The Art of Branding

Your business card does the heavy lifting in brand building. It is often the first thing people are presented with (often the only thing). It is the one thing most people are likely to hold on to.

Your business card has your name, job identity and company identity all in a small, compact format. A business card should create excitement for your brand too, not just identify.  It should presell you and your company. To do that you must convey the company’s brand personality through its design, shape, type font, logo, graphics and verbal messages such as the company slogan or battle cry.

If you work for a company, your business card, no doubt, is corporate-issue.  You might want to create your own business card for personal use that sets the right image and tone.If you’re an entrepreneur and people don’t tell you that you have a great business card, go back to your designer.

This is not an area to skimp on by selecting a template from an office business store. It will look like a template design. It will be worth hiring a graphic designer to help you design a corporate identity for your business.  On the front of the card, have a graphic design and message that grabs attention and gets a response.  Use the back of the business card to carry your mantra or company catch phrase.  (You can use your signature color as the background color on the back of the card and have your slogan reversed out in white type.)

We are all familiar with brand packaging.  Just the shape of an ice cream container can tell us whether it is a premium brand or a discount brand.

Every business document or communication has a package, too.  Letters, handouts, pitch books, presentations, fax cover sheets – every document that you create on the job to sell or persuade or inform – can be made special if you view its presentation as packaging.

When you give a presentation or a talk, always prepare a handout to leave your brand footprint.  You’ll need a person good at manipulating a computer with a good eye for layout and type fonts.

Make the business documents look beautiful or interesting or different. Choose a brand color for all your presentation folders. You can even develop a distinct layout for your presentation documents with a colored rule around each page or a logo at the bottom.  Or use even more creative approaches depending on the business you are in.

Think of ways to put your brand stamp on all your output, even the way you deliver a message. When you have an important message to send – a new business pitch or a job query letter – put your packaging in a different delivery package such as Fed Ex so it will be branded as important to its recipient. Or have it hand delivered.

A distinctive color makes for smart branding. Color can create a mood and identify a brand personality for your company or an individual product line.  There’s Cingular orange, UPS brown, American Express blue and Coke red just to name a few well-known brands and their trademark color.

You can even have a color that is a dominant theme for your personal brand. Mark Twain bought a whole wardrobe of white suits after he noticed that he got a lot more attention (and fame) walking down the street or at speaking appearances in a white suit than in a traditional dark suit. The white suit became part of his self brand identity along with his novels, public speaking and sound bites. A white suit plays a similar role for the writer Tom Wolfe today. Having a color could be as simple as having a distinct color stationery as one business acquaintance does, so when the blue envelope arrives, you know the identity of the sender.  

For most of us, the same is true. Our hasty first impression will be indelible.  Our first impression will be the same as our lasting impression.

First impressions are so powerful in business that one client, Susan, has built a successful business as a fashion coach, writer and speaker around the importance of a first impression in establishing not only who you are but also in selling how good you are.

And we’re all guilty of snap judgments based on looks. We’re programmed to respond better to good-looking people. When shown pictures of people they viewed as “attractive” compared to those they labeled “unattractive,” most people are biased toward attractive people.

Attractive people have the advantage of the halo effect.. People with good looks are consistently deemed “smarter,” “more likeable,” “talented,” “successful” and better in so many ways than people with a homelier look.

The good news is that what “appealing,” ”attractive” or “successful” looks like has expanded tremendously today as more people with “flaws” or non-classical looks succeed in spite of (or because of) their different looks. Now, different looks can be a powerful branding device particularly if packaged to make the “odd” feature interesting.

One brand that did a great job of building a visual identity – logo, packaging and product design – off its brand strategy is Tazo tea. Launched in the mid 1990s amid the reincarnation of coffee created by Starbucks, Tazo’s founders were a small group of friends who wanted to launch the “reincarnation of tea.”  This was no mean feat in a country like the U.S. where tea was viewed as a beverage to drink when you’re feeling sick.   To break out big in a low interest category like tea, Tazo’s founders came up with an intriguing concept for their new tea.  They called their brand concept “Marco Polo meets Merlin.” To bring the concept to life, Tazo created a special logo, packaging and product design for the brand. They melded Far Eastern colors and style together with magical and cryptic elements. They found an obscure type font for the logo that gives the name Tazo a coded quality like an alchemy symbol. Of course, it wasn’t all branding. The developed tea flavors that matched the brand concept.

