Strategic Brand Development for Business Growth

Brand development is about discovering your brand’s authentic promise and then developing communications to bring that message to life for your target audience.

Brand development for your business should recognise that your business is already unique. But more often than not, those qualities get hidden from the people that matter: the people who already share your values. We see it repeatedly; companies twist and turn to be what they think consumers want them to be. But as they chase a moving target, they lose the authenticity that made them brilliant in the first place.

Don’t try to be the next Apple, Uber or Netflix. Be you because nobody else can. You need the people who share your values to see your product or service and know there’s no choice except to choose you. Bringing out brilliance in your business has the power to turn a like-minded customer into a raving fan.

Because beige brands don’t inspire raving fans, it’s time to show your true colours.

Find your brand’s voice and then shout it proudly.

Phase 2: Discovery
We now immerse ourselves in your brand and the broader world in which it will live, stepping into your customers’ shoes to see how they encounter your brand before, during, and after engaging with your product or service. 

We audit your brand to find the “brilliant” at the core of your business, including reviewing existing assets and previous activity to build an understanding of what’s working, what’s not, and, most importantly, why. All this provides insight into how you are currently positioned versus how you will be set in the future. It’s also imperative for us to evaluate the broader market from a brand perspective. We do this via a particular graphic, positioning, messaging, analysis of competitive products and their design equities and merits.

This phase serves as an opportunity to discover underutilised or even under-discovered touchpoints for where the most significant opportunities lie for building momentum in your brand. We then stress test and adjust the Goal Post Alignment accordingly.

Phase 3: Building your brand World
Now we begin to create your brand world, developing a look, a tone, and a behaviour that are indelibly branded and instantly recognisable. Because the strongest brands live in a world of their own creation. We build familiar cues and communication devices that will become synonymous with your brand. Design strategies are agreed upon among all stakeholders before moving to the design phase.

Phase 4: Design development and production
We now create a suite of brand assets aligned with your brand strategy, enabling us to develop unusual yet practical solutions to real, previously defined opportunities. Throughout the design process, we use a prototyping model, allowing all stakeholders to scrutinise concepts as close to ‘near life’ as possible. Design development is shared with all stakeholders, enabling them to sense how an idea will work in the real world. Problems can be identified and solved early with this staged design development process. Suppliers and other project partners are introduced into this process as required, ensuring specialist expertise is introduced early and resulting in a team that’s already up to speed before final production.

Centrally managing your brand development through a platform like Basecamp can help centralise it, providing a single point of quality control that ensures consistent feedback and updates across all elements.