Brand identity, online branding and their relevance for your E-commerce online business
If you have been following our blogs, then you are definitely not a stranger to official sounding terms like ‘brand identity.’ You hear of the term everywhere you go especially in creative and corporate conversations and like most jargon tend to understand the concept of it as you learn and discover more and more about how it works. Fun fact, branding first began when cattle farmers would first make an imprint of their name or symbols on their livestock to be able to recognize them from each other. Now while this fact is outdated, the concept is very much still in use and is as contemporary as one could imagine.
The world of e-commerce is growing fast and is expected to hit 4.48 trillion US dollars in 2021 with worldwide retail ecommerce sales set to reach $4.9 trillion. Your online store or E-commerce business is just one of possibly millions that are operating across the globe. How will you ensure that it stays prominent and relevant amidst that amount of competition? By branding it well of course! Creating a brand identity is a little more than developing a logo and then plaster it all over the internet. It has to be done almost in a way where you are raising a child. Getting it right from the beginning is very important for it to work well for you. Jeff Bezos says, "Branding is what people say about you when you're not in the room.” Eventually your product or service offering will leave an impression on your customer long after you've made the sale. Brand identity is the process of shaping that impression.
In our blog “E-COMMERCE: SIMPLIFIED STEPS FOR STARTING YOUR ONLINE BUSINESS.” We touched upon how important it was to get the brand identity right. In this blog we will go a little more in depth and help you to ascertain how to go about doing it correctly.
Importance of a Sound Brand Identity
The true success of a brand is when it has the ability to live and evolve in the minds and hearts of its most loyal customers. This is why getting its identity absolutely spot on is extremely crucial to the future of the business. And while we have been speaking extensively about online stores and E-commerce businesses, a well thought out brand identity is the most fundamental requirement for any business across industry spectrums, whether you are a restaurant owner, offer professional services, are in the music, entertainment or sports industry. Setting up and sustaining a sound brand identity is equally important for you. Below are some essential reasons for you to develop a well-defined brand identity.
First Impressions
The logo and identity of your brand is not just making it a first impression. It is in fact the face of your business for further transactions as well. Any logo or brand identity needs to associate with the ethos of your company and not just look or sound cool and contemporary. It should ideally also be simple to relate the name of the brand with the brand itself which is why the best and most recognized identities in the world are in fact simple and easy to associate with and remember.
The Trust of Credibility
Having a sound brand identity in place doesn't just make your product or service more memorable and recognizable. It also makes your brand more authoritative in the marketplace where there are several other brands who are competing for your share of the pie. A brand that establishes a face, maintains that face consistently over time, and develops a sustained credibility amongst its competition in their target market, typically have better results than the brands who do not share that trust and recognition.
Future Advertising
A brand’s identity is essentially a template for everything you would include on an advertisement, digital or otherwise, for your E-commerce online store. A brand with a face and industry credibility is always better prepared to promote itself and make a strong and immediate impression on potential buyers, thereby justifying huge advertising costs and budgets as well.
An Image to Uphold
Not like your business needed the extra motivation, but a properly formulated brand identity gives your organization a level to uphold since that is the impression of the brand in the public eye. This gives your company a purpose, almost like an added incentive. One can almost think of a brand identity as the first and foremost mission statement for your company.
Generating New Customers
A comprehensively created brand identity will also help you generate new business by enticing and calling out to newer potential customers. An attractive logo, tagline and color palate all help to draw a potential customer towards your service hence making it an essential component to increase sales as well.
Delighting Existing Ones
A brand identity does not just play a part in attracting more and newer customers to your products and services. It also plays an integral role in maintaining stickiness with the brand and results in what are possible repeat transactions. A consistent brand identity gives repeat customers a sense of familiarity and belonging.
Logo Identity
A logo is an integral part in establishing your brand identity. It becomes the face of your brand, products or services. It is essentially recognized visually through the medium of the logo that you create to represent your brand. Having a logo that is easily recognizable and a logo that your brand story and mission statement associate with is therefore a key starting point to getting your brand identity correct.
While there are several aspects that go into designing a prominent and familiar logo, the best logos all share certain major characteristics, no matter the differences that make them unique. While the other factors may change due to industry requirements and other such parameters, these essential characteristics tend to repeat themselves across industry examples.
Simplicity
The most impactful and successful logos in time have been very simple to look at and associate with. A great example would be the Nike swoosh or then Apple’s eponymous design. A simple logo is easy to recognize and also recall. Simplicity is a key ingredient for logos because most consumers have a habit of only focusing on a logo for a short time. Simple logo designs also express a brand’s personality concisely and effectively without the consumer having to invest too much thought behind it.
