The Insider’s Guide to Brand Awareness through design

Design is taking center stage in a brands perception due to the growing awareness of the power of graphical elements, other than the logo, that can grab awareness and quickly imply brand image in the mind of consumers. These days, consumers are faced with limitless choices when purchasing. There are two main factors driving their choices: price and brand awareness. When it comes to brand awareness, design will be your best friend. Across all your communications channels – digital, social, print – design plays a crucial role in establishing the emotional connection between the person and the product. It’s the medium through which you communicate the story and personality of your brand that ultimately makes consumer care (and buy).  So, how can you leverage design in today’s hyper-competitive and brand-promiscuous social consumer landscape to hack brand awareness?

 

the-insiders-guide-to-brand-awareness-through-design

THINK (AND LOOK) DIFFERENT

Credits: Wikipedia

Brands now need to think and appear different more than ever. To hook into consumers strongly, brands need to be unique and memorable. Design is the key to timelessness, longevity, and top-of-mind recognition. Apart from your brand story and brand strategies, your brand symbols should create an instant emotional connection to consumers and audience like the iconic Apple “Think Different” Campaign. Don’t use the same generic visual elements in your design – try an alternative icon font, an alternative website layout, a different visual style, a refreshingly different hero image and so forth.

 

apple_logo_think_different

 

BRAND HARMONY

When each visual experience you create for your customers blends with every other visual experience they have with your organization to tell one compelling, integrated story: that’s brand harmony. Harmony in a brand across mediums and channels is extremely powerful. You should seek to convey the same experience in all your brand material. Thus all Colors, geometrical shapes, typography, hierarchy and visual elements should be mutually reinforcing.

 

CONSISTENCY

Keeping your brand’s visual identity consistent is crucial. Brand recognition is increased when similar parts of your content or brand system are designed as a cohesive whole. This makes the entire user experience more enjoyable to consume and more intuitive to navigate. It’s important that you don’t force your user to be constantly re-memorize your brand. This inconsistent experience is tiresome.

 

consistency

 Designed by Freepik

Consistency is vital when it comes to branding – using the same logos, typefaces, colors, graphic styles, and voice and design architecture is what creates brand recognition. Remember what we pointed out earlier -price and brand awareness drive purchasing behaviors and choices. Invest in building a strong consistent visual brand. Achieving consistency through design and messaging is the best place to start.

 

EMOTION

Great Brands Aim For Customers’ Hearts, Not Their Wallets. Ground your brand visual identity in emotional values that set you apart from the competition and resonate with your consumers. Product features and claims of efficacy should be used only to support those values.

 

emotion

Credits: Freepik

Good design should target emotions as the beacon to guide their strategy and application. Apple, Uber and Coca Cola are brands that consistently leverage emotional design to drive long-term brand growth through emotional connection with those that are most important to their future. Building emotional relationships with consumers is powerful and it works

 

DYNAMIC

All great brands are dynamic. Developing and maintaining a strong brand is a dynamic, never-ending process of iterations and adaptations to the changes of your customers’ behavior, and technological and environmental changes you need to perform to prosper and hack your growth! With each iteration, the brand rethinks itself in the eyes of a changing dynamic audience.

 

PERSONALIZATION

In an era of hyper-tech mass customization, consumers increasingly expect to put their own fingerprint on the things they buy and the brands they desire. From manufacturing, to information technology, to health and wellness, personalization has become the new paradigm. Personalization could be implemented for specific demographics, geographical location or even interests.

 

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Credits: shareacoke.com

 

OVER TO YOU

With more brands, channels and mediums now more than ever, improving how you use visual assets is a powerful way to scale your brand awareness. The Brand-awareness design-a-thon is on, and design is your express ticket to the finish line.