have extensive experience in brand building and storytelling for SME’s across a huge range of industries, including financial planning provider Ernest Grant, accessibility solutions provider Able Access UK, and fresh food supplier Tasty Chicken. One client we’re particularly proud of is Rudds Wellies, which came to us as a brand-new start-up business in 2016.

Having a strong brand has been vital to their success. We were tasked with creating the brand from scratch, incorporating the right look and feel to project the brand values and appeal to both consumers and funders.

Rachel Rudd, who is the founder of Rudds Wellies, said that after researching and developing their product for “nearly 2 years” before it came to market, they were “very nervous about finding a creative agency” that could take care of their product and “brand it effectively”.

“I need not have worried,” said Rachel. “EDGE Creative have an amazing ability to understand what you need and create amazing imagery and content. They have been with me every step of the way, from logo and packaging design to holding my hand during presentations.”

Even when you’re not sure what you need, EDGE offer amazing expertise and options to give your business a brand it deserves.”

Find out more about how EDGE Creative can support you and your brand by calling 0121 355 8092 or emailing info@edge-creative.com.

References:

• https://www.inc.com/adam-vaccaro/purpose-employee-engagement.html
• https://www.kornferry.com/press/korn-ferry-executive-survey-where-theres-purpose-theres-profit
• https://www.fundera.com/blog/what-percentage-of-small-businesses-fail
• https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/SN06152/SN06152.pdf

WHAT IS BRAND AWARENESS?

The likelihood that consumers recognise the existence and availability of a company’s product or service. Creating brand awareness is one of the key steps in promoting a business.

A brand should be a conduit for the relationship between the organisation it symbolises and the customers it serves, to develop; without this relationship, a brand will always fail.

Brand awareness is extremely important for the simple fact that if the customer doesn’t know about it, they’re not going to purchase it.

The less a product differentiates from its competition in a physical or functional sense, the more important it is that the brand values express emotive and intangible cues.
Therefore, a product that maintains the highest brand awareness of a superior offering will usually win the “battle of the sales”.

For Example…

In the energy beverage industry, very little separates one energy drink from the other in terms of their taste or perceived energy benefits.

When we very naively assess the energy drinks market, what brand do you think of? Try it out in the office and see what’s most popular.

The iconic red and blue coloured can and the fierce red bulls at the locker-heads usually comes out on top. Your colleagues may even divulge deeper connotations of excitement, adrenaline or extreme sports?

If we think about it, the term Brand Awareness is pretty self-explanatory, but the means of customers becoming “brand-aware” is not so easy to achieve, especially as brands and society become more merged than ever before.

A very interesting article from Nicola Kemp at Marketing Magazine, on the six marketing lessons from Red Bull Stratos, discusses values all brands should seek to enforce to help build relationships.

 

Now, we don’t all have a multi-million pound marketing budget like Red Bull, and we sure-as hell don’t have a space shuttle, and if you do – touche, but the principles can most definitely be applied to any brand:

Develop a sense of purpose – It must be made clear to your customers what your brand offers

Do more than grow your bottom line – See everything you do as an investment in your brand, not just for now, but for the future

Think bigger than ROI – Remember the intangible benefits of your brand. Winning the hearts and minds of your customers will allow your business model to work a lot harder for you

Embrace creative marketing – Do something different and make a stand to break through the noise

Behaviour vs Brand Value – In the modern world of marketing, consumers seek a social etiquette more and more from brands; a way the brand can add value to their lives.
Consumers are researching, discussing and sharing more online than ever before; mobile-browsing to tweeting, blogging to vlogging, face-timing to snap-chatting.
It’s no longer a case of “build it and they will come”; consumers have become more sophisticated and now ask, “Why should I?”

Commit – If you don’t invest in your products and services, how do you expect your customers to?

With the rise of the digital age, the marketing spectrum is becoming more and more diverse, whether it’s crowdfunding, social media, mobile apps or viral videos, there are numerous ways to express your brand messages.
It’s important to consider these 6 underlying principles and strategise how your brand will communicate, more importantly, how you will make your customers aware of your messages.

