Branding is so much more than just a logo. From the tone of voice throughout your content to the colours, photography and video used throughout the site and transferring across multiple platforms on social media and email marketing, your branding encapsulates so much more than just a logo.
With many brands, it’s important to recognise the brand personality; think Innocent Drinks. Along with their products, they have a cheeky tone of voice throughout their entire branding, from the little touches of personality on their bottles to their humour on their social media. They do projects throughout the year to focus on things they’re passionate about, their mini hats on the bottles in aid of Age UK and their pledge to be sustainable and a little more green; all this and I’ve not once mentioned their logo or icon. Don’t get us wrong, the logo is incredibly important, we put in a lot of time to design a logo, but, once you’ve got one, you can’t just sit back and believe your branding work is done because it’s an ongoing process.
To give an overview of how adigi do branding, we always begin with an initial consultation with you; whether that’s reviewing your current branding or starting from scratch with a new brand. We take the time to discuss your business and how you want your logo to reflect that, and also your future plans so we can ensure your branding is future proof to cover expansion and growth in the future.
David Wood Foods for example are a food production company, with eight sites around the United Kingdom with the facility to produce a huge variety of food products from ready meals to bread and food-to-go items to name a few, all own brand and produced for some of the biggest UK retailers. Beginning ten years ago as David Wood Baking, the name no longer encompassed everything they can now produce and so we rebranded as David Wood Foods, producing a whole new logo and brand identity. We played around with options for names but ultimately, just changing the ‘baking’ to ‘foods’ was a way to retain their heritage and recognisability factor for the brand, future proofing the brand for future growth within the industry whilst saying exactly what they produce – food!
The logo needed to work just as well on the side of a factory as it will on chefs whites, any packaging necessary and also online. We decided to use an icon in with the logo which can be used on and offline but will work particularly well on social media where the text is often unreadable in a smaller profile photos. For such an established business with a lot of strands to production and products, we went with the icon that could lend itself to be a wheat sheaf as it’s a base ingredient for many food products especially their breads but is abstract enough that it could be a few plants used as ingredients.
To further expand on the David Wood Foods branding, we also have worked on multiple photoshoots for them. It’s important that on their website, there’s a range of foods showcased that they’re able to produce. With a focus on creating lifestyle led imagery, each dish was styled according to how they would be enjoyed in the home with every item out of packet. We’ve now produced a wonderful array of photography for their portfolio which is now being used online but also offline for use around their sites, sent to buyers and used at trade shows.
Heritage brand Vale of Mowbray have been baking pork pies for 90 years. With an existing logo, we have taken the brand and, via a number of strategies, updated the branding – whilst keeping the existing logo. Our vision for the brand lies in the fact that we want to keep the heritage whilst ensuring the products are kept modern and enjoyed how they would be today. The first recorded pork pie recipe was in the kitchen of King Richard II in 1390 – since then, us Brits have been enjoying the humble pork pie. Of course, now we might be enjoying them with a craft beer. To achieve this, to modernise the pie, we’ve adopted a number of strategies for this project including a number of photography and video shoots to showcase the number of ways a pork pie can be served. We’ve launched various of social media channels to reach new audiences and keep in touch via a monthly email campaign and regular competitions. The tone of voice in blogs and recipes of what to eat with a pork pie is kept consistent throughout but overall is friendly and engaging, always wanting to start a conversation between Vale and their customers. Branding in this case is much more about the imagery used and tone of voice; breathing new life into a heritage brand and keeping the product modern despite how long we’ve been enjoying them, always planning new seasonal ideas.
Having a memorable impact and impression on consumers and clients as to what they can expect from your company. Done well, branding can change how your brand is perceived and how people engage with it; in a shop for example, if two identical products were sat side by side, what factors would make you reach for one in particular? Factors of convenience aside, the branding would make a difference, opting for the one that stands out for you whether in terms of colours, how they work with the product, logo and how it’s all styled together. Branding then, can quite literally affect new business and how many people purchase products or engage with you to enquire about a service.
Gaining that brand recognition is imperative to gain and then retain new custom, going back to our earlier example of Innocent smoothies; on a shelf with another similar product, we’ve often found ourselves reaching for the Innocent. This is based off seeing the brand before, previous purchase and the satisfaction of this but also the branding, cheeky styling and also the fact of their brand ethics; the money donated to charity or the environmental pledges of the product.
The logo is important, we wouldn’t detract from that – after all, we spent lots of time designing them! But, next time you do think of branding, we hope you don’t solely think of the logo and instead focus on the multitude of factors that sit alongside the logo.
