Many consumers today are expecting more out of companies than just providing good value in products and services. A study shows that a business’ “brand” – how it is identified and perceived by the public – is defined significantly by showing social responsibility and having a higher sense of purpose than making a profit.
Building a company that connects with people on a personal and emotional level requires “conscious branding,” which begins with a business being aware of its identity (who we are, what we stand for, and what future we would like to co-design), the ecosystem it lives in and how it can add value to the world and its people, says Julius Geis (www.juliusgeis.com), a branding expert who has created strategies for over 40 companies and is the creator of Identity Built Branding™ (IBB).
“The way we relate to brands is radically different now, and the upheaval of 2020 magnified this,” Geis says. “People want brands to be a navigator for change. They expect responsible branding and for companies to be proactive and transparent.
“Brands that only see dollar signs need to shed their rigid conceptions of business. The brands of today must be living organisms that are relationship-centric inside and outside the company. When a brand is anchored in an organic identity and moving from a place of purpose, consumers are drawn to its authenticity. It’s time to move away from brand-fakes that manipulate people. Let’s embrace branding designed to strengthen our collective connections.”
Geis offers three tips for businesses to build their brand inside and outside the company in ways that connect people and a higher purpose:
Engage in organizational self-searching. Geis says companies can determine their purpose by asking questions such as: What is the core reason we are in business? What are our non-negotiable, guiding beliefs? Where do we come from, and what are our backgrounds of experience? What do we wish for the world to become? “The understanding of a company’s collective self,” Geis says, “or its founding spirit, is the focal point for strategic development and decision-making.”
Investigate disruptive relationships. A deep analysis of relationships within the company and with the outside world, Geis says, is a fundamental part of removing the obstacles on the road to company self-identity, unity, and greater purpose. “It starts with your culture and extends to everyone your company has contact with,” Geis says. “Probe relationships, from internal employee-manager connections to the relationships between the brand and its suppliers, consumers, and communities. The problems lie where these relationships are disrupted. That points to the underlying cause and leads to ways to strengthen these relationships in a sustainable manner. But without solidifying the work culture first, connecting in a stronger, sustainable fashion with consumers can’t happen.”
Embrace truth and change. “Change happens when a company finds its true sense of self and strengthens its culture accordingly, rather than continuing randomly or aimlessly and manufacturing a false identity that will inevitably crumble under the pressure of reality,” Geis says. “When you’re operating from a place of truth, your relationships are grounded in trust and a like-mindedness that allows them to move and react to the flow of business and culture. Rigid relationships built on false premises or forced connections will always struggle to evolve.”
“Many brands have lost public trust,” Geis says. “They’ve lost their power and their way. But finding or rediscovering their purpose can connect them inside the business, which must happen in order to connect with today’s consumers that demand a world awareness. As we move towards a better understanding of our interconnected culture and economy, branding in its traditional structure and motives will disappear.”
Tim Maleeny, head of planning at Ogilvy North America, speaks at the BRITE ’11 conference about how Ogilvy has designed a template (The Big Ideal) to help build brand platforms from a combination of a company’s purpose and the relevant cultural tensions it’s suited to address. The BRITE ’11 conference on brands, innovation, and technology was hosted by the Center on Global Brand Leadership at Columbia Business School. Learn more at http://www8.gsb.columbia.edu/globalbr…
A friend and ex-colleague of mine recently left her full-time job and started freelancing as a brand consultant. Like any freelancer seeking new business opportunities, she planned to create a website showcasing her past work and detailing her capabilities. But first, she had to answer a critical question: Should she create a new brand name to represent her business or simply use her own name? Since I run a brand consulting agency with one full-time employee (me), she asked for my advice.
No matter what kind of freelance work you’re doing – from brand consultant to bookkeeper – this is a question you’ll have to answer. Using your personal name means presenting yourself as an individual contributor and keeping the focus on you. Coming up with a brand name, on the other hand, will require a thorough naming process and will create some “daylight” between you and the business. Either path can work, and deciding which is right for you depends on a range of personal factors. I’ve outlined five reasons below to take the first approach: creating a new brand name for your freelance business.
A brand name suggests scale
In the past, many companies took on their founder’s names. Think Lipton, Ford, or Charles Schwab. But these companies’ modern-day counterparts are more likely to develop unique brand names like Starbucks, Tesla, or Robinhood (For the record, Starbuck is a fictional character from Moby Dick, Nikola Tesla died 60 years before the founding of Tesla Motors, and it’s unlikely Robin Hood was a real person, much less had any involvement with the financial services app.). Because of this shift, a unique brand name, rather than a founder’s name (i.e., yours) can create an impression of a larger organization, which implies more breadth and depth.
