Why Corporate Branding is Critical to Success
When it comes to corporate branding, there is no room for guesswork. Corporations exist in a cutthroat market, and branding is vital to pulling customers and attention away from competitors. In the modern market, successful branding means using emotional and impactful art to create company graphics that appeal to today’s clients. Without branding, many corporations can get lost in the shuffle and fail to reach their full potential. It is no longer enough to have a good business plan, solid ethics, or a wonderful product because many other companies on the market have the same. The goal must be to stand out among these similar companies, and that can be done through branding.
Even once your corporation has already made a name for itself among customers, branding remains important. Many consumers prefer to see their chosen corporations as independent entities with personality — part of customer loyalty is being attracted to the overall feel or aesthetic of a company. This personality is what will cause consumers to return and will inspire them to share their preference for your company with others. For longevity’s sake, branding is equally important.
Being an easily recognizable company affords you the ability to attract customers without very much effort at all. Before your company can get to that point, however, brand recognition must be firmly established among the masses. This cannot and will not be accomplished without outstanding and high-quality branding agency services. For many companies, achieving recognition means hiring an experienced agency to assist with corporate branding services.
REDKOR – Who We Are
At REDKOR, we understand that we are not the only corporate branding company that can help corporations with their branding strategy. However, we believe that we are the best in the industry for several unique reasons. As with any branding company, we have a deep understanding of how emotions affect consumer decisions — 94% of people say that they are likely to recommend a company with which they feel an emotional attachment. However, interpretations of how to create that emotionality within corporate branding can be precarious territory. Everyone has different ideas of what emotional connection means, and it is unlikely that you can come to a strong branding plan without unanimous company support.
This is where we at REDKOR do things differently. Rather than simply pitch creative branding ideas to corporations, we back our ideas with direct consumer research. With our personal and customized research process, we can get inside the minds of consumers and discover what would really attract them to your corporation. This method allows us to pinpoint the emotional connection that the public already has to your company and use it to your advantage. Rather than guessing or developing a branding plan that reflects our preferences or your preferences, we turn to the group that really matters. It is difficult for any member of your board or advisory committee to turn down an idea that came directly from your customer base because it is bound to work. By working consumer preference into your branding strategy, you can be assured that you will see real, data-driven results.
The REDKOR Process for Building a Successful Brand
Because our branding services process turns emotion and brand attraction into a data-based system, we can easily lay out the steps of our process to give you maximum confidence in our abilities and the future success of the project. These are the steps we generally follow.
Stakeholder Audit
During this primary phase of the branding process, we assess what your goals are for your branding project. We need to understand where your company is now and where it might be going in the future. We will familiarize ourselves with the products and company and understand your current market and target market through thoughtful and empathetic conversation with you and your team. This is where we set the groundwork and assess where we can go with your branding project.
Competitive Audit
After we have established your goals for the project, we can move on and assess your competitors. During this phase, we really dig into the other companies in the market. Our goal is to discover what they are doing correctly and how we may be able to alter your branding strategy to capitalize on their markets. During this portion, we also work to understand how your company fits within the fabric of the market and how your message may allow you to stand out from the competition. Branding services cannot simply focus on you but must also assess your relationship with other companies.
Group Audit and Research
Once we understand your goals and the market, we turn to the consumers to understand their relationship to your business. We must learn what your customers’ current relationship with you looks like and how we can use the current perception to inform our project. However, this does not simply mean visual branding perception or emotion. This also encompasses company traits such as communication and values. To capitalize on your strengths, we have to know every aspect of your corporation from the eyes of the consumer.
Story Creation and Content
After the first three steps of our process are completed, we should have enough information to begin building the foundation for our branding project. This phase will be a synopsis of your company’s emotions, values, and benefits in the eyes of your customers. This summary is based entirely on our interactions with your customer base in step 3 and provides the research-based groundwork for the rest of the process.
Creative Design Concepts
Based on what your customers are looking for, what they already love about your company, and the values within your organization that stand out to consumers, we can begin to actually formulate a visual and messaging brand for your company. We use highlights from our research with the consumers to drive home your strong suits, capitalize on established emotional connections, and bring the branding effort to life. This step is where you will begin to see graphics, fonts, messages, and other key aspects of your company’s brand.
Concept Testing
We don’t end our research after one round. After we develop options based on your consumers’ responses, we narrow them down to a few that you like. We then take those brand concepts back to your consumers and seek their input. This means that your branding is not only based on your customers, but it has been tested on them too. This way, once you lock in the final parts of the project, you know that the branding is already successful.
Notable National Brands
To get a concept of what a successful brand looks like, we can look to any number of national corporations that have built recognizable, emotional branding that has proven to work for them. It is important to note that “emotional” branding does not only capitalize on happiness but on a range of recognizable human emotions. Some examples include:
Nike
A significant amount of Nike’s branding is based on inspiring stories of leadership. Many of their ads focus on successful athletes, displaying them as standout and exceptional citizens who wear Nike brand apparel when they pursue their passions. This type of inspiration is a key emotional maneuver and gives the audience the sense that they, too, can be a leader in their community with the right Nike tools.
Coca-Cola
The soft drink supergiant tends to capitalize on happiness in their campaigns. There is no better example of this tactic than their 1971 “I’d Like to Buy the World a Coke” commercial, which centers on a whimsical, joyful tune that evokes simple times and can easily get stuck in the consumer’s head. Even their other brand efforts center around the satisfying sound of opening a Coke, a simple auditory tactic that triggers consumers to want a nice Coca-Cola.
ASPCA
There is not a person alive who hasn’t been brought to tears by the ASPCA’s terrifyingly sad commercials. By evoking strong sadness in consumers, the ASPCA inspires action and boosts the legitimacy of the cause. Though sadness is not a comfortable emotion for many consumers, it does inspire action, even if the action is simply taken to get the sadness to stop.
Contact REDKOR
For a corporate branding agency that can blend evidence and data with emotional power, contact REDKOR Brand Campaigns. With our tried-and-true research method, we can help take your corporation to the next level with direct, driven branding.
