“A brand for a company is like a reputation for a person. You earn reputation by trying to do hard things well.” – Jeff Bezos said it right. Building strong brand awareness and loyalty is vital to the success of any business. But how to build a powerful brand?
There might be a thousand reasons in your head for rebranding your bakery or creating a new branding altogether.
It might be due to an unprofessional outlook that you want to get rid of.
Or you think your current branding or logo looks ugly, or it is irrelevant to your brand.
Whatever the reason is, it doesn’t matter but you would have to face the truth that you have to do it. If you want to build a brand that will stand the test of time, a brand that can have an impact on those customers who are getting inside your doors be it at a physical location or through an online window. I don’t mean just the windows PC but by that, I simply mean through the medium of internet. LOL!
Let’s talk about our subject the most important thing that you should never forget is that your logo. It should be unique and by that I mean you should keep in mind that your logo shouldn’t look similar to any other brand or business out there. This is that one thing that is hardly 10% of business get right. I will talk in detail about this later in this blog along with a lot of other important points. It is important to remember them to have an effective branding to bring your business on a fast track to success.
To start with, I will quickly educate you about the importance of branding. So that you can make wise decisions about rebranding your business that can push your brand in the right direction.
Here are the few points to show you the importance of branding-
- Creates a Recognizable brand
- Bring Consistency in your brand
- Helps the business to be established
- Creates Trust from Customers
- Encourages brand philosophy within employees
And now let’s talk about the above key points one by one in detail.
1. Creates a Recognizable brand
A Logo grabs attention, makes a strong first impression. It is the foundation of your brand identity, is memorable, separates you from the competition. A logo fosters brand loyalty and is expected by your audience. However, if your customer is interacting with your brand or whether they are buying your services or product.
It can be by seeing your ads and promotional collateral or even if it is something so simple like seeing your brand logo when they are crossing your store’s street from a distant. All those things create an opportunity for your customers to get to know you. This associate memories on which you can harp on later whenever they think about the services or products that you are offering.
The better your logo is mapped on their memory, the higher the chances you will have to do business with them. This reminds me of an opportunity to bring this to light. I will soon be writing about how you can create a memorable brand identity for your business. Let us move on to the next one.
2. Brings consistency to your Brand
Effective branding helps your brand to have consistency. Wherever your brand is present it will result in a similar experience for your customers. It matters if you want your customer to trust your business.
It is not just important for international or multiple store businesses. Although it becomes an absolute must for that kind of business to have consistency if they want to maintain good business in every store of their brand.
For instance here is a fashion retail brand “Zara”. You all must have heard of this fashion brand. If you would look at the image above and below, both are different mediums. Both have huge differences but at a foundation level, the tonality is somewhat similar. The feeling that you’d get would be the same.
Your brand also needs consistency over different online platforms. Be its stores, social media, e-commerce store. Good branding will make sure that all of those create a big picture of the brand. They all create a similar experience for the clients and customers. Y
It always brings them in the right headspace that can help them to make the right decision to be with you or do business with you. That way you can retain those customers. Otherwise, there are a lot of loopholes that your competitors have created to steal your loyal clients and customers. Just one right offer from them and your customers will go with them.
3. Helps the Business to be Established:
You must be thinking how can this be helpful to establish your business.
Well, first of all, remember when was the last time you were associated with a brand that lacks good branding. Did you even associated with it in some way did you boasted it in front of anyone?
Well, the answer to that for most of the people will be similar. As our need to be significant we are more leaned towards using branded products. The products which upgrade our value rather than depreciating it. And if we like some branded product we are more likely to boast it in front of our friends.
So if you have a good branding which shows your customers that you are an upcoming big brand then the chances are high that you will win a lot of customers. By your product and later due to their conversation about how you added value in their lives. Please don’t overlook the need for good branding. Just make sure you have got that covered for the growth of your business.
3. Build Trust of your Customer:
There is a saying “We don’t do business with companies, businesses or brands but we do business with people“. You must be thinking I am here to tell you why the logo helps to build trust within your customers. Or I am here talking about people who don’t do business with brands. Well think of the logo apple, what do you feel?
There great phones or computers? No? What comes to our head is a brand that we can trust upon, the face of Steve Jobs. It stands true on our trust. He was a great and visionary man. I am always grateful to him to bring such a great brand within us. I have learned quite a lot from that man. Well, that is the magic of effective branding, even when he is no more our trust is still united. With his face juxtaposed within the Apple logo. Apple logo will always bring that trust within us whenever we are going in their stores to buy something unless they do something to ruin that image.
You can do something similar for your brand. All you need to do is work on your brand and see it as a personality. Try to see what not ordinary business individuals see and values.
4. Encourages Brand Philosophy within employees:
A brand isn’t just made of good sales, great profit margins, and popularity within the customers. But what builds a brand is believing in one united vision that the brand stands for. Having the same values that the brand stands for, and last but not the least. Actually, having the same philosophy to make the customer experience best for which the brand has come to existence.
I am a big believer in providing immense value to the customers for whom we have started the business. A business is just a medium to provide that value. But the brand is run by people you, me or anyone. No one can single-handedly add immense value to hundreds and thousands of customers. With a belief to serve my clients I created by branding agency but the real problem arose when I hired people. I had a belief but in my journey.
