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“Think different”
When you hear these words, your brain puts two and two together and comes up with only one thought. Apple Inc. Yes! That is how succinct and superb come together with the power of effective brand communication. To the uninitiated, the tagline “Think different” or McDonald’s iconic “I’m lovin’ it” may not immediately seem about a company associated with them. However, these 2-3 words have such an impact on the psyche that it enables readers or listeners to think about the brand and what it offers in terms of products, values, ethics and services.
The corporate world has been obsessed about branding for long. One can see the countless number of hours put into the very foundation of a company when it becomes a brand. In a market that is growing by leaps and bounds, the pivotal question is how you set yourself apart and make your voice heard. This all depends on how you plan out your brand communication for a world burdened with deluge and noise. Effective brand communication, thus, is what makes you outstanding (and survive any weather in the middle of the metaphorical sea).
However, effective comes from practice. And when the case in point is your company’s presentation, one cannot deny how important brand communication is to help you get that recognition and make a name for yourself. If you have not taken note of why you should have chosen that magenta colored icon while preparing your new product launch, or forgot to put your brand logo on your latest social media post, the this blog is for you. Read on to find out what all constitutes brand communication, why it is important for presentations, and what you can do to take it to the next level.
Components of effective brand communication strategy
When you need to establish a strategy for enhancing your brand presence, you have to get your brand communication structure right. Ideally, brand communication serves the purpose of informing, entertaining, educating and expressing to your audience in a world full of noise. It separates your company from the “been there done that” and “tested and tried and thrown away”.
To tickle your mind, take a look at this amazing advertisement by the Dollar Shave Club showcasing how they offer grooming products in style. Branding specialists and the masses alike have been drawn towards this masterpiece of brand communication.
Were the blades any good? We bet they were. And that is what brand communication is all about. Here is what all is involved in effective brand communication that makes you the cream of the lot:
#1 Brand message
A company is not all about the products it rolls out or the services it provides. Instead it is something much more than that. It is about your values, your vision and your mission. In other words, what do you stand for? The answer to that is your brand message. If you are a multinational sports goods company going by the slogan “Just do it” (no guesses), are you just… doing… it? If your product has adorned the feet of the greatest athletes of countless generations, what has it added to your mission.
Brand message is the very foundation of your brand communication. It is what you have to plan all your branding initiatives around. It puts out the word about your drive to create and innovate. It shows what you are all about. For Dollar Shave Club, for instance, their tagline “Shave time, Shave money” reflects what their brand can do for its customers. It can save them time with its innovations, and every solution for grooming will be affordable. Quite the clean stroke of genius, isn’t it?
#2 Brand design
If the legendary entrepreneur Steve Jobs had been right about brand communication, it was through his equally legendary quote that goes “Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.” And good design is how a brand can go from ordinary to legendary. With brand design, a company can make waves just with the simplest yet impactful visuals. Remember, when it comes to brand communication, it is all about the senses. And the most prominent sense, the vision, is something that the brand should always try to captivate. The mind follows seamlessly. Here with brand design, you need to consider how it aligns with your brand message. There are 3 things to consider then:
Logo
Just because you can’t put a tagline everywhere you want your company to be recognized, human imagination conceived logos. Logos are the emblem of your company. They are the torchbearers of your brand communication that make the audience recognize your voice among the crowd immediately. And with more and more brands investing in standing out with a nifty piece of iconography, brand communication and presence have become even a more competitive affair. How does the half-bitten apple logo speak for Apple Inc? How do people know that the yellow bordered rectangle is the iconic trademark of the beauty that is the National Geographic? A definitive logo is, thus, crucial to your brand communication strategies. And it always will be.
Colors
Since the world couldn’t be all black and white, colors became the fuel of life, and an equally significant part of brand communication. Consistency is key when choosing brand colors. The reason why figuring out brand message is paramount is because every color evokes a certain emotion through visual stimuli. With brand-specific colors, you can incorporate the consumer in your mission of changing the world (or selling a shaving blade subscription, or offering 31 flavors of ice cream, whatever you deem fit). Bottom line, colors are how you tell the story of your company.
#3 Brand audience
Of course. Who are you communicating your brand to? Who is the audience of your endeavors? Identifying a brand audience helps you target a specific demographic for your brand communication. When your company knows what it stands for and who it benefits, the path to a successful brand presence gets clear. In fact, establishing the identity of the target audience helps your brand navigate the “one size fits all” challenge, and instead focus on targeted approach towards creating products that change lives. Brand audience helps you grow in a more result-oriented manner. Also, the targeted approach helps in planning and saving resources of your company while creating a palpable demographic of influence. And if word of mouth is any medium, the numbers grow and help you turn indifference into user engagement.
