Say the following old mantra with me, “If it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing Branding.” Obviously, usually it ends in ‘well’ but in modern business, I think you could argue that branding is even more important than execution. After all, it’s the your identity in the eyes of the consumer that carries them through the purchase process. Your offer is a big part of that identity, for sure. But, when it comes to acquiring new customers, branding is the entire picture.

If the best product or service falls in your market and no one’s there to hear it, was it really the best?

A great business can’t function without branding. Even the best product or service isn’t any good, if no one knows it exists.

Branding isn’t just essential; it’s the very heartbeat of a successful business. It serves as the face, the essence, and the identity of your company in the eyes of the consumer. As branding in the digital age becomes increasingly saturated with messages, breaking through the noise and creating impactful brand messaging is more challenging than ever. In this blog post, we’ll delve deeper into the crucial role of branding in building a strong business identity and how AAC’s “Brand It” campaign aims to empower entrepreneurs and managers to take their branding to the next level.

The Power of Branding

A brand represents more than just a product or service; it’s the embodiment of your vision and quality. In the words of marketing expert Kevin Keller, “It’s the brand that says it all.” In a world where consumers are bombarded with digital brand messages, crafting standout branding that triggers action is a significant challenge. But, it’s not enough to drive action; you must also gauge the impact of your messaging through metrics like Brand Awareness and Brand Image.

Measuring the effectiveness of your branding decisions is key. Memorability, meaningfulness, likeability, transferability, adaptability, and protectability are crucial. These attributes are key in building an emotional connection with consumers. Your brand needs to symbolise the fulfillment of functional needs, like utility, quality, effectiveness, and reliability. But, this is only part of the equation, and the research increasingly points to the non-functional elements as the differentiating factors of branding.

So the what are non-functional elements?

Non-functional elements dive into the emotional and psychological appeal of branding, like brand personality. You can think of brand personality just like a friends personality. It’s a set of traits attached to a person, (or in this case a brands) that creates personality. These traits can draw you away from or too their personality, depending on whether or not they align with your own identity.

As branding experts Leslie Chernatony and Francesca Riley point out, brand personality can help guard against competitive infringement. Consumers humanise these characteristics, stressing the need for comprehensiveness in the alignment of your brands and your consumers traits.

When we are trying to create fantastic branding for functional and non-functional needs, we need to strive for consistency in communication, along with powerful symbols and slogans. It’s truly essential.

Okay, But Let’s Get Practical, How Do I Brand?

It’s simple.

Let’s Brand ‘It’

Step 3: Make Sure Your Attributes Align With Your Target Consumer

This is so important! If you want to connect with your consumer and bring them to a purchase, it’s essential that their attributes match.

Step 4: If They Don’t Match, You Need To Change It!

You need to change either your own attributes or your target, so you can connect with them on an emotional level.

Step 5: Create A Brand Guideline.

You brand guideline is just putting pen to paper on how you want your brand to communicate. It encompasses personality, slogans, messaging. language choices and colors for your brand to be consistent in it’s marketing messages.

Step 6: Create your marketing collateral with AAC. & Read About Our Big 3 of Branding

Once you understand your brand and the way you communicate to your consumer, you just need eyeballs on your brand. Marketing material is so important to unlock the potential of your brand and AAC does it best. Keep reading to see how, or click the button below to go to aac.com.au to shop all sorts of custom marketing collateral for your brand.

Brand It. And Brand It More.

Branding is not just an option; it’s a necessity in today’s marketplace. When we see 10,000 ads a day there’s only two ways to stand out… Number 1 is to brand more, and number 2 is to brand better, and AAC can help you with both. Branding is the essence of your business, and AAC is here to help you brand everything.

Our product design tool is a great example. We provide you, as a manager or business owner, a tool to create whatever branding resources you so choose. Even if your stick figures are more ‘stick’ than ‘figure’ with our design tool, you can create stunning graphics on the canvas of any marketing material. ID’s, signage, flyers, stickers, banners and even promotional products… Whatever it is, we can brand it for you. Bringing your brand to life is our specialty. 

Now that you’re ready to brand ‘it,’ let’s talk about the practical stuff. Beyond the theory, you need to put your brand in front of eyeballs. Creating branding and marketing resources is easy with AAC, when you get your head around the big 3 of branding.

At AAC, when it comes to branding in the physical realm, there’s a big 3 of branding we focus on.

1. Signage
2. Print Marketing
3. Apparel

These 3 are the most important in creating effective messaging for your brand. Obviously, things like online content and your website help.

But nothing beats branding the tried-and-true way.

Print marketing is high converting and cheap. Signage creates visibility for your brand in the physical world. And apparel turns the wearer into a walking talking billboard. Click the links below to shop our range.