Five reasons why brand design is a must

Five reasons why brand design is a must

Five reasons why brand design is a must

A business knows it’s onto a winning formula when its name, logo, colour scheme and values become instantly recognisable. A brand that reflects the business’s personality – communicating its purpose and key selling points with ease – builds familiarity and loyalty with customers.

What’s the secret to the formula? Does the secret even really exist? To find out, let’s break down the five key reasons why great brand design is a must for businesses and look at why it’s crucial to get each one right.

 

 

 

Nike swoosh1 – Branding is more than visual identity

Increasingly, a strong brand includes values and propositions that echo consumer sentiment: things like being open about diverse hiring practices, ethical credentials and responding effectively and transparently to market needs. The gold standard is when that simple logo makes people instantly think of the service and values that are important to them.

 

 

Uber on mobile phone2 – Branding makes your business stand out

The world is a crowded marketplace where even disruptor businesses like airbnb and Uber have had other disruptor brands trying to disrupt them. Despite this, the one thing a competitor can’t take away from a rival brand is that business’s identity – which is often so strong, people remember a logo, colour scheme or unique proposition long after that brand has disappeared from the marketplace. It’s why another car-sharing service would look too derivative if it named itself with a single German word or used white sans serif font on a black background: for better or worse, Uber has that branding cornered.

 

Chanel No 53 – A strong brand attracts loyal customers

When it comes to customer loyalty, often the smallest things are the most important: returning a product for free, getting an exclusive discount, or being open at times when people need to use the service most. The same goes for branding – having a clear, consistent visual identity engenders people’s trust and makes you a go-to business.

 

 

Apple Store Logo4 – Good branding keeps things consistent

With strong branding – which includes everything from logos to sales lines – a customer can expect the same visual and verbal messaging on whichever of your channels they land on. This gets more important as time goes on and your web of marketing channels increases. A customer might end up on your Instagram account before they’ve ever seen a social media ad or Google search result that takes them to your website, so it’s essential to make sure they know they’re interacting with the same brand.

 

Brand strategy5 – Branding needs to be done right

The problem with branding is most people think they know how to do it. In reality, creating a truly unique logo, verbal proposition and sustainable, long-term brand plan takes deep knowledge of the brand process. If you’re starting up a business and want to define the brand, get some advice from a branding professional and they’ll help you bring your brand dreams to life.

 

 

Time to rethink your brand strategy? Perhaps you don’t have one yet. We’re here for free advice and a friendly chat – get in touch.

Think! Associates Limited
+44 (0)1823 423212
studio@thinkassociates.co.uk

Think! Associates Limited
+44 (0)1823 423212
studio@thinkassociates.co.uk

© Think! Design Associates Ltd

Website designed by us, naturally!

© Think! Design Associates Ltd

Website designed by us, naturally!

Five rebrands that didn’t work, and why

Five rebrands that didn’t work, and why

Five rebrands that didn’t work, and why

Because all the money in the world can’t make a design misstep look good.

 

A rebrand is an anxious time for business owners: what will it say about their brand, how much will it cost and – crucially – how will customers take it? So, you can imagine the mortified looks when a costly change of positioning (and we’re talking *millions*) doesn’t take off – or even fails so spectacularly you wonder why they bothered changing things in the first place. Here are five of the most notoriously negative rebrands.

 

Tropicana

Staple of hotel breakfast buffets, Tropicana juice cartons had a sleek makeover in 2009 that swapped its hallmark logo and lush fruit imagery for a pared-back but ultimately ubiquitous redesign.

Consumers failed to recognise the cartons as the brand they’d become accustomed to and domestic sales dropped by around 20%, hitting both the juicemaker and the farmers who supply it. Observing the poor reception, Tropicana swiftly reverted back to the original branding and pretended the whole thing never happened.

 

Mastercard

Sometimes it’s adding elements, rather than taking them away, that causes the issue. Mastercard did the opposite of Tropicana and made their branding design more complex, adding in a new element between the two iconic circles that have become synonymous with the credit card issuer.

The redesign was not well received, although the logo did need an update: Mastercard simply made the circles intersecting block colours, giving their infamous logo a more contemporary edge. The design with three circles is now used for its corporate communications instead.

 

Weight Watchers

The weight management company decided to do away with not just its old logo but its entire identity when it rebranded in 2018. The CEO said the ‘WW’ insignia doesn’t stands for anything, but the ‘Wellness that Works’ strapline might be – according to some – a cynical ploy to pivot from its traditional dieting model into something that promotes more sustainable changes to health and lifestyle. By overhauling the design into something simpler, and adopting a darker shade of blue than its previous branding, many felt WW’s identity looked too ubiquitous and corporate: not ideal for a product that’s designed to be approachable, accessible and concerned about the health and wellbeing of its users on a personal level.