“Not every brand has the inclination or budget to invest in something bigger than itself, but the best marketers should at least have the ambition to try.”  – Nicola Kemp

 

This is an important question and one that should not be taken lightly.

Your brand is the essence of your business and a core communication vehicle for all your marketing messages. It should remain 100% consistent and be consistently used at every point of contact with your target audience.

‘Branding’ isn’t just a pretty symbol or a company name with fancy design; it’s far more than that. Some of the best brands are simple and placid.

It’s about building perceptions of your company that become embedded in your brand which, over a long-term strategy, build brand equity and improves your bottom line.

Read about the evolution of brand in the these modern cases: Pepsi, Volkswagen, Nike, Canon and Apple

”My business is too small to worry about a brand”

Wrong.
No business is ever too small, or too big for that matter. Think of branding as reputation. How will your business grow if customers don’t recognise you or have never heard of you?

A brand is a critical identification tool that presents information for your target audience to assimilate and, hopefully, recommend. Now without it, you’re just a person doing a job. If you want to grow, you should seek to be a person who represents a brand and all the hard work you devote to that job not only earns you revenue but is simultaneously developing your intangible assets; your brand.

‘Brands reside in the minds of consumers’
 

Perhaps your business is in a “comfortable” position? Do not rest on your laurels. Think. Will the company be “comfortable” in 10, 5, even a years time?

Any major change occurring now, or that may occur in the future, within your business’ environment must become explicit to your target audience in marketing messages. Otherwise the core communication channel of your business, the brand, will start to, one for a better word, go out of fashion.

Perhaps the business environment has changed and your company requires a different proposition?

Maybe there is greater impetus on service/product innovation – how will you communicate your methods in servicing this market?

Even the “big guys” get this wrong – Read the Microsoft vs Apple Case Study

Evaluate your brand

Here are 5 Important factors that raise questions about how “in-trend” your brand is:

• Market differentiation – How does your brand/company differ against competitors? Does it at all?
• Brand awareness – How well is your brand understood?
• Associations and emotional attachments  – What is understood about your brand?
• Consumer personality ­– Does your brand and marketing communications reflect your target audience accurately?
• Improve relationship customer base – Can a tighter bond be created between consumer and brand? If so, why has this not been achieved?

Founded in 1964, Nike began its life as Blue Ribbon Sports and was originally a distributor of Onitsuka Tiger, a Japanese brand of trainers. In 1971, Blue Ribbon Sports ended its relationship with Onitsuka Tiger and went on to produce Nike, their athletic shoe. The 1971 logo used for the shoe was designed for just $35 and built the basis for a brand logo that would be globally recognised and remain relatively unchanged.

Named after the Greek goddess of victory, the success of the ‘Nike’ resulted in Blue Ribbon Sports renaming itself Nike in 1978. To enhance the name of this new brand, the text was pulled out of the logo to sit clearly on top of the Nike tick in a bolder typeface, perhaps a nod to the accomplishments of the brand to that point.

In 1985, the red box was introduced, making a visual statement in a market that was becoming increasingly competitive with rival brands. Through its consequent success and gaining recognition and reputation as a leading brand, the company name was dropped from the logo and the red colour was adopted, making it more simplistic and memorable and lending itself to use across all product ranges accordingly.

Coming tomorrow….. Brand Evolution – Volkswagen

If you missed yesterday’s Blog for Brand Evolution – Pepsi, click here!

In this article, we’ll talk about Pepsi’s brand evolution and how it’s branding developed from 1898 to it’s most recent change in 2023:

• Early Pepsi branding
• Pepsi's logo evolution
• Digital age branding
• Pepsi's 125th anniversary
• Branding support from EDGE

THE EARLY DAYS OF THE PEPSI BRAND

Founded by Caleb Bradham in the 1890s, Pepsi is now one of the biggest soft drink companies in the world.  Originally named Brad’s drink, the name quickly changed to Pepsi-Cola, visible in the first logo in 1898, striking a distinct resemblance to Coca-Cola’s 1885 logo.

