The role of branding in brand success

Ana Mendonça Morais – Marketing & Communication Strategist –

Brands live off their identity. It is how we recognise them, how we come to choose brand A over brand B, and why we feel closer to one than to another. The identity and positioning a brand adopts define its audience, how its product is received and, in the long run, its success. A brand should be like a person: unique and with a personality of its own. The kind that crosses your path and leaves… well, its mark!

Ana Mendonça Morais – Marketing & Communication Strategist –

Brands live off their identity. It is how we recognise them, how we come to choose brand A over brand B, and why we feel closer to one than to another. The identity and positioning a brand adopts define its audience, how its product is received and, in the long run, its success. A brand should be like a person: unique and with a personality of its own. The kind that crosses your path and leaves… well, its mark!

So how do we define an identity that distinctive? With something that may sound like stating the obvious: branding

Branding: creating a brand

Branding is, essentially, the creation and management of a brand's identity. It is through branding that you define, for example, a brand's name, slogans, values and visual identity elements, such as its logo and imagery. Branding plays a fundamental role in establishing a brand in its market.

Think, for instance, of the big supermarket chains, such as Continente or Lidl. Both serve the same purpose — they are retail outlets — but each has its own identity, distinct from the other. We associate different visual identities, personalities and approaches with each of them. That is branding, and it is a creative and strategic process involving several members of a team — though one supported, above all, by designers.

Branding examples we all know

We already have Continente and Lidl as examples of what branding stands for — but let's go further. Let's think about even bigger brands, ones on show to the whole world, whose visual identity we all know thanks to the “masterminds” who created them: the designers.

Amazon, by Turner Duckworth

The logo that smiles from A to Z. Says it all about the brand, doesn't it? Amazon is a giant in the retail sector and one of the biggest e-commerce platforms we know. It started out selling books and today sells a bit of everything, from technology to clothing — from A to Z. It is also known for its fast, efficient and friendly service, delivering “boxes of smiles” to its customers.

Jurassic Park, by Chip Kidd

We all know the old saying that you shouldn't judge a book by its cover but, in Chip Kidd's case, we can break it and assume the quality of the books comes close to that of the covers. Known for a vast portfolio of iconic book covers, one of his greatest successes is the cover of Jurassic Park. If you haven't read the book, don't worry — the cover went on to become the film poster (which you'll certainly know) and the logo of the park itself in the film! The starting point for creating this image? What we all associate with dinosaurs: skeletons and bones.

Apple, by Rob Janoff

In the digital age, there is no one who doesn't know Apple and its perfectly bitten apple logo. Here, the inspiration was the brand's own name with a bite taken out of it, since “bite” calls to mind “byte”, a computing term — which, let's face it, fits perfectly.

When it was created, the logo was covered in colourful stripes. These represented the hippie, “peace & love” aesthetic that characterised the lives of the designer and Steve Jobs. But, above all, it represented an achievement for the brand: the Apple II was the only computer, at the time of its launch, capable of reproducing colour images on a monitor.

Branding is the foundation of any brand

It is what defines what the brand actually is — and the path it will take. It is thanks to branding that we get to know a brand's essence, the message it wants to convey, its values and what it has to offer.

So if you have a brand, don't neglect this part — without branding, you'll find it impossible to sustainably grow your business. And if you feel the identity created for your brand no longer fits as it once did, perhaps it's time to go through a rebranding process… but hold on, we'll cover that in our next article! For now, let the importance of the subject sink in — next we'll talk about putting changes into practice. JTNDZGl2JTIwY2xhc3MlM0QlMjJmYi1jb21tZW50cyUyMiUyMGRhdGEtaHJlZiUzRCUyMmh0dHBzJTNBJTJGJTJGd3d3LmplbGx5Y29kZS5wdCUyRnRlY25vbG9naWElMkZhLXZvei1uby1jb21hbmRvLWRvLWZ1dHVyby1kYS10ZWNub2xvZ2lhJTJGJTIyJTIwZGF0YS13aWR0aCUzRCUyMjEwMCUyNSUyMiUyMGRhdGEtbnVtcG9zdHMlM0QlMjIxMCUyMiUzRSUzQyUyRmRpdiUzRQ==