10 Key Ingredients in Your Brand Identity

Your brand identity is what makes you unique.

Being identifiable in the marketplace will help create brand recognition and allow consumers to clearly decipher your offerings. From the look of your visual designs to the scent of your business space and products you use, consumers are drawn to the sensorial benefits of your brand and will relate the look, flavor, smell and texture to their physical experience of your business.

Before a customer steps into your business and experiences all the services and senses your brand has to offer, your prospect is likely to visually associate a name or image with your company, such as a logo or picture. When it comes to developing a business name and logo, remember that nearly 50% of our brain is devoted directly or indirectly to vision and visual processing. Consumers are flooded with visual stimulus and are therefore forced to sift through the content and make complex processing decisions. What elements are necessary in your brand identity to attract your customers and influence their purchase decisions?

10 Key Ingredients in Your Brand Identity:

• Recognizable Business Name
  
• Memorable Logo Design
• Distinguishing Color Palette
• Professional Typography
• Comprehensive Service Offerings
• Mission Statement
• Core Values
• Differentiators / Brand Positioning
  
• Clear Target Market
  
• Brand Voice

Our brain makes decisions based on what information will grab our attention, if the information is easy to comprehend and if the information will encourage action. Sometimes even the youngest audience is the most aware of visual brand recognition and persuaded to act. As young as two years old, children are able to detect logo recognition, such as Disney, in different contexts including on television, in a book or on a product. Starting at a young age, our brains are wired to construct our reality and make sense of the world by visually interpreting its surroundings. Since we have stored information based on personal experiences, some logos are able to resonate meaning without a customer stepping foot into your business. Take for example the Apple and Microsoft brands. Just thinking about their logos or recalling their advertisements, the essence of their brand is clearly conveyed even before using their products. One is “hip” and one is “square.” (We’ll dig deeper into brand meanings later…).

The old adage “Pictures are worth a thousand words” rings true. Consumers do not passively absorb coherent images; it is an active process of constructing and interpreting our connection with visual stimulus. Word marks, font types, symbols and colors all hold distinguishing characteristics that resonate meaning to a consumer, as everything we see is a personal, subjective experience, where we transform our understanding of reality into actual reality. That is why business owners develop target markets—to attract the people that will resonate with their brand and its offerings. Check out the graphic below on color meaning to ensure that your color palette is visually communicating your message clearly.

How healthy is your brand identity? No matter the size, location or service offerings of your business, the strength of your brand identity will have a direct impact on your bottom line.