Branding Beyond Visuals & Repetition

The goal of a successful brand is to create a prevailing thought or feeling that a consumer has about a product, service or company—a thought or feeling that differentiates it from the competition. We came across two articles recently that each offer a unique perspective on brand visuals and patterns that challenges what we may know about customers’ thoughts on brands.

Branding is About Creating Patterns, Not Repeating Messages

In this article (http://www NULL.fastcodesign NULL.com/1664145/branding-is-about-creating-patterns-not-repeating-messages) from Fast Company Design, its message is that a successful brand must have depth beyond visuals—your customers should experience a relationship with your company, a relationship that ultimately adds value and humanizes your company.

The article argues that adherence to a big idea and endless repetition of centralized, fixed rules can make a brand seem unresponsive and out of step with its audience. It then poses this question: “Without repetition, how does a brand create consistency? And without consistency, how does a brand maintain value?”

The answer lies in brand patterns. Patterns are the way our brains perceive actions, thoughts and behavior to ultimately inform belief. They allow for differences while creating a whole. Patterns are unique in the fact that they create consistency around difference and variation. Creating a believable and consistent brand begins with the creation of coherent patterns. Small ideas—fresh and immediate, flexible and accurate—can be defined in the immediacy of the present context, allowing brands to respond quickly to real-life situations.

A brand pattern is more than how a brand looks. It is the coherence and consistency between how the brand acts, looks and responds over time. A brand pattern connects a product to an experience and an audience, allowing the brand to continually grow. Your brand should become interactive, an experience for your customers.

The article goes on to say that the brand pattern must create consistency between the ABCs of a brand:

Artifacts	Behaviors	Concepts
Logos Names Slogans Colors Icons Shapes Sounds Products	States Traits Actions Performance Response	Plural thoughts and visions that strategically bind an organization together

Like the DNA of your company—your position, identity and personality—the ABCs of your brand must become inter-related and interdependent.

By alison – September 30, 2011