Like Tropicana, this *ahem* slimmed-down reimagining of the Weight Watchers identity both won and lost consumer support, with many left confused as to what services the company would now be offering them. Customer concern wasn’t enough to deter WW though – the brand has stuck by its new identity to this day.

 

PwC

When most people think of accounting powerhouse PriceWaterhouseCoopers, they thankfully don’t remember the failed 2002 attempt to rebrand its consulting arm to Monday. Achingly on-trend at the time, it was perhaps too cool for its own good, seeming a great distance from the altogether corporate functions of the business.

The brand was met with unsurprising derision and, despite its parent firm’s continued support, it was bought by IBM and the Monday identity was expunged by the merger. The twist in the tale is that PriceWaterhouseCoopers then decided to rebrand their own identity, producing the actually-quite-sensible PwC logo– because who really ever said the name in full anyway?

 

Pepsi

Whether you’re a creative or a brand owner, sometimes your desire for a change in design can turn a straightforward process into a parody of itself. Take the example of Pepsi, which spent a considerable amount of money with agency Arnell to turn its iconic logo into something… well, basically exactly the same. Apparently, the agency’s rationale for the reimagined logo was extensive and abstract, which makes the near-identical design of the ‘rebranded’ identity rather perplexing.

Perhaps reassuringly, the public seemed largely apathetic to the rebrand – possibly because Pepsi’s subsequent advertising missteps were so infamously ill-judged.

 

 

Are you thinking about rebranding but want to avoid a design disaster? Get in touch to find out more about brand consulting and how it can transform your business.

Think! Associates Limited
+44 (0)1823 423212
studio@thinkassociates.co.uk

Think! Associates Limited
+44 (0)1823 423212
studio@thinkassociates.co.uk

© Think! Design Associates Ltd

Website designed by us, naturally!

© Think! Design Associates Ltd

Website designed by us, naturally!

Meet the team – Tom

Meet the team – Tom

Meet the team – Tom

Alan

My family and I will agree I was an annoying but creative child – building towering lego cities in my bedroom or angsting over needlessly intricate art and construction projects for school. I was also quite fat, spending too much time on indoor pursuits like watching TV and teaching myself skills in graphic design, web coding and feature writing, the latter of which I used for the local newspaper as soon as they’d let me contribute (read: so I’d stop emailing them to ask for a job as a junior reporter).

At university in Bristol, where I studied literature, I spent every free day interning at a lifestyle magazine for the elite addresses of Clifton; helping create adverts and layout editorials with self-taught graphic design skills as well as writing monthly travel, property and technology features.

During those three years, the media bug bit hard – fancy press trips and creative brainstorming sessions became my world, and when I finally graduated I got a grown-up job right upstairs from the magazine office, with another publishing company, this time in scientific research.

We sourced content from across Europe and, with a knack for languages that even I can’t explain, I was put in charge of working with the teams in Spain and Italy. In early 2011, with rudimentary Spanish under my belt, I quit my job and moved to Barcelona to study the language full time, living in the heart of the gothic quarter.

Returning to the UK that summer and hungry for another adventure, I moved immediately (and rather recklessly) to London, having preached my disdain for the capital for several years prior. Here, I learned workplace diplomacy at a chaotic but electric events management company opposite Big Ben, tried marketing management at a world-leading publishing company I was wildly underqualified for, and ended up at a boutique copywriting agency on the South Bank – my dream role at the time.

After two educational but exhausting years in London, it was copywriting that moved me to Zurich, Switzerland. Continental life suited me perfectly and I found myself (both personally and professionally). My workplace – a Swedish multinational in the travel and education sector – was also my social group. After six wonderful years I decided to move back to the UK, with friends for life and new skills in project management, art direction, business strategy and leadership added to my CV.

I met the Think! Associates team on a project in summer 2019 and was instantly engrossed by Alan, Dora and Dan’s tales of design, art direction and strategy from across the decades. We realised there was an exciting opportunity to offer up my skills and experience whilst honing new ones in the cosy Think! Studio – and the best, as they say, is yet to come!

Think! Associates Limited
+44 (0)1823 423212
studio@thinkassociates.co.uk

Think! Associates Limited
+44 (0)1823 423212
studio@thinkassociates.co.uk

© Think! Design Associates Ltd

Website designed by us, naturally!

© Think! Design Associates Ltd

Website designed by us, naturally!

Meet the team – Dora

Meet the team – Dora

Meet the team – Dora

Alan

I graduated from art college in 1989 and immediately moved to London where I teamed up with a young copywriter. As we prepared our portfolio, we were eager and full of expectation for our first job but it was to be much tougher than we expected. The pursuit of creative positions within the advertising industry was fiercely competitive and the financial recession at that time had a huge impact on recruitment.

