YOUR BRAND IS NOT YOUR LOGO – HERE’S WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW

A logo isn’t a brand – it’s much deeper than that. Your brand is the essence of who you are and how your audience perceives your company. A lot of times when starting a business, one of the first things many founders do is 1. register their LLC then 2.  pay a graphic designer to develop a logo – just like checking off the box. 

And that’s OK! 

But there comes a time in your business where, to stand out in the market and build a loyal team, you need to dig a little deeper. That’s right, a strong brand prepped for growth not only strengthens your external audience but your internal audience (employees) as well. It gives your top talent purpose behind what they do working for your company and not a competitor’s (even if they offer more money).

With Nolia Roots’ clients, we have a proven step-by-step process on how to brand your business by focusing on why you created the business in the first place. It’s truly an example of marketing from the roots up.

Let’s dive in.

FINDING THE WHY – YOUR MESSAGING FOUNDATIONS

When we first meet with a client who requires a brand (or rebrand) we first get on a discovery call. After we review marketing and business goals, we then get down to exactly who they are, why they do what they do, and how they do it. 

The brand is nothing without a passionate, big-thinking business leader. That’s why we think of Microsoft as a computer company and Apple as an innovation company. It’s more than just what you create. In this stage, we find the “Steve Jobs passion” within the client. We dig deep into why you do what you do (your vision) and how you’re going to do it (your mission).  

Your vision is the ideal future you’re striving for; an aspiring goal you have for not just your business, but for the world around you. 

For example, Steve Jobs’ vision for Apple was “Building tools that amplify a human ability”. Notice he used the word “tools”, not “computers.” He knew Apple would be more than computers and gave him opportunities to come up with the iPod, iPhone, and iTunes, which revolutionized the way we listen to music.

Your vision should be as broad as possible, only giving you an idea of where you want to end up and not pigeonholing you into how to get there. After Steve Jobs passed away,  Apple lost its original vision. You can see the result of that by the products produced in the post-Steve Jobs era.

Here’s the vision statement of Apple now written by Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple;

“We believe that we are on the face of the earth to make great products and that’s not changing. We are constantly focusing on innovating. We believe in the simple, not the complex. We believe that we need to own and control the primary technologies behind the products that we make and participate only in markets where we can make a significant contribution. We believe in saying no to thousands of projects so that we can really focus on the few that are truly important and meaningful to us. We believe in deep collaboration and cross-pollination of our groups, which allow us to innovate in a way that others cannot. And frankly, we don’t settle for anything less than excellence in every group in the company, and we have the self-honesty to admit when we’re wrong and the courage to change. And I think regardless of who is in what job those values are so embedded in this company that Apple will do extremely well.”

Do you see how innovation is killed in such a detailed vision statement? 

Finding your mission and vision is important because all marketing strategies and tactics will relate to these. After that comes your core values, Nailing down your brand’s core values will support not only your company culture but will also define your firing and hiring process. 

Want to get a head start? Download our free Messaging Foundations workbook below to go through our process (with awesome examples) to define your mission, vision, core values, and elevator pitch!

FIND THE EMOTION BEHIND YOUR BRAND

Once we understand your internal messaging foundations, we’ll see how they can be utilized externally to market to your audience. Sometimes it’s hard for a business leader to step back and explain what emotion he or she wants their brand to portray. It’s almost like we’re trying to put a personality to your brand like it’s a real human with real characteristics. To help, we ask some questions to brainstorm like…

If your brand was a party, what kind of party would it be? A tea party, a New Year’s Eve party, a 4th of July BBQ?

What’s the story behind your brand?

If my brand had a storefront, what would it look like? How would it feel? Smell?

The answers to these questions help us formulate a business leader’s deep feelings about what he wants for his brand.

HOW DOES YOUR BRAND CONNECT?

From here, we have to understand how your brand connects to its different elements like you and your audience. Think of it as a 3-part ven diagram:

How is my brand connected to ME?

How is my brand connected to my target audience, my dream clients?

What does that brand ven diagram look like? How does your brand connect and speak to both you and your target audience? That will help to ensure that your brand will resonate with both you and your audience.

COLORS AND EMOTION

Once we understand the emotion behind your brand, we’ll start to develop your color pallet. A pallet usually involves 5 different hues that all have very important jobs.

Primary color – The primary color is the star of the show. We’ll use this throughout brand collateral. Plus, we’ll include this color in elements of our social media. 

Secondary color – This is what will put set your brand and visual strategy apart. This color quietly and subtlety supports the other colors.

Accent color – Think of this as the POP of color that you’ll use to highlight different elements like CTAs (calls to action). 

Light neutral – Light neutral is for backgrounds and balance the bolder colors. Think of this as another option other than the classic white. 

Dark neutral – Make your pallet more versatile with this dark neutral. 

To choose these colors, we’ll analyze which emotions each color portrays. For the example above we can see some golds/yellows, greens/blues, and blacks. 

Yellow – While yellow can evoke happiness and excitement, it can also trigger a “warning” emotion. Lighter shades play on the happiness aspects, reminding users of summer and the sun. Darker shades, including gold, add more weight and give a sense of antiquity, success, and grandeur.

 Blue – Blue is one of the most popular colors in web design because it makes viewers feel calm and your website trustworthy and inviting. When you add a bit of green, it adds an organic, natural quality. 

Black – Black demonstrates a sophisticated, powerful feel. It’s an impactful primary color for edgy brands.

We can take the answers we developed about the emotions you want your brand to evoke and choose colors that resonate with those emotions. 

GRAPHIC ELEMENTS

Finally, let’s talk about your logo. When we start brainstorming the graphic design elements of your brand, we take the same process to develop colors here. For example, do you have an edgy brand? Maybe we’ll utilize geometric shapes within your logo. Is your brand “hopeful?” We could incorporate dandelions that children blow when they make a wish. Do you want your brand to feel grounded like Nolia Roots? We could incorporate earthy elements and circular, flowy elements. 

Above is just a peek into the Nolia Roots branding process for our clients.