Brand communication is a tool used by organisations to inform and persuade the customers about the organisation’s values and offerings.
The brand’s message can be conveyed through all elements that make up a brand’s identity. Starting from the company/product/service name, to the company logo, the tagline and finally the communications that go out in media.
In order to make your brand memorable, you can work with any of the four elements noted above. A good practice is to define the brand guidelines, which serve as a ready reckoner for everyone on the team. Brand guidelines cover all the elements noted above and much more. We shall look at some of the elements that help in making the communication of your brand very clear and succinct.
- Organisation/Product/Service Name
Organisations that have a simple easy to remember name, have been found to have a higher recall. You can do this simple exercise and see the results for yourself. Name five organisations that come to the top of your head.
Now have a look at the names. For e.g. the top 5 organisations that come to our mind maybe Amazon, Apple, IBM, TCS, Wipro.
Note how we don’t recollect the full name of any organisation. We either remember the first name or the abbreviated forms. It has been proven scientifically that recall is higher if the name is shorter. This holds true not only for organisation names but also for product/service names. We all can easily recall and remember Coke, Pepsi, iPhone, AWS, etc.
Some pointers to keep in mind when you are selecting the name of your organisation/product/service
- Keep the name short. Stick to 3 – 5 syllables (e.g. Coke, Airtel)
- Keep the name easy to remember (e.g. Apple, Lays)
- If the name is long, abbreviate it (e.g. AWS, IBM)
- Organisation Logo
The next step is to associate the name of the organisation/product/service with a visual element.
Taking the example of Amazon. If you look closely you will see an arrow, starting from the letter A and pointing to the letter Z and looking like a smile. This visual element conveys the value the organisation places on bringing smiles to their customers face. All the time ensuring they have a product catalog that covers everything from A to Z.
Some shapes are proven to have a more calming effect on the audiences. E.g. Circles are considered more inclusive than squares. Sharp lines are preferred over dashed or dotted lines.
We easily recall logos of some brands and products because their entire communication ensures that the logo is used in every communication that is sent out. The distinct yin yang with the red and blue colors of Pepsi, help in making the logo memorable.
You can ensure that your brand colors are identified and laid out clearly in your brand guidelines. All communication should make an effort to stick to those colors. The norm is to approve 3 -5 colors creating a color palette for the brand and then allowing variations of those colors. Converting the logo and name to a black and white image are also standard practices.
Once the color palette is finalized, one needs to work on making sure the fonts used in communication are also standardized. Some pointers to keep in mind while picking the font family are
- The font should be easy to read
- Spacing between letters and sentences should be limited to one eye span
- The font family should support both print and online communications
- The font family should have variations in italics and bold
We at The Soar Media strongly advocate that brands should work towards organizing their brand guidelines and build a strong communication strategy. Our team works closely with organisations to help them define their brand guidelines. Our dedicated team of graphic designers ensure that the visual elements of your logos and brand colors are easily to recollect and make an impact on the viewers mind.
We shall cover the importance of picking a tagline and how-to device a communication strategy to make your brand memorable in our next blog post.
We covered the importance of picking the right name and brand logo in our previous post. We also covered the importance of picking the right color palette and fonts in order to get your brand guidelines kick started. This post shall cover other important elements of making your brand memorable
- Tagline
A tagline is used to create a dramatic effect to make the brand more memorable. The tagline is usually a short phrase or a collection of words that gets associated with a brand.
Some of the most memorable taglines are Nike’s “Just Do It”, L’Oreal Paris’s “Because you’re worth it” and Lay’s “No one can eat just one”
The tagline helps in creating a distinct identity for the brand be it the organisation, product or service. The key pointers to bear in mind when selecting a tagline for your brand are
- Keep it short
- Use strong words that make an impact
- The words should convey a positive meaning
- It should be memorable
- It should clearly outline the differentiate of the brand
At Soar Media we work with brands to make taglines and the process is very rigorous yet robust. Our creative team has an initial meeting with the client to understand the brand’s requirement.
We follow the concepts of design thinking in every step of the process. Brainstorming sessions are a no holds barred session where there are no right or wrong. We then group the suggestions into various categories. A thorough process of shortlisting then follows. The suggested options are then shared with the client and a similar brainstorming process is followed with them too.
- Communication Strategy
The next key to building a memorable brand is to identify and define the key elements of your communication strategy.
A good communication strategy will cover all possible channels including both offline and online. The brand guidelines should clearly define the kind of publications and websites or channels that they want to be associated with.
A good communication strategy will include details on posts for social media, the use of visual and audio elements as well as the length and tone of the language.
Depending on the budget the organisation has, we strongly recommended the use of videos on social media. They cover and engage a large proportion of people compared to a visual only or an audio only audience.
Some key pointers while creating social media posts
- Each post created should convey only a single message
Having multiple messages in a social media post confuses the end viewer about the objective of the post. Sticking to one message one post, helps in keeping the communication simple and makes the post more effective. For e.g. if you are talking about product or service features, focus only on one feature
- Posts should have a strong visual element
There are varied visual elements that an organisation can choose to go with based on the brands preference. One could stick with illustrations only or use only 2-D vector art. You should pick your visual element based on the target audience. The visual element should be closely tied to the message that is being conveyed in the post
- Post text
Most social media channels posts are ineffective because they use a lot of text on the post. Keep the text on the creative to a minimum, ensuring it doesn’t take more than 20% of the creative space. The accompanying post text should also be modified according to the social media channel used. For e.g. Instagram only displays the first 125 characters and is followed by three ellipses
- Creative size
One common mistake that brands make while creating social media posts is the size of the creative used. Every social media channel specifies the sizes that can be used for advertising or for posts. Ensure that your core creative is modified and is suitable for each of the social media channels you are posting on
These are some of the key things to keep in mind while creating your brand. We would be glad to assist you on creating your brand communication. Do share your tricks or tips on how to make your brand more memorable.