We experienced many rejections and knock-backs, and there were times when we wanted to give up. But we persevered until finally we landed our first full-time position within a small, but prominent, agency in Covent Garden where we found ourselves working on some exciting accounts such as Mini and Silk Cut cigarettes (how times have changed!). It was a rewarding and highly valuable experience, but junior art directors were not well paid and I knew I wouldn’t be able to stay in The City for long.

A move home to Dorset in the early 90s, and a new start at an agency in Bournemouth, saw my career return to graphic design – but not to a drawing board as I had been trained to do. Apple Macintosh computers were emerging in the creative industry in the UK and, as designers quickly adapted to the new digital technology, our roles changed significantly as huge new possibilities in creative communication opened up.

Changes in my personal life a couple of years later saw me head up to Reading where I worked for a small consultancy on major brands such as Microsoft and Denplan. Around this time, I also fulfilled a desire I’d had to serve in the armed forces and I took a commission as a reservist in the Royal Navy. So began the juggling of two very diverse careers.

In 1996, I took up a new position as a senior designer in Bristol and it was here that I first became involved in client meetings. I found that I was fully at ease in presenting proposals and I thoroughly enjoyed the client contact – all valuable preparation for the future.

My final move was to South Somerset where my husband and I bought our first house and where both my children were born. Taking the time to bring up young children and invest in family life was, without doubt, exceptionally rewarding but I knew I was not ready to let go of a career I’d worked so hard to attain. I returned to work, initially on a part-time basis, offering freelance design services to a Taunton agency which is where I met my Think! business partner and trusted ally and friend Alan.

We set up Think! in 2001 and have seen the business transition and diversify over the years, but it remains true to what we believed in from the start – that through a process of strategic thinking and creative design, we could help transform businesses by establishing strong brands that would drive growth. Our ethos – when our clients succeed, so do we – is what drives us still!

Think! Associates Limited
+44 (0)1823 423212
studio@thinkassociates.co.uk

Think! Associates Limited
+44 (0)1823 423212
studio@thinkassociates.co.uk

© Think! Design Associates Ltd

Website designed by us, naturally!

© Think! Design Associates Ltd

Website designed by us, naturally!

Meet the team – Dan

Meet the team – Dan

Meet the team – Dan

Alan

Motoring was always an interest for me so my first design job after leaving university in 2000 was something of a treat – designing vehicle liveries as part of the largest signage factory in the UK. This meant working on special projects for clients such as Jaguar, Land Rover, and Ford, but also designing the wraps for emergency vehicles with their iconic graphics – and believe me, the squares on police cars are more complicated than you would think! Essentially it involved creating a giant 2D jigsaw puzzle that has to fit and align once it was cut from reflective material and applied over the complex curves of the vehicle. Alongside the livery work I also designed various signage projects during the time, including some that showed up on the set of Eastenders.

It was definitely a steep learning curve, managing different projects at once and making plenty of mistakes along the way. But it was also time well spent for a different reason – I found out what I didn’t want to do for the rest of my design career. So, after two very intense years, I’d had enough of police cars and ambulances and took the decision to leave to do some part time design teaching at Bridgwater College, alongside some freelance design work.

Several interesting projects came along in this time including t-shirt designs for clothing brand Howies, and working on book designs for a couple of independent publishers. Moving on from the college I worked for a small marketing company producing brands for South West firms such as food producer Jon Thorners and furniture company Myakka. This was the kind of design work I really enjoyed.

In 2004 I contacted Think! Design Associates and they offered me some freelance opportunities. It worked out well, and after many successful projects, I was offered a permanent position in autumn 2006. What has been different working at Think! compared to previous jobs has been building relationships with clients, being part of their brand journey over a long time – for some clients that’s been for more than a decade. When they blossom I’m proud to be able to say that I contributed to it.

Around the time I started working at Think! some new neighbours moved in, one of whom was illustrator and printmaker Jim Starr. We found common ground (largely in the local pub) over our enthusiasm for art and design. So we arranged and hosted several small, but well received art shows in the region. This meant I could keep my hand in with illustration and art projects – something I continue to do in my free time. And this experience was invaluable when, in 2013, some friends in Cornwall asked if I’d like to get involved with a new and darkly themed exhibition, which aimed to showcase South West artists in a beautiful, rustic National Trust setting near the sea. Seven years and six shows later The Cruel & Curious is a well respected event, with a dedicated audience. Not only am I part of the creative and marketing team, but I get to exhibit my own artwork too!

Think! Associates Limited
+44 (0)1823 423212
studio@thinkassociates.co.uk

Think! Associates Limited
+44 (0)1823 423212
studio@thinkassociates.co.uk

© Think! Design Associates Ltd

Website designed by us, naturally!

© Think! Design Associates Ltd

Website designed by us, naturally!