3 Steps to Grow Brands

“Look Ma! I like his kicks”.

I remember saying that whenever I’d see a Nike shoe as a young kid. Being the coolest had always been around a mind of 13 year old kid, who was limited about the brand game. After years had I understood, it was never the shoe that caught my attention, instead it was the ‘tick’ which seemed appetising to my eye. I recall myself imagining a shoe that I’d own which in a way would personify who I was. Thus, changing the way I looked at brands forever. This is the influence of a successful brand image.

Branding in a capitalist system would mean a mere embody of a business or an organisation, while being aware about what the market needs and how to appease the audience with a produce. This is along the nature of branding, but not enough to emphasise the worth of branding as a whole. Let us briefly talk about what branding actually is and how it births POVs for every individual.

A brand is a result. It’s a customer’s gut feeling about a product, service or a company. A reputation.

— Marty Neumeier

With the reference I spoke about the ‘Nike kicks’ — a brand’s intention fits perfectly, as it drives customer’s sentiment in-line with what they want to achieve from a strategic standpoint. This phenomenon is commonly found with massive brands and their customers.

Let’s visit three fundamentals used by brands to stand out in a tight competitive global order. (These fundamentals addresses the foundational visions within the creative realm for startups)

1. Who are you?

First, a brand needs to identify the core meaning of existence in its respective industry. Based on this meaning the brand becomes more valued among competitors and customers alike, understanding the reason is vital for brand fundamentals at the beginnings. Likewise the cause for existence becomes more matured over the course of time and strengthens the core values of the brand altogether.

This is related to a company’s/brand’s identification in creative and corporate terms. It is an identity, value and moral that separate individuals from one another. The same principles apply for a brand. The fact that it has to be unique in the market presence becomes the prerequisite for its success story. Thus, portraying the identity and defining who are you amidst competition is crucial.

2. What do you offer?

A (new) company may have the urge to afford services and products at all levels to its customers, which is a natural symptom of a brand, because they are overwhelmed with the fact of upscaling the moment they are born. Ideally, the brand/company should list down the services or products they offer and what they don’t. As obvious as it sounds this makes things much more effortless for the client to know about the brand and visa-versa.

Mentioning these points can be a child’s play, but the potential impact it has over the brand is mind-bending and helps the brand to dominate one market segment while improvising brand strategies that focus on brand building and expansion, rather than being the jack of all trades — master of none.

3. How do you serve the goal better?

Once the foundation is justified and established within the parameters of a brand conduct, executing these values turn challenging for new — unexperienced startups and business models.

The prime intention of a creative brand/agency is to analyse the market gap and scrutinise ways to bridge the gap between the consumers and businesses. This intention alone is enough to make an agency successful at strategic ends and a stimulus in its own ideal way. Brands often overlap each other in similar execution models and often are victims of demise.

On the other hand, a successful brand is what it can do better within the same creative parameters, while establishing its identity in relation of those values it stands for.

Furthermore, a brand’s success rate can be witnessed by these three fundamental factors which differentiate amongst competition and paves the way for new businesses to evolve within the creative framework. Ideally, these three principles form a brand’s guideline and favours the brand positioning of the company.