After originally being named Brad’s drink, the name quickly changed to Pepsi-Cola, so that they could market the product as a ‘healthy’ drink that featured the pepsin enzyme, which helps with digestion.

The new name was visible in the first logo in 1898, striking a distinct resemblance to Coca-Cola’s 1885 logo. It was one of several custom-designed logos by Bradham as Pepsi’s reputation continued to grow.

In 1933, Pepsi was bought by Loft Inc., leading to bottle sizes changing from 6oz to 12oz along with the addition of the tagline – Refreshing and Healthful.

However, the breakthrough into how we see the Pepsi logo today came about through the CEO of Pepsi in the 1940s, Walter Mack.

A new bottle design brought the idea of the crown featuring the logo. The ‘Pepsi globe’ we know today was instilled through Pepsi’s support of the US in their efforts in WWII. The patriotic sense of red, white and blue became hugely popular, and pride in this connotation developed into the 1950/1962 logos.

THE LOGO EVOLUTION OF PEPSI

In 1962, the typeface changed to a bolder font while keeping the prominence of the bottle cap design.

The Pepsi brand started to experience a style shift, keeping the font simple, it went from a straightforward Sans Serif to a more futuristic font with rounded edges, whilst the logotype changed colours from the harsh black to match the blue energy of the lower wave. 

Between 1973 and 2003, the logo adopted an almost flag-like design, developing through the decades in similar formats but contrasting design styles, perhaps due to changes in techniques and technological advances.

By the early 00s, Pepsi had removed all text and banners, solely concentrating on the updated bottle cap icon, also known as the globe. It is internationally recognised as a leading global brand and is synonymous with the values that form the foundation of the business.

 

BRANDING FOR THE DIGITAL AGE

In 2008, the Pepsi logo needed a refresh to meet the demands of the digital age. Designed by the Arnell Group, the logo was flattened and simplified.

A new font was created by Gerard Huerta with the ‘e’ reflecting the iconic Pepsi wave, and the iconic globe lost its established symmetrical waves in favour of a new, edgier look.

The changes weren’t as popular as expected, with some labelling it cheap and lazy. However, Pepsi stuck with the new look, feeling that the logo embodied the fun, energetic brand of youth.

A tweak shifted the logo to one with no outline around the globe. The overall branding was ideal for modern platforms and packaging. Easy to read and represented Pepsi’s brand elements.

It was accompanied by a lowercase sans-serif font, which helped it take on a fresher and more relevant look, designed to target younger generations, which has been something Pepsi has always tried to focus on.

A FRESH LOOK FOR PEPSI’S 125^TH ANNIVERSARY

At the end of March, Pepsi announced the first update to its branding in 14 years.

The design is a throwback to the brand’s 1987-1997 logo, which also featured the Pepsi brand name in a bold typeface cradled within its iconic red and blue circle.

Pepsi says it has been specifically designed to introduce more movement and animation, allowing it to stand out and appeal more in an increasingly digital world.

Soft drink companies have been increasingly focusing on their zero-sugar offering and the brand refresh with a new colour palette that includes the colour black. This has taken aspects of the branding for its Pepsi Max range to highlight its continued focus on zero-sugar products.

Their new visual identity will be rolled out in North America in autumn, coinciding with the brand’s 125th anniversary, before being rolled out globally in 2024.

LEARN ABOUT THE EVOLUTION OF GLOBAL BRANDS

At EDGE Creative, we focus on helping businesses and organisations enhance their brand and create an identity that connects with their audience.

Part of this involves us keeping up to date with the latest developments in the world of branding, including popular trends and branding updates from household names, including how brands use logos, colours, typography and more to enhance their identity.

Read what our experts learnt about the brand evolution of other household names such as Canon, Nike and Volkswagen.

You can also book a free consultation with the team at our creative agency in Sutton Coldfield and learn how we can help take your brand identity to the next level.