Designing a simple logo includes focusing more on aspects like colors and fonts as well as on distilling ideas into their simplest form. For example, symbols are a very strong way of creating simplicity, since they have the ability to instill ready and easy mental association with a particular set of values or thoughts. Letters and word marks are also great ideas to design simple logos. This helps because the brand is dispensing with images and focusing instead on communicating its personality directly with only fonts and color. Overall, the most important aspect is to focus on using as few elements as possible to communicate your brand’s identity.
Relevance
Almost all of the best logos around share the quality of relevance to their markets and their target consumers. This is important because a relevant logo has the ability to clearly communicate a brand’s personality and its desired identity. A primary component is the use of colors in your logo, which can trigger different emotions and show your brand’s personality to consumers. The other important component is the font used in the logo. A clear, precise and memorable font will help communicate the brand’s tone and values, which is ultimately what defining a sound branding identity is all about. Angular, thin and robotic fonts for example are ideal for highlighting a company that works in technology while softer cursives are excellent for companies that work in jewelry or articles of finesse and worth.
Choosing the right symbol is also a key aspect of establishing a visual anchor for the logo and the eventual brand. Symbols do not just add gravitas to the logo, they can also be used as themselves to further the identity of the brand. When used creatively, symbols are also used as connection builders between your brand and the ideas and values behind it.
Recall
A logo is not doing a very good job for your brand if it pales in comparison to the competition. One of the key utilities of a logo apart from it representing the face of your brand is for it to stand out from amongst your competition. It therefore becomes important that the logo for your brand is also memorable, from the first time that it is released for public consumption. When the consumer is easily able to recall your logo, they are also immediately recalling the brand, its products and its services. Logos that are easy to remember and produce a strong impact are valuable because they help your brand stick in consumers’ minds.
Memorable logos tend to combine most of the aforementioned elements discussed above. However, they also work towards finding a right balance between visual, textual and symbolic aspects. More importantly, they clearly and cohesively communicate the brand’s personality and tone at first glance because we all know how important a first impression can be. Trying to be unique is an important way to make your logo memorable and have good brand recall. Even in industries where there are standards and common norms for designs, the logo must always endeavor to stick out from the pack all the time.
Posterity
It is always a temptation to keep tweaking or transforming your brand’s identity as per market trends, fashion and the times. However, this is essentially against all the aspects of continuity and brand recall and strongly not an industry practice that is recommended. Instead, all efforts should be made to come up with a logo that stands the test of time and the trials and tribulations of an ever-evolving market face. It is important to remember that best logos stand out from the pack because they remain relevant and effective over the years. A timeless logo can be best described as a logo which will retain its relevance and connect with users no matter when it is being used. The best examples that are out there and have proven this time test include McDonald’s golden arches and Coca-Cola’s iconic word mark.
To build a timeless logo it is essential to focus exclusively on your brand’s core ideas and values and to unravel the most effective method to transmit them without unnecessary clutter. Keeping colors simple and basic, ignoring gradients and massive palettes in favor of more selective and unique colors along with a time-tested font is usually a simple recipe to come up with that eternal masterpiece of a logo for your brand.
Versatility
We have underlined the importance of having a logo represent the ethos of your brand as the visual face in the above points and also how it needs to stay consistent to ensure repeat recall and brand value in terms of sales. This is why it is even more important for your logo to have a sense of versatility to it. A good logo can and should be used in a variety of ways, shapes, and situations. For example, a logo you can only use in one size online is not very good, as it limits the ways you can expose your brand to the world. On the other hand, choosing a logo that can be resized, printed, or placed on different media makes your brand significantly more visible and also less monotonous and boring.
On a design level, keeping the clutter to a minimum and opting for a simple design will instantly make your logo more versatile. Having too many lines, flourishes, elements, or colors can create a complicated design that will scale poorly.
Creating a brand identity or even having a logo drawn up are not jobs for anyone with limited or little knowledge of how the process works. It is essential to understand that there are people who specialize in thinking and executing a sound brand identity which includes a terrific and recalling logo design as well.
AmareSol Global is a digital business consultancy creating innovative change through a team of talented designers, developers, and strategists creating digital experiences for brands and companies around the world. We are continuously fueling growth across constantly changing and advancing digital landscapes, by seeking and formulating newer and better ways to service clientele on a global scale across industries. Look up more about us at www.amaresolglobal.com