What is the value of brand? Advocacy, equity, value. These are all traits of great branding. We would go one further, heritage. When Adidas was in it's infancy, they employed photographers to attend sporting events in order to capture sporting footwear in context. They did this even though it destroyed their bank account! In 2014, Adidas created a remarkable campaign using these historic images. They brought heritage, equity and value to the brand and it created a new generation of advocates. It cost little but made a lot of money, able to visually communicate the history of the brand and to show pride in it.
What is the cost of brand? Cost is different to value. Design to us isn't just a font, a colour and a few stock images (the economic route to market). Great branding justifies why you should be here to an audience that should be the future advocates of your business. When companies are sold or merged, much of the sale price is wrapped up in brand and advocacy. How does the business make us feel? What impression has a business created? As we enter a new era away from Europe, it makes sense to think about these deeper questions.
We see on average five new clients a month and most haven't challenged the meaningful stuff around brand and advocacy. Being less reactive and more proactive is a good start. Brand strategy will almost certainly do a number of things. A strategy will give time to collaborate, test, change and deliver campaigns, products and services. It will steer clients, customers and staff more confidently in a direction that is laid out for all to follow. You can start to predict deliverable results before conception. Most of all, brand strategy naturally brings a sense of heritage and being proud of where you have come from as you develop. We keep hold of and remember great design. Adidas made a point of doing this from day one.
When we talk about cost vs value, we hope to deliver projects at a reasonable cost that add significant value to your offer. If £10 is spent, we hope to add £100 to the bottom line. Factors are Our fixation. If you are looking to grow awareness and audience, we hope to achieve it through the power of design. There is no incentive for us to make companies money or to grow audiences if it is done at our expense. Dedicating a budget to brand is important. Many have high aims and hopes but low cost expectation. If we can't share in the success and the spoils, there seems little point in engaging a quality branding consultancy like prevamp©.
We are guardians of business. Not here to ruin or to be right. We exist for your products and services. Unable to survive without them. We want to let the product or service speak, to give voice to the voiceless. The most important thing is value not cost. We want to go beyond the obvious, the reactive, past the bounds of the 'physical' and into the realms of imagination, where anything is possible.
If you know of anyone considering a new venture or currently experiencing poor brand representation, we would like to hear from them.
