Placing an emphasis on human qualities is bound to get more out of your brand. That’s why the second installment of our “Memorable Brand” tutorial is focused on turning your ideas into a unique, vibrant brand personality.
Your Brand as a Mirror
Quality, innovation, tradition… these are the buzz words you’ll often hear in advertising. However, many brands tend to fail in their efforts by creating abstract phrases that customers can’t connect with.
Imagine that your Shop is a person. What would be important to the Shop? How does this person see the world, and how do others perceive him/her? Your brand is the human face of your Shop, and it helps determine how your message is delivered to your customers.
Since you want to reach the target audience that you’ve previously defined, your brand will work a bit like a mirror. Customers want to see you’re reflecting their character and desires – that’s how they connect to your brand.
Discovering the Strength of Your Brand
A person’s personality consists of countless features that may even contradict each other. However, your brand personality should have a set of clean-cut and distinctive attributes.
Which personality type is your brand; is it a cheeky rebel full of energy, or more the worldly-wise guy, all suave and debonair? There are as many as 12 archetypes, and you can figure out which one suits you best by taking the Brand Personality Quiz.
Take a closer look at your test results and analysis, and use this info to fine-tune your brand’s color concept, voice and tone, and slogans. Your “type” isn’t necessarily set in stone, but it’s a great pointer in the right direction. It may be possible that two different personality types equally suit your brand – in that case, it’s up to you to make a decision!
Giving Expression to Conviction – a Romping Space Caper
Before Spreadshirt seller Patrick launched his Shop Weltraumpilot, he tackled the question “what are my designs and Shop intended for?”
The personality of his brand quickly became clear to him, and – acting on intuition as he developed the designs and the Shop – he shaped everything after his own heart. The result is a Shop that looks particularly authentic, as it’s completely in line with the available products. At the core of Patrick’s Shop is the adventure type:
“The nam
e ‘Weltraumpilot’ (German for ‘space traveller’) gives expression to a sense of freedom and all sorts of concepts related to it. I would describe my brand as liberal, tolerant, dreamy and sometimes a bit self-deprecating. To me it is very important to display a positive attitude and not to take yourself too seriously.”
Everything from Patrick’s Shop name to the logo, photos, and (especially) the products match his personality profile. Being consistent has paid off for Patrick:
“It helps to be fully aware of the brand, and that’s something to adhere to when it comes to creating new designs. You have to be willing to discard good ideas or use them for other projects when they are no real fit for the brand.”
A Matter of Trust – The Secret of Recognition
Recurring symbols, slogans and a unified visual language are the key elements of brand success. As human beings, we are programmed to assign qualities to people (and brands!) in a subconscious way. This allows us to understand who we’re dealing with.
The stronger an image sticks in our mind, the longer this image lives on. In turn, this also creates confidence in the available products. It does require some patience, though, as Patrick experienced with Weltraumpilot: “You definitely need some perseverance as you don’t usually have a big budget to spend on developing your brand’s image. Initially takes some time until you receive any feedback at all. This applies to e.g. users responding to posts on social networks or the eagerly awaited first order. Hang in there and act with confidence!”
In the third part of this series, you can find out how to transport your brand’s personality to the outside world. We are going to provide you with practical advice for designing logos and Shop templates.
wpDiscuz
To be a memorable brand, quality service with a unique selling point is the preliminary stage. After a certain time, you will be getting bigger day by day because you are adding value to the customers and it riches your trust flow to them. For me, quality is the key.
Anyway, Patrick’s Weltraumpilot looks cool!
Patrick has done an awesome job with his WP website!
And the brand looks great too.
(you need to take the ‘s’ out of the ‘https’ in the links!!)
Fly on, space pilots!
James