Logo no be branding: E shock you?
A lot of people have different definitions of what branding should be. From packaging to “padding realities with lies and high sounding words” to an amazing logo or attractive colours; we have a lot of thoughts flying around on what it means to build a brand.
On one of those days, I stumbled on a LinkedIn post by Seyi Olaniyan that read, “What is branding without an identity” and it struck me that I could help to expand the scope of definitions for a lot of people. Praise Philemon defines the term as “an unapologetic effort to be different” and I will build on it to say, branding includes a combination of efforts that help to nudge people towards you in the middle of other options. So, it starts with identifying you to connecting with you or who you say you are to seeing you as the option that helps them achieve a particular feeling or result at time T.
Every day we make decisions on who or what is the best thing to help us achieve a result or feeling in our head, and more often than not, what branding should do is to position you as the option of choice anytime those decisions need to be made. “Oh, I want to feel good!” “Yeah, this Nike kicks do the job.” “I am very hungry…but e go better to chop here oh, cos they have a reputation for good food, great service and nice ambience.”
In a nutshell, at every time T, branding is whatever you need to do to remind people that you are the man for the job. So, can you have a bad logo and still have a good brand?
Pause! I work in a Design agency. I should think carefully before giving an answer but yeah, the answer is yes. The truth? You do not need a logo to have an endearing brand. So, as much as you want to have a visual identity system (logo, patterns, illustrations etc), you should be paying attention to the experience that they remind people of.
What does your customer service look like?
Do people trust that you pay attention to the very important details to give them the best?
What is your communication pattern (tone of voice, key messages, personality etc)?
Are you consistent with passing the right information to the right people? More like, do you even know the people you are serving and how they want to be served?
The truth is, people know what they want and even when you trick them into buying from you — the first time—based on “packaging”, they may not fall for it the second time.
This is not even about just listening to feedback, but understanding the “why” behind the requests. Like the popular reference that, if they had asked the people in the times of horses what they needed for faster transportation, they would have just replied with faster horses. But, cars came in — faster, innit? but with a lot more in the mix.
You know those premium Buka’s in your area that have no signages but some of the biggest people in town, pack their cars and adjust their agbadas to have sumptuous meals shey? I used to know two in Akure then — Sebi and Pounded yam village, even though the latter is now disputed.
Pay attention to the things that a logo will remind people of — just as much as you pay attention to how the visual expressions will look.
You wey get a good logo, what does it remind people of?