If you’re thinking, “But I don’t want anyone to think I’m more than one person,” don’t underestimate the disadvantage solo freelancers can face in competitive situations. Remember that people who’ll never meet you – whether they’re decision-makers or procurement personnel – may be making judgments based on your name alone. For example, imagine having to select one of the following brand consultancies: Catchword, Lexicon, or Sally Flakowitz. The personal name creates an awkward, apples-to-oranges situation you’re probably better off avoiding.
Speaking of scale, another benefit of a brand name is its potential to stretch as your business changes. You may not plan on building a 15-person team – but plans often change. Should your business become more than a one-person operation, a brand name provides room to grow.
This logic applies even on a project-to-project basis. When you take on a large assignment, you may need to subcontract work or hire other freelancers as teammates. When showing up at a client’s office with a colleague, introducing yourselves as independent freelancers who happen to be working together at the moment does not inspire confidence. It creates a temporary, noncommital feeling. It’s much easier – and sounds more professional – to say, “Hi, I’m Rob, and this is Sally. We’re from [BrandName].”
A brand name provides an opportunity to express ideas
What ideas and feelings does your name evoke to those who hear it? Hopefully, amongst your family and friends, at least, a host of positive adjectives are associated with your name – perhaps smart, creative, and hardworking. But for those who’ve never met you? Never heard of you? It’s just a name. Unless you go by “Sting” or “The Rock,” your name doesn’t really convey any meaning. It doesn’t tell prospective clients that you’re smart or creative. It’s not even a name you chose.
But creating a brand name allows you to say something. Some brand names are straightforward and descriptive (e.g., Best Buy), while some merely suggest an idea (e.g., Zipcar). Others venture into the abstract – they don’t carry any relevant meaning but can nevertheless convey a sense of personality, like Apple (simple) or Virgin (irreverent). No matter what approach your brand name has, you can use it to tell people something about yourself and the work you do.
Some first and last names are easier to pronounce than others, but chances are the brand name you create will be shorter than your personal name (one word rather than two, for example). And since you’re building the name from scratch, you’ll have an opportunity to ensure its ease of use. While there are exceptions, most of the best brand names are short and sweet. Names built from one or more real English words are more likely to be understood, pronounceable, and correctly spelled than many people’s names.
If you have any interest in doing business overseas, you may find your personal name has additional drawbacks. Names that are commonplace in one language or culture may appear strange or unpronounceable in other parts of the world. Your name may lead people to assume – accurately or not – that you’re from a particular country or region and, whether or not it’s fair, that assumption may come with prejudices. English, however, has become the lingua franca of global business. A real English word or two is likely to be understood and pronounceable by many business people for whom English is not a native tongue.
A brand name may be more distinctive
The flip side of the point above is that, in some cases, personal names are so common that they fail to stand out. If your name is “Niamh Moloughney,” good luck getting people to spell and pronounce it correctly. But if you’re one of the over 11,000 Ann Millers on LinkedIn, your prospective customers may have trouble remembering you or telling you apart from other freelancers.
Reviewing competitor names is a critical step in any brand naming process. In creating your brand name, you can choose to use a different naming style, pick one that’s significantly shorter or longer than competitors, or find an initial letter that’s unique to the category.
Ultimately, this decision depends heavily on your given name and surname. How common are they? Are they hard to spell or pronounce? Will they associate you with a specific language, country, or region – for better or worse? Some people’s names almost beg to be used as brand names, like Smart & Final (named after founders J.S. Smart and H.D. Final) or Fox Racing (named after founder Geoff Fox). They’re short, simple, easy to remember, and have built-in meaning or imagery. Unless you’re lucky enough to have such a distinctive, evocative name, consider creating a brand name for your freelance business.
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About a year after its 2016 launch, Pencil realized its name was bad for business. Co-founder Sydney Liu would talk about the online storytelling platform to enthusiastic listeners at events–but would-be users, thwarted by a second-rate domain name (usepencil.com) and a barrage of unrelated search results, couldn’t find its website.
So, in 2017, the company, based in Menlo Park, California, decided to redo its logo, site design, and color scheme before ultimately relaunching as Commaful. The overhaul worked almost immediately. “Within a week, we were number one on Google for our name,” Liu says, and organic sign-ups began to increase.
Rebrands are fairly common for startups and small businesses that don’t spend the time (or money) in the early stages to get their messaging, logos, or even monikers just right, says Douglas Spencer, president and chief brand strategist at marketing consultancy Spencer Brenneman. Besides discoverability issues, “they can run into legal challenges,” he says, or “find themselves with a logo that just looks amateur.”
