A couple of weeks ago, I went on a weekend break to North Wales. When on a “mini-holiday”, it’s easy to walk around aimlessly and just observe what is around us with a more careful eye. I went into shops, looked at hotel fascias and even observed how some street vendors sold their products. It was an interesting experience.
Most of all, I tried to observe the reasons why I decided to do something, go through a shop door, pick something up from the shelf, be it a product or even food, and ultimately go to the cashier and exchange my money for it. On holiday, our guard is down, we kind of let ourselves be persuaded by beautiful, interesting and superfluous things, even if we know perfectly well that we don’t need them. There are some things that make us do that, be it circumstance or mood, but the power of a brand is also one of them.
Walking around the resort of Llandudno, my partner and I decided to have a coffee on the afternoon of the first day. We were walking around and, because there were many options, it took a little while for us to decide where to go to. Yes, we had Costa Coffee and those of the sort and then all the little local cafes. Hummm, where to go? When we thought of Costa Coffee, we immediately thought of slouching on a nice big leather sofa, already imagining the comfort and relaxation that that coffee was going to bring to our little tired feet. We also thought that the coffee there is always good, therefore we wouldn’t have a nasty surprise. The other coffee shops looked nice too, but didn’t bring me the sensation that I had when only thinking about having my coffee at Costa.
Why does that happen, then? What makes us think of a place and be taken straight into the kind of mood that that brand wants us to be in? This is powerful. It takes time for a brand to achieve that and it’s not that easy. In the end, we decided on a different café, which was cosy and homely, with lovely local decorations, all very personable. You had to enter to experience, though, and it was the café fascia that made us do exactly that. Their visual identity managed to show us from the outside a little bit of the inside. Again, what you say about your product on a shop fascia, a shop window, on a website or even on the street, can have enormous persuasion power to make people do exactly what you want them to do: experience whatever it is that you offer, become a client, come back for more.
In the hotel, it was the same story. After checking in, we went to our room and I saw that on the coffee tray there was a Nescafe sachet. I immediately thought: “nice choice, it’ll be a nice decent coffee”. Why did I think that? Would it be the numerous TV adverts I have watched throughout my life telling me how good Nescafe is that made me immediately think that the hotel had made a good choice and I would enjoy my coffee thoroughly?
Coming out of the hotel for a little walk before dinner, I entered little crafty shops and also some home accessories ones. They were not chain shops and there were many of them, but I made my decision to go in purely because of the feel I got from the window. The window display, the logo, the cleanliness and smiling faces of people coming out did have a substantial affect on my choices. It’s incredible how some brands manage to pass the message about who they are in an instant, in comparison to others that just leave us confused and not interested at all.
Companies are very much aware of branding these days, but what is branding, really? A logo? A nice visual identity? No, branding goes way beyond that. Branding is what makes your business different, what makes people choose you instead of your competitors. It’s what your company or product make people feel. Branding is a set of associations your customers or prospects have of your product or service, which can be the result of your own efforts and actively promoted through marketing and corporate identity. Branding also reflects your customers’ experiences of your business and affects every interaction you have with your customers and suppliers.
The intelligent use of design, advertising, marketing, service proposition, and corporate culture can all help to generate associations in people’s minds that will benefit your business, but a good brand is one that represents a business’ true values. Therefore, it is important to always be clear about what your business stands for. Successful branding is about promoting your strengths, so you need to be sure that you can always deliver your promises using these strengths.
Every business wants to be a customer’s first choice. Building and managing a brand can play a significant part in making that happen. Now, check out your brand. What does it say to people? Does it reflect the company you are and your values? If not, you probably need to be true to yourself and to what is important to your business and possibly make a few changes. When you show who you really are as a company, you will generate more, be it sales, exposure , customer loyalty or all of them!
Marilia Spindler is an Account Executive at Happy Creative, a full service marketing agency based in Blackpool, Lancashire. To learn more or contact us please go to www.happy-creative.co.uk
