The Value of Getting Your Branding Right

There’s a reason Apple is worth $733 billion. Good branding. In business your brand identity is everything. Your logo, brand story and tone of voice are the first things potential customers see, so obviously they have to be great. And to get it all right, you need to be willing to spend time and money – we know that, because we spent the last year working on our brand uplift which was launched just a few weeks ago.

Anyone can knock up a new logo design but the real value is in strategic design.

Apple is successful because they know that their customers aren’t just buying a phone, tablet or computer, they’re buying an experience. Specifically, the expected ‘Apple experience’. They completely reinvented what a shop is by creating a white canvas and interacting with ‘geniuses’ (or ‘genii’ if that floats your grammatical boat) instead of shop assistants. If you go into any Apple Store in the world, you know what you’re going to get. There’s a level of consistency that’s almost comforting.

It’s that comfort, the relationship between customer and brand, that’s key. Why else would we spend $600+ on a phone that can potentially bend when you breathe on it and has about two minutes of battery life if you use it as an actual phone?

What this shows is that people do know branding works, even if they don’t always realise they know. So, it’s vital to get your branding and your strategic design right from the start.

Design is seriously underestimated. Some people are guilty of thinking that you can copy and paste a few things without much thought, and job done! They don’t invest any time into it, and they end up with terrible design which damages their brand identity.

Good design is an investment. And a hugely worthwhile one. 

Research from the Design Council has shown that on average, for every £1 businesses invest in design, they get over £20 net turnover. Thats one hell of an ROI.

But investing time and money on design doesn’t just mean forking out for a new logo. Everything from infographics to reports, proposals and emails all need to fit with your brand. That’s why it’s not enough to release a report you made on Microsoft Word, or a presentation you slapped together in an afternoon. Everything needs to be consistent and match what you stand for. Good branding requires good design, and good design requires a good strategy.

You’ve invested the time into reading this, now invest some more into strategic design. It’s probably the best investment you’ll make this year.