But change is expensive: Most small companies (with less than $30 million in annual revenue) can expect to invest $90,000 to $180,000 on a rebrand, according to marketing agency Ignyte.
Fortunately, there are ways to cut down on costs–and make sure your investment pays off.
1. Do your homework.
Serial entrepreneur Dan Demsky once had to throw away thousands of dollars of packaging because of trademark infringement issues, so when it came time to brand his latest venture (men’s travel-apparel site Unbound Merino), he started with the basics. “Memorability and ease of spelling,” Demsky says, plus “having the domain name.” He also hired a good trademark attorney.
You’ll pay $2,000 to $2,500 for a comprehensive trademark search and around $1,000 for the application, says Marc Misthal, a lawyer with intellectual property firm Gottlieb, Rackman & Reisman. Expect added costs, including extension fees, if the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office rejects your application.
2. Solicit, but limit, feedback.
Opinions are a dime a dozen, so while you’ll want to run your brand plans past some employees and clients, you’ll also need to drown out the noise. When content marketing software company PathFactory–formerly known as LookBookHQ–started considering a change to its name and logo in 2017, it limited the internal brand committee to five people.
“Keeping the decision-making committee as small as possible really helped, because everyone will have their own idea of what [the brand] should be,” Cassandra Jowett, PathFactory’s senior director of marketing, says. “Changing your company’s name is not necessarily a democratic decision. Not everyone should get a vote.”
Conduct customer research, but avoid simply asking people whether they like a potential new name, logo, or color scheme, says Emily Brackett, founder of Branding Compass, a web-based branding app for small businesses. Instead, focus on the value prop you would like your name, logo, or design aesthetic to convey.
“You could say, ‘We really want to come across as caring and compassionate,’ ” Brackett suggests. “Does this logo look caring and compassionate, or does this [other] logo look caring and compassionate?”
3. Have a rollout plan.
PathFactory officially announced its new name and logo at the 2018 SiriusDecisions Summit, a major event for the B2B marketing industry. “We tied it together with a product announcement to explain the need for a change in our image,” Jowett says. “The two together got a good reception”–and a lot of much-needed media coverage.
Prior to the official announcement, the company sent swag bags to select customers, and for months after the rebrand, PathFactory left messaging about the change on all its digital channels. Even then, “not everyone realized it was the same company,” Jowett admits.
Smaller-scale rebrands won’t require so many bells and whistles. But you should still communicate why you’re making a certain change, Brackett says. Messaging can come in the form of a press release, blog post, or email to your customers.
“You want to control the narrative,” agrees Bo Bothe, CEO of BrandExtract, a brand strategy consultancy. “If you just throw it out there to the wolves, they’re going to tear it apart.”
4. Avoid second-guessing.
Once you’ve unveiled your redesign, expect some resistance to your changes. So don’t rush to backtrack if you receive immediate negative feedback. Chances are, the blowback will blow over. (See Slack’s early-2019 logo redesign, below. The barrage of bad press ultimately dissipated.) Commaful had several users threaten to leave once it unveiled the new name and logo, though they ultimately stuck with the platform, Liu says.
“Keep in mind, the product is what matters,” Bothe says. “If the product is badass, the logo will become less relevant. As long as you’re not offending anybody, you’re probably fine.”
If It Ain’t Broke…
When Nicolas Vandenberghe relaunched his software startup as Chili Piper in 2016, his wife and co-founder, Alina Vandenberghe, quickly designed a new logo and stuck it on the website. “It was meant to be temporary,” Nicolas recalls, but customers took to the little red pepper so much, it survived the company’s formal brand refresh last year.
Chili Piper hired a design agency to draft alternatives, but ultimately the New York City-based company realized “if we change the logo, our customers will go crazy,” Nicolas explains. “They love the logo.”
There are many reasons startups or small businesses rebrand, including copyright infringement issues and the lack of a competitive differentiator, says Brackett of Branding Compass. But founders should take a cue from Chili Piper and make sure they’re not trying to fix something that’s working.
For fledgling and cash-strapped businesses in particular, “there are so many people who haven’t fully learned about your brand,” Brackett says. “Don’t change it because you’re bored.”
Orange, red and yellow are generally what spring to mind when one considers October colors. But instead of rocking those autumnal hues, think pink instead. It is Breast Cancer Awareness Month after all. The use of pink to symbolize breast cancer awareness started in 1992, and came in the form of an overlapping ribbon. It was meant to show solidarity with those that have been impacted by the disease, which affects one in every eight women in the United States. Needless to say, over the years, the use of the color has evolved and it is now cast on a number of items…….
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