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The ideality of a company’s image depends on the elaboration of a personal brand. The year 2021 dictates both new concepts in branding and operates with already known ones. They all involve either visual effects – shape, color, design or a marketing campaign – a planned advertising action to promote a product.
Branding concept
The well-known business magazine «Entrepreneur» interprets the concept of “branding” as the actions of a marketing plan to create an original name, symbol, product design to stand out in the market of companies. 2021 proposes to incorporate communication skills and online tricks into branding. Branding pursues one goal – recognition and increasing the number of product sales, attracting new customers to the company. First, we study the market, potential competitors, and customer needs. This is also called brand positioning. Next comes the visual, which includes everything related to design – color, shape, logo, signs. The brand visual is worked out ideally when the product becomes recognizable in the market, when it can be unmistakably correlated with the given company.
Formation of an effective brand strategy
The main ways of forming an ideal brand are as follows:
- Brand «for every day»;
- Brand «friend» for a potential client;
- Brand-desire, a unique product for a potential client;
- The brand «the famous successful person».
All these paths can and should be applied at once. This will help to enhance the value of the company, to make the product desirable for almost any potential buyer. And the basis of this formation will be the so-called branding trends.
Visual Branding Trends 2021-2022
1. Environmental friendliness
Evian has already successfully capitalized on this trend with an eco-friendly logo. Now people are actively taking care of the environment, resorting to more environmentally friendly materials for construction, the development of household products. If your company is not directly related to the global environmental issues of society, then try, for example, to develop packaging for a product from recyclable materials. This guarantees a positive customer attitude.
2. Authenticity
Be original. Don’t copy other brands. Openly position your company’s goals on social networks, show the product honestly and from all sides. People don’t like secrecy and complex riddles; they want a good reason why you should be trusted. Communicate your value to the client in simple language, using a simple range of colors and fonts, showing the life of the company. Communicate more with customers through comments, messages and show that you are easy to get in touch with.
3. Any fonts and images
At the same time, 2021 tells us that creating a personal brand doesn’t have to be done using simple design tools. Use whatever you like, the main thing is that it clearly reflects the purpose and essence of the company. Check out Alexis Persani’s 3D effects for extraordinary typography inspiration. You can also use high-quality stock photos as a basis.
4. Brand compatibility with mobile devices
Design your brand to be responsive to small screens. The modern world dictates its own rules and people spend more time with a smartphone in their hands than at a computer. Your logo should be displayed on a mobile device as well as on a large screen for a better visual experience.
5. Reproduction of reality offline
Given the current world environment and business trends, most companies operate online. Imitate real textures and shapes in your logos. Make the image as vivid and realistic as possible to create an emotional connection with the client, the effect of presence.
6. Dreams of a better future
Use positive attitudes in your brand. People already have enough negativity from the news, so they want to believe in the best and dream of something bigger. Do not use heavy and complex language, only light, every day, and even a little humorous. Take stock photos with a happy message to enhance the company’s image.
7. Minimalism plus baroque
Find a balance between the style of your brand. Balance between easy and fun, between calligraphy and simplicity of line. The neo-baroque style combines classic and modern, and you will add a few accents to your image to attract the attention of customers, while remaining discreet. Balenciaga and Uniqlo are excellent examples.
8. Elements of nostalgia
Any brand can be made into a story. Turn your campaign development from first ideas to large-scale purchases into a compelling story for customers with a reference to the past.
9. Use of modern technologies
Introduce elements of new development to further increase the number of customers. Not all people are conservative, most keep up with the times. Virtual workouts, 360-degree views, health tracking, a reader’s diary – this and much more can differentiate your company from competitors and help improve your image.
Brand building tips and algorithm
The marketers of Depositphotos’s commercial use and royalty-free stock photos server offer the following branding tips:
1. Determination of benefits for the client.
When creating a brand, first of all, think about the benefits that the potential customer will get from buying the product. If this is cleaning, then you must politely communicate with customers, clean quickly and efficiently. It can also be other little things, for example, many options for paying for this service. All this will increase the client’s confidence in you and confidence that the company will be able to do everything for him.
2. Determination of a potential buyer.
Work out a portrait of your ideal client. Make up its characteristics: gender, age, appearance, social status, car, profession. Age is considered one of the significant parameters. The choice of branding tools largely depends on how old the buyer is.
Gender is one of the important details: the characteristic determines differences in the perception of information, including advertising messages. This means that gender specificity must be taken into account when creating texts, posters and videos. The level of income must be taken into account when analyzing potential customers. Buyers with no cash constraints can afford a more expensive product. Work through everything to the smallest detail in order to correctly form the product design.
3. Emotions of the client towards your product.
Form the right emotional attitude of the buyer towards the product. Use his fears or other emotions to convey service and interest. For the cleaning industry, which was mentioned a little above, this is very simple. It is enough to make the client feel that the uncleaned house is positioning him as a sloppy, sloppy person in front of guests. And the cleaning company will make the house clean, and the client will feel relieved and grateful that such services exist.
4. Necessary tools for the company’s image.
Conduct an analysis of the necessary elements of your brand in accordance with its theme. This can be the use of the logo on a website or on paper. Or maybe both tools at once, if your field is developing both online and offline.
5. Choice of brand options.
Create several sketches of the future image at once. Having options on hand means being able to compare and choose the best one. Fill out your concept in a so-called brand book – a document containing information about goals, tools, company logo.
6. Continuous improvement of the brand.
For the development of the company and its progress, it is necessary to move only forward. Analyze what is lacking in your company, where your brand has strengths and weaknesses. Introduce something new in the logo, in the way you interact with customers, perhaps change the style of presenting information. Experiment and find new customers for your product.
Branding is a difficult and integral task for any company. In 2021, it’s not enough just to have a product and hope that they will buy it, because everyone already needs it. It is more than just a product. This is to anticipate the desires and expectations of the client from cooperation with you. It’s about constantly making changes in order to be above the competition. This is a thorough analysis of the potential audience to find the right branding tools. Successful image creation is the mission of every company for a high-quality large sales turnover and loyal customers for many years.
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