Tazo also capitalized on a new trend in branding – orchestrating a total sensory experience through sight, touch and smell.  Each tea was given a name, color, design concept. Tazo gave customers a new experience in tea names. It was Awake, not old stand-bys like English Breakfast.  Each tea had an exotic smell.  The sensory experience was heightened through what Tazo called “the discoverability of the brand.”  Tazo layered packages within packages and messages within messages so customers would repeatedly touch and experience the brand. So, how important was Tazo’s visual identity to the brand’s phenomenal success?  Many retailers were so enchanted with the Tazo packaging that they bought in quantity before even sampling the new product. In relatively short order, Tazo was the number one natural foods brand in the U.S. Tazo’s success got the attention of a mega brand like Starbucks who bought Tazo to augment its expansion in the beverage market.

1. 2. Be different. Have a distinct look from your competitors. You don’t want the design de jour.
2. 3. Have a personality. Your logo should convey non-verbal cues such as emotion and personality. Think of adjectives that convey personality and style attributes as you develop the logo.
3. 4. Be “stretchable.” A logo should be able to grow as the brand expands its footprint (hopefully).
4. 5. Convey meaning. A logo should be an icon not an illustration. It’s better to suggest than describe.  Many abstract logos take on a powerful meaning, but if you have to explain your logo, go back to the drawing board.

Hair is a terrific branding device. Think of Dolly Parton or Albert Einstein. (Like clothing, in many parts of the world hair was a branding device. Your hairstyle indicated your status in society or what you did for a living.)

Trump’s hair has become as much a trademark of his visual identity as the trophy wife and oversized yacht. So, make fun of the hair or not, from a branding perspective the hair stays because it is an important part of Trump’s visual identity.
Remember when Hillary Clinton kept changing her hairstyle when she was First Lady? Long. Then with a Headband. Styled under. Flipped out. Then short. Hillary’s hair became a media story for a while.

People were confused about who Hillary was because her hair style kept changing. Now that she’s settled on a consistent (and attractive) hairstyle, Hillary has removed something that was sending mixed messages and undercutting her self presentation and effectiveness.

While you want to look good, you don’t want to look “perfect” or “over done” either. You don’t want to look like someone out of central casting. Or be too buffed and shining.

Perfect reads plastic. Over-done reads trying too hard. It’s not as appealing as a more approachable look. Some people I worked with had that problem. The message that a perfect visual identity conveys is “slick,” or “unapproachable.” Most people find perfection a barrier to likeability. And that, no doubt, is not what you want to achieve.

You always want to come across as real. If you want to go for perfection, leave something imperfect like a carefree hairstyle or slightly worn briefcase, so that you are accessible and likeable.
 
 

Remember the gray poncho Martha Stewart wore when she was released from prison? It was the indelible image of Martha Stewart leaving prison. The gray poncho was a hand-made gift from a fellow inmate and Martha wore it both for a dramatic exit out of prison and to the office on her first day back.

The poncho was a brilliant branding device because it enabled her to convey the right messages for rebranding herself. The image of Martha and her poncho said:

• Martha is back on top of her game
• Martha made lemonade out of lemons
• Martha bonded with her fellow prisoners
• Martha can pluck style from anywhere
• Martha is stronger because of this experience

With her poncho, Martha took control of her brand message. Remember how Martha looked in the months leading up to her conviction? In a word – guilty. She was hiding from the press, often caught looking unglamorous and shielding her face. The poncho got her self brand back on track.

Strong visual identities are a quick read.  And clothes are one of the quickest ways to communicate a message about who you are. Clothes often offer more insight than your CV. Clothes can communicate what you do for a living, whether you are rich or poor, young or old, hip or square, professional or blue-collar. It can often tell whether you are looking for a mate, or for a new job or just couldn’t give a damn.

Clothes are such a strong branding device that for centuries many regions of the world had laws about who could wear what. Only certain classes could wear certain clothing styles and use rich fabrics.

Think of the drill you put yourself through for an important meeting or job interview. “What shall I wear?” goes racing through your brain as you tear through your closet. And what you choose can help or hinder your success in the meeting. These days there is no simple “dress for success” formula. Today, you have more latitude  to use clothes to communicate your personal brand message.

For most executives, a suit is your package.  For men, suits are practically a uniform, though the fabric and fit can make all the difference.

For women, there is more freedom in the corporate uniform to brand a personal identity. If your clothes could talk, what would they say about you? Is there a consistent message?  What do you want your clothes to say about you? What clothing should you eliminate? What clothing would you build upon?  Choose your clothes and personal style to communicate what you want to say about yourself. Clothes are a visual symbol of who you are.