Why Brand Matters Today
To understand why brand matters today, let’s revisit the origin and evolution of brand throughout history. 🕰
Historical Context
In its beginnings, brand was used to signify ownership. Farmers routinely branded their cattle, and craftsmen and merchants would mark their products with a distinct name or design. Each of these marks distinguished the product for a specific purpose.
As a result of the Industrial Revolution, more and more products entered the market. And as consumers began to have more and more choices, brands had to adapt. Brands began trademarking what we would now call, "brand assets", under the Trademark Act of 1870.
Throughout the golden age of invention, innovation was at its peak. This time period coupled with mass production in the 1920s led to not only more products being produced, but also more means of communication with consumers. Hey, radio and TV. 👋
Following WWII, after living with wartime rationing policies, American consumers were anxious to spend their disposable income. There was a major economic boom. Brands now had to ensure that their products stood out from their competition. It was around this time that intentional, emotional advertising was born.
Now fast forward 30 years to the digital age. TV ads are continuing to skyrocket, print ads are diminishing, and social media is taking the head seat at the table. (To clarify: We believe that print is more important now than ever. Talk about a way to bring your consumer unexpected delight. But that’s a conversation for another day. ☕)
The internet and social media revolutionized branding. Not only can brands do more and be more precise in their advertising efforts, but there are fewer barriers to entry for entrepreneurs than ever before, resulting in a mass amount of new businesses. With so many options and an endless amount of information online (or in your consumer's pocket 📲), brands must find a way to elevate beyond just being seen. They must elicit a feeling.
Why Brand Matters Today
Every encounter a consumer has with your brand is part of the brand experience. And the best brand experiences are ones that consistently elicit a feeling that their audience is looking for when interacting with the brand.
When consumers find a brand that fills a specific desire and that brand creates an experience where the consumer’s needs are being met, a connection is formed that surpasses the functionalities of the product. The brand becomes a part of the consumer’s identity.
A well-designed brand experience frees your brand from being beholden to digital platforms that are ever-changing and becoming more costly to advertise on. While a digital presence is necessary, spending an excessive amount of money on digital ads is not. Let’s talk about an alternative investment to driving sales: brand development.
A strong brand experience creates loyal brand consumers – driving sales through loyalty and organic word-of-mouth growth. When you think about it, what is more impactful than our own experiences? We’re social creatures, wired to share our experiences and tell our stories.
Through a quick search, you can find plenty of reputable surveys publishing statistics on the power of brand experience and word-of-mouth marketing. To summarize it simply:
Consumers are more likely to recommend a brand to a friend when the experience meets expectations.
Consumers are more likely to trust a friend’s opinion over a digital advertisement.
Creating an irresistible brand experience is the future of branding. This investment is the soundest way to build a resilient brand that will withstand technological, social, political, and economic change. Without investing in brand development, you’re left over-spending on digital advertising and upper-limiting your brand’s long-term success.
Digital ads may be a quick “band-aid” fix for revenue in the door now, but without a purpose driven brand with a strong brand experience, consumers are likely to move on to the next brand. Plus, what happens when the barrier to digital ads outweighs what you can afford, or technology is changing faster than your brand can keep up with? Or, who knows, what if digital advertising becomes irrelevant in some way?
The point is, by solely relying on digital algorithms, you’re putting the fate of your brand in someone else’s hands. If you want to build a brand experience where consumers not only stay but tell their friends too, it starts with identifying why you’re in business and who you're serving.
To own your brand, you must know it on a deep level.
How We Approach Brand
For as long as we’ve been in business, the idea of our clients owning their brands has been a central theme in our product development.
At first, this meant never holding brand assets hostage from any client – an unfortunate common practice in our industry. A decade later, we have evolved our brand development process to not only empower our clients to own their brands but to design resilient brands – built to weather the change ahead.
We put purpose at the core of our brand development. Working from the inside out to build an authentic, cohesive brand experience – one designed to build loyal brand consumers.
Through a human-centered approach to problem-solving, we help brands find the clarity to succeed and the employee buy-in to scale. This looks like the following four-step process:
Brand Heart: discovering who you are
Brand Identity: leveraging who you are
Brand Culture: expanding who you are
Brand Experience: sharing who you are
At Hoot Design Company, we see purpose-driven brands as the way of the future. In fact, in 2020, Zeno Group found that when a brand has a strong purpose, consumers are:
4 times more likely to purchase from the company
6 times more likely to protect the company in the event of a misstep or public criticism
4.5 times more likely to champion the company and recommend it to friends and family
4.1 times more likely to trust the company
Consumers are looking for more from brands. It’s up to you to answer that call.
To wrap it up, we’ll leave you with one of our favorite quotes by Minouche Shafik: “In the past jobs were about muscles, now they're about brains, but in future they'll be about the heart.”
We think this sums it up pretty damn well.
Ready to own your brand?
