Branding 101: What’s Your Signature
Every excellent brand out there has a signature. Branding really is a simple complicated matter. Yeah that doesn’t make much sense, let me explain. Branding is simple in it’s concept but at times its complicated in its execution. Defining your brand can be hard, confusing, and down right challenging. We need to break branding down into is parts to understand it fully.
In our last Branding 101 post we discussed basic brand strategy. With this topic we’ll discuss ways that your brand can be expressed and recognized by your audience. To better understand your brand signature we need to look at several examples.
Brand signatures are expressed in to four of your senses. Taste, smell, sound, and sight. We hear about that secret ingredient where that is there brand. It’s that one ingredient that gives it that specific flavor. KC Masterpiece BBQ sauce is a great example of taste branding. KC Masterpiece started out in Kansas City at a BBQ restaurant. They were known for the flavor of their BBQ so much so that they began to mass produce it. They have a secret ingredient that is their branded flavor. No one else can have that flavor. It is their brand signature.
Ahhhh… onto my favorite. Otis Spunkmier cookies. I love Otis Spunkmier cookies. I don’t care where I am at, if I smell Otis Spunkmier cookies then I am there to expecting a warm hot cookie. They have a distinct smell (and FLAVOR!). I love these cookies. In fact if you want to get my attention put a plate of cookies in front of me and I’m good to go. If you have ever smelled, tasted, or cooked Otis Spunkmier cookies you would know exactly what I talking about.
Another great example of a brand signature that uses smell is of course colognes. Abercrombie and Fitch is another great example of a brand that uses smells. A good friend of mine was explaining to me that they use those bathroom air fresheners to spray their cologne in intervals. Whenever you’re in a mall you can tell that you’re by an Abercrombie and Fitch just by the smell. They do this on purpose. They are a great example of brand immersion. When you walk into their store you are immersed by their brand. The pictures (sight), the cologne (smell), and the experience do not sell the clothes but and idea. The idea that become socially cool, attractive, and popular when you wear their clothes. They are the perfect example of branding to me. On the negative side of things it is said that people who wear their clothes are “Abercrombie and Bitch” because they take on a different personality. No other clothing brand that I personally know of does it as well as they do.
This points to the fact that people don’t purchase your comodity they purchase your experience. If your experience sucks they won’t purchase from you. If they do purchase then it’s based on a real deal of a price and you probably won’t get a repeat customer.
Now, onto sound. Intel and Harley Davidson are both examples of using sound as their brand. Harley Davidson has branded their sound in way that if any other motorcycle out in the world tries to sound like their distict rumble then they will get a letter from the lawyers. Several Japanese manufacturers tried to put that one to the test. Instead they became the laughing stock of many riders.
When thinking of your business brand try to create something that is a unique signature. The worse thing you could do in my opinion is to copy someone else. I see this all the time with small businesses. Copying someone else’s brand hurts your credibility as a business and devalues you. To me it says, “I couldn’t come up with an original idea myself so I had to steal it from competition.”
Look at the various solutions you bring to many problems. Ask yourself what is unique in each of those solutions. Is there a sound, word, or jingle you could use? Does your product have a distinct smell in a good way (or even bad)? Does it have a texture, picture, or image? Is it a color like Tmobile or AT&T Wireless? Whatever you decide is your signature be sure to lean your business on that signature and incorporate it everywhere. Ultimately your brand signature should be an expression of the culture and personality of your business expressed to the world around you.
Tags: Branding
This entry was posted on Friday, December 5th, 2008 at 10:18 pm and is filed under Branding. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
wvwebguru Says:
