Ever saw faces where there were none? Like when the headlights and front bumper of the car gives you an impression that you are seeing a face. This highly interesting phenomenon is called Pareidolia and it’s the best personification of how the human mind sees and perceives things with each thing eliciting a different kind of a response. Brands are not different. We also associate feelings and perceptions with brands due to their external appearance. Stroll down a street and ask someone of what they perceive when they see things related to “Apple”, the highly successful producer of user items such as IPhones & Ipads, and the answers would be close to the words “young”, “edgy”, Futuristic” and lot of similar terms would definitely spring up. The most intriguing part in this is that none of Apple’s visual branding directly refers to any of these words or terminologies rather their brilliance lies in positioning their brand identity in such a manner that the consumers or the general public at large has come to think of it as something really young, edgy & futuristic. This is what the actual purpose of positioning a brand’s identity is, i.e. to elicit a certain response from the viewer each time anything related to a certain comes before him/her.
This trick happens when you learn how to humanize your brand and then let it work in your favor. It might look like a magical instantaneous type of a thing but its anything other than that. This a step by step process, which if done right will give you a feel from the start that its an identity that’s taking shape rather than a forced narrative. Lets give you the breakdown of how to build a brand identity that feels personal from the other end:
The foundational Questions:
Sit down with your brand team and the ones who have great understanding of what the vision of your brand really is and then ask them some questions like Is the brand masculine or is elicits femininity? Does the brand signify seriousness and maturity or is it funny and friendly? These are some fundamental questions that can go a long way into letting you understand what your brand would look like if it would one day come alive. Once you know the answers to these questions, then see whether it matches what you envisioned it to look and feel like. This will really clear you the path and show you the way to correct the branding strategy from its current standing towards where you want to take it.
Stepping Stones:
Now that you know the traits of your brand, its now the perfect time to start adding components and features that match those traits. This is called creative visualization and it includes all the components of the brand, from the type of the logo to the font used, everything starts getting a skeleton or a foundation, around which we can now start intensifying our efforts and build our brand identity through multiple integral components.
Find the Brand Gaps:
As you are now on the stage of building the components of your brand, you will come across various paradoxes known as brand gaps. These are the things which don’t match the personality of the brand you are currently building. For e.g. your brand feel is that of an extroverted person but your website is too strict and has a genuinely formal feel to it. These are the areas that need the highest effort to rebrand as anything too over the line will cause damage to your brand. The brand personality should match the kind of audience you are trying to serve and not just how you like it to be for e.g. if you are selling medical equipment and your client segment includes hospitals and medical institutions then going for a loud and vibrant brand identity will lead to a complete failure of your brand. Just remember, brand identity is the perception that people take away from your brand and looking at it from that perspective will help your cause immensely. Make your brand possess the best possible identity to garner higher attention and imprint a lasting impression of your brand.