I realized that they have no clue what my visions are. I lost what is the reason this branding agency was started. So, after that, I started associating those brand values and did a rebranding of my business. And after people understood it. And they knew every day why they are coming to work – the reason they are in this company. It creates a lot of difference when you have your brand values associated with the company.
Now since you have a better understanding of the Importance of branding lets understand what are those things that can help you to do our bakery branding.
1. A little something to ponder
The logo isn’t just what shows your name with a symbol or an image. But you should rather see it as an opportunity to help your brand stand apart from other brands. The one where you have a chance to impress your old, current as well as the future customers. Through a great logo, you can make people curious about your brand. Think of Baskin Robbins, have you noticed that they have incorporated the number 31 in their logo? This is done so smartly that it is in your face but still not that easy to notice.
Can you see the shop signage behind Irv Robbins? The partner of Burt Baskin to bring Baskin Robbins Ice cream to reality by merging their two ice cream parlors.
We all must be aware of that feeling of being clueless about what to order when waiting for our turn to order. Well, that is the feeling that the partners wanted to amplify and boast. They wanted to be known for so many flavors of ice cream that they had to offer. They even had a tag line “Count the Flavors, Where flavor counts”.
They rebranded their logo in 2007 and came up with this smart brand identity where they brought together their iconic 31 flavors and Initials of Baskin Robbins. I tried to find who is the designer behind the remarkable brand identity but unfortunately, I couldn’t find it, It breaks my heart seeing this great feat unrecognized.
Baskin Robbins is a perfect example of smart branding. It showcases something about a brand smartly which can really hit your customers . It will give them something to think and meanwhile engage with the brand. The more engaged they are the better your chances will be that they will choose you over your competitors.
2. Create an eternal brand image
Whether you are branding your business or rebranding it, you should never get carried away with a design trend. A trend that is so popular right now and everyone including you loves it. It can be a trap, and your brand. You would never be able to get over the damage you are about to do. If you have a logo that is designed from the influence of some design trend then it won’t take long enough for your logo to be outdated. It will create a need for rebranding which will make things only worse. Reason – because people don’t just believe in your brand.
But now they will feel that your business is a loss for the reasons that they have no idea since you have been there for so long but they have never heard of you, have you ever found yourself in a store of which you have doubts whether they are good or not? it happens rarely! your logo has to be independent of all the design trends so that it can always stay relevant.
I personally admire these two logos so much. Despite changing trends, time or technology have almost stayed the same.
The way E and x have been placed in the FedEx logo it makes a forward arrow in the logo. It stands for the speed and precision for which they want to be known as. Federal Express was rebranded in 1994 by Linden Leader & Landor Associates.
And secondly the logo of “Playboy” is iconic, it is so unique. I fell in love with that piece of art the first time I laid my eyes on it. I was a child and saw it on an army dog tag hanging in a shop. Man what a sight it was! A shiny gleaming dog tag it was. That logo changed that sight altogether for me, though my dad didn’t let me buy it. No..no… I had no intention to wear. What can I say I was a nice guy by then, it just felt so nice to have it.
This is the only logo that can influence any age group, any ethnicity, or any race. I had no idea what was the company, the logo looked so appealing, it is cute for some, it is raunchy and wild for others. A perfect logo that people felt proud to even tattoo it on their bodies. Now, that is what we call a perfect brand image. You won’t believe that the logo was never changed after it was redesigned.
What is your favorite logo and why? Let’s comment below and tell each other.
Just a few tweaks a tolerable but make sure that your logo is designed in a way that it never needs any major changes in the future.
3. Don’t go overboard
This one you probably have already heard but still I need to cover this because this is the number one mistake that I see all around me.
I need to get this right for 90% of my clients. Don’t do too much to make your logo different and great. Greatness comes with simplicity. We need to remember a logo needs to be as simple as possible, for one important reason which is the logo will be more memorable if it is simple, the brain will retain our simple and unique idea and it will be easy for our customers to recognize us.
So better make sure that you always keep this in mind that no matter how overwhelming it is and all the excitement of getting a lot of crazy ideas and thoughts, clean your plate and carry as little as possible in your logo.
4. Stay away from cliche
Most of the time when I am approached by the client I get asked to add a cake, cupcake, or some other kind of dessert that they serve. Every morning I get up to pray “Please Lord! no more Cake Ideas…Please” but what I can I say all my prayers are in vain, none of them have been heard.
By adding a cake, cupcake or any kind of food that you serve won’t help your clients to choose you but it will rather drive them away because they are going to think you are just one of the other bakeries, there is nothing special about you. Just think if Nike would have thought to add a shoe within their logo, or Mercedes Benz would have asked the designer to design a logo with a shiny gleaming car. I am sure they must have got that thought but they stopped that urge and rather went for something that really made them stand out and unique. We cannot imagine a world in which the Nike logo has a shoe and Mercedes logo with a car.
You need to figure out a way in which you are relevant in a smart way. Think about the Apple logo and how it has incorporated the electronic byte and showed it through the apple bite. That is pure magic! Just stay away from the elements that most of the bakeries using, if you have to use it just make sure it is in some unconventional and different way that would still be unique and easy to recognize.
Conclusion
While reading this article if you think your branding needs improvement or it just needs rebranding from the foundation level, no worries I have got you covered. Feel free to shoot me a WhatsApp Text @9667539053, I would love to design something so remarkable that this world will welcome with open arms and it would set your business apart.