#4 Communication channel
Speaking of mediums, how are you going to communicate with your brand audience? That is what communication channels are for. Once you have established the above entities of your brand communication strategy, you have to pick the medium of relaying the information about your brand. Is it going to be via creative billboards on state highways? Or is it going to be painted on the crosswalks at the Fifth Avenue? Or will your customers will be so impressed that they get their generations to eat at your restaurant?
An effective brand communication strategy depends on how you measure your prospects and apply creative acumen to magnetize people towards you and your brand. And even if you just push the envelope in your wake, taking part in the conversations that matter will come easy to your brand. It can be through witty tweets on social media or interactive designs too. Your microphone matters.
#5 Impact and action
You have factored in all the concepts of how you are going to have your brand communication. But what is communication without impact. In other words, what is the goal that you have achieved with your communication strategy? By impact here we mean the metrics for your business that you set to gain with effective brand communication strategy. The more you have to imbibe into your strategy through analysis, the better is your future course of action. By action, we mean the follow-up of the impact of your campaign. This can be something that you have to communicate to your audience via social media, or it can be some point of improvement that you have to incorporate in your product based on the reception of the communication campaign.
Significance of brand communication in presentations
Much of brand communication efforts are focused on content and product creation as per the image and mission of the company. However, often corporate and businesses tend to ignore the value of proper brand communication when they are about to present some new product or roll out a service line. For a budding company, adhering to brand communication standards, within their premises or without, is of colossal significance. In fact, when mostly the internal presentations in a company lay the foundation of any project timeline, external presentation helps you get known among the masses and the competition. Therefore, it is important to understand why brand communication is important when you are planning to present a presentation. Here’s a rundown of all reasons why:
#1 It maximizes brand experience
For startups as well as well-established players, charting out a presentation with careful inclusion of brand communication is pivotal. An effective brand communication strategy can take you from lows to the highs by improving brand experience. When you devise a presentation around a brand, whether it is a product launch or a service launch, brand communication helps interface the audience with your company. A presentation with comprehensive brand communication will captivate your audience much after the presentation is over. Therefore, people would want to connect with your company whenever they come across a piece of good brand communication later in life.
#2 It enables easy word of mouth
How many times have we just eaten with a cardboard crown on our heads at a Burger King joint and thought, “Holy potatoes!! I love this Whopper so much. I can’t wait to tell my friends about it”? We bet a lot of times. This is what good brand communication can do. A good product (almost) sells itself. But unless you make people associate utility or emotion with it (case in point: happiness from food), it does not make you a brand worth its salt.
A similar formula works for using brand communication in your presentations. When you want people to know about a revolutionary product, you have to ensure that it adheres to all components of brand communication. Most importantly, you have to get your brand theme positioned well in your presentation. It can be something as simple as keeping your company logo on a small corner of each slide, or announcing your logo in motion graphics in a presentation video. The more you take care of brand communication, the more the word of mouth will take care of you.
#3 It makes your business focused
Once you set the ball rolling with your presentation, you have a chance to analyze how it gets people talking. The mere starting of conversation around the presentation is a job well-done for a brand communication specialist. The more you gauge the barometer of customer engagement, the better you are able to tailor your efforts towards customer satisfaction. This makes your brand value skyrocket to a more trustworthy position and gives you more ground to work on in your next presentation. Brand gurus across the world swear by this technique of brand propagation. This also helps you improve your service with more efficiency and promptness.
#4 It brings you allies, and competition
If you’re speaking through brand communication, you best believe, somebody is listening. Using brand imagery in your presentations has tremendous impact on the audience and it also gets them to align themselves with your brand message. Those who favor it turn into your brand supporters or allies. As for those who see that message as a call of the competition, brand communication keeps the contest agile and fruitful. There can be hits and misses. You may be part of a drive to create a product that somebody else might like to challenge with their own. With a brand communication strategy, you get to acquire a stature among your peers and competitors. You can build and improve your branding with careful observation. If they have improved their fries based on negative tweets, you can make your ad campaign a hit by an even more customer-oriented edible burger billboard.
Some tips to take it to the next level
We have covered what all goes into brand communication for a business. Now it is time to share how you can take your brand communication strategy up a notch for a lucrative ROI. Basically, you have to master how you approach your customers while devising the core of your brand. When planning to make customers believe in the panache of your efforts, you must follow these tips to hog the limelight. Here go some tips on how to do that in style:
So in conclusion, whatever big brands and companies are doing out there stems from the fact that they present their brand and trademark as a symbol of authenticity and relatability. And startups willing to uplift themselves with witty and creative brand communication will be able to achieve the milestones of becoming successful conglomerates. As for those looking to create a different world with their brand, there will always be eyes looking, and ears listening. They just have to make the sound.
