What is Brand Identity? - The Ultimate Guide for creating a strong Brand Identity.

Brand identity has become a crucial element for any business. To stand out from the competition, brand identity has become necessary for every business. Similar to how individuals possess distinct personalities, styles, and values, a brand too has unique characteristics that differentiate the brand from its competitors in the market. These features of brand identity facilitate deeper connections with consumers.

Brand identity makes your brand unique and memorable.

In this article we will discuss brand identity, providing insights on how to establish one, and presenting different techniques and suggestions to create a strong brand.

What is Brand Identity?

Brand identity is a collection of visual elements like color, design, logo, and typography that represent the brand.  In simple words, it is how a business wants to be viewed. Your brand identity makes you distinguish you from your competitors in the eyes of your customers. It creates a bond between your audience and your product or service and that determines how they perceive and relate to your brand, ultimately leading to customer loyalty.

According to a recent survey, 94% of consumers say they recommend brands they have an emotional connection with.

Creating a successful brand identity is not just about attracting attention, it should reflect the brand’s deeper values and aspirations. And it doesn’t happen automatically. It needs deep customer analysis, strategic planning, and how the customers are interacting with the brand.

How to Create a Strong Brand Identity?

Define your overall brand strategy

To establish a brand identity, the initial step is to identify your purpose & objectives and the unique value proposition of your brand. The brand's purpose is the reason behind everything you do.

Analyze your product and identify what sets you apart from the competition. Understanding the unique value proposition of your brand is essential to its success. Finally, create a clear mission statement that outlines your vision and objectives. This will help guide your decision-making and ensure that your brand stays on track.

Ask yourself the following questions to define your brand purpose and objectives,

Understand your target audience

Understanding your target audience is crucial for a successful brand identity. You have to gain a deep understanding of your ideal customers and their needs. By doing so, you will be better equipped to develop a product that resonates with them. You can conduct surveys and interviews to understand your target audience.

Ask the following questions to understand your audience,

Research your competition

Understanding your competitive landscape is crucial for creating a strong brand identity. To set your brand apart from your competitors, it's important to conduct thorough research of your primary competitors. This involves analyzing their mission statements, branding strategies, advertising campaigns, and product and service features.

You can use tools like SWOT analysis to analyze your competitors. SWOT analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) not only helps you to analyze your competitors but also to understand the current market trends and identify the market gaps that your brand can fill.

Create a unique visual identity for your brand

Your brand's visual identity consists of several components, including your logo, brand name, color palette, typography, imagery, and tagline. It's important to maintain consistency in these elements across all your marketing materials, from your website to your social media profiles.

Developing a unique and memorable visual identity can help distinguish your brand from competitors.

6 visual elements of brand identity

Brand name – Brand name is a unique, catchy term that helps to identify your business to the public and it is used to distinguish your company and its offerings from its competitors. A good brand name is simple, easy to pronounce, easy to remember, and conveys the brand’s purpose and character.

Traditional brand name fits brands that want to convey trustworthiness and seriousness. If you would like to go with invented names, it needs a lot of creativity. Combining two words can create a unique name that accurately represents your business. Compound names offer a great deal of creative freedom.

Logo – Logo is the visual trademark of your brand, it is the fundamental component of your brand identity. Your logo should be memorable, and adaptable and it should be as recognizable as the brand name.

Your logo should communicate your brand’s identity and values. Make sure your logo is visually appealing with a simple and clean design and ensure your logo aligns with your industry's standards. It's best to avoid too trendy designs and opt for a more classic look that will never go out of trend by the time. Ultimately, your logo should leave a lasting impression on your audience.

Related post: How to create an effective logo?

Graphics and images – Brands use images like illustrations or photographs to tell their brand’s stories. Graphics and images are important to establish a brand identity because each image can bring out different feelings.

It’s recommended to use authentic images of your products or services instead of stock images.

Color scheme – Color is one of the key branding elements and is used to establish a distinct brand identity. Consider what you want to convey to your target audience while choosing the color palette for your brand. Aim for harmony instead of competition.

You can also use color psychology to choose the color scheme for your brand. It's important to have an understanding of how different colors can express different emotions, as this can help you make decisions when selecting colors for your brand. For example, if your brand identity is loud and exciting, Red is the perfect choice for you. Yellow is the best choice for you if you want to make feel fun and accessible. Green can communicate freshness and nature. Blue can convey calm and relaxing emotions.

Changing the shade of a color can greatly impact the emotions it induces. For example, light blue can evoke a sense of calmness while a darker shade of blue can convey trust.

Tagline – After the brand name and logo, your tagline is a strong marketing tool. A tagline or theme line helps to identify the brand easily. It reflects the brand’s voice and concisely communicates the brand’s values to its target audience. Sometimes it’s also the brand’s promise to their customers.

It should be easy to say and match your brand’s personality.

Fonts and typography – Choose fonts that match the brand’s style and personality. The fonts you use in your logo, website, social media, and marketing materials can evoke different emotions. Make sure the chosen font should help to create a recognizable and memorable brand image.

It's recommended to use two typefaces to represent your brand and maintain their consistency across all your materials. Your headings font should be the largest and most expressive one, while the fonts used for subtitles and body text should be legible. You can use the same font as your heading but in a smaller size or a different style, such as bold or italic.

Don’t use overly intricate fonts that are hard to read. It is advisable to combine contrasting fonts such as a serif and a sans-serif.

Craft your tone of voice

Brand voice refers to the communication style and language used by a brand to convey its personality. It’s not just the words you choose and what you say but it’s how you convey the message.

The style of communication employed by a brand can shape how customers perceive it and ultimately determine whether or not they choose to engage with it. A consistent and well-defined voice can also build trust among consumers, leading to stronger customer relationships and greater brand loyalty.

You can utilize the four dimensions of tone of voice from the Nielsen Norman Group to choose your brand voice,

To craft your brand voice start with understanding your target audience. This means identifying whether they are seniors, millennials, children, men, women, local or global consumers. Choose and use the specific tone of voice from the above categories, which is suitable for your target audience.

Whichever of the tone you choose, make sure that it accurately reflects your brand.

Monitor and Adapt to Your Strategies

It is important to keep track of your brand's performance to know if everything goes right. This involves analyzing brand awareness, brand sentiment, customer response and engagement with your brand, sales, and revenue. You can use these metrics to understand whether the changes are needed or not.

To gain insight into how your brand is perceived by customers, you can use Google Analytics, conduct surveys, review customer feedback on your products, and check social media comments & discussions.

Creating a brand identity is not a one-time process, it is an ongoing process. Your brand must be able to adapt according to the market progress and audience preference change.

Wrap up

A strong brand identity is important for the success of a business. The process begins with understanding your target audience, followed by defining your brand’s core values and personality, selecting a business name, and designing your logo, tagline, typography, and other components. Identify what makes your brand apart from your competitors. Over time, these various elements will meet to create your brand's unique identity.

Remember your logo, colors, type, theme, and message should be consistent online and offline.