Brand, Brand Strategy & Brand Identity: What’s The Difference?
Branding can be confusing whether you’re a new or seasoned business owner. You may hear conflicting concepts and ideas as you try to piece your brand together and figure it out on your own.
My job as a brand strategist is to help you understand the difference between a brand, a brand strategy and a brand identity so you know what you need for your business and why it's important.
YOUR BRAND
Your brand represents everything about your business. It’s your best foot forward that elicits an emotional response from your audience. It’s the meaning people assign, the perception they have and the gut feelings they get whenever they interact with your business. Your brand represents what you stand for and what you want to be known for as well as the impression you make in the minds of consumers.
Developing your brand name is a vital first step. This comes with the choice of creating a personal brand, a business brand (or both).
YOUR BRAND STRATEGY
Your brand strategy is how you build the foundation of your brand so you have a plan of action to communicate your brand, position yourself to stand out in your industry and tell your story.
Here’s what’s included in your Brand Strategy:
01 - Brand Foundation
This is the solid ground you need to develop in order to create anything else in your business. It includes creating your purpose, your mission, vision, key brand words and core values. A vital component here is also identifying your audience, audience segments and/or ideal clients. Without knowing your audience, you can’t develop a brand or brand strategy. The thing to remember is that everything you say, do or create in your business is all about Who It’s For.
02 - Brand Positioning
Once you have your foundation, you can build on it. You can create a positioning strategy that allows you to best reach your audience. To attract your ideal clients there are 3 things you need to be able to do:
Stand Out
Form A Connection
Captivate
Your brand positioning is where you’re defining the industry you’re in, the competitors you have and how to break through the noise to set yourself apart. It's your goal to position your business as the #1 choice for your ideal clients.
03 - Brand Messaging
Your brand messaging is your communication strategy. How will you intentionally and strategically talk to your audience? You start by defining your brand voice and personality and you tell the story of your brand in every modality that makes sense to reach your ideal clients. Creating your core message framework is important and crafting taglines and hooks will inspire and captivate your audience.
PRO-TIP:
If you need help developing your brand and brand strategy, that’s when you hire a Brand Strategist (like me).
YOUR BRAND IDENTITY
Your brand identity is the visual strategy for your brand. This includes your logo and full brand identity, plus anything that represents the consistent visual look of your brand in the world. Many entrepreneurs and business owners make the common mistake of starting with this step, when in fact, you cannot successfully create a brand identity for your business without first building the foundation of your brand and developing a brand strategy.
Brand strategy informs design. Designers aren’t responsible for designing a brand for their clients. It’s their job to design a brand identity that’s a translation of the meaningful brand that’s been developed and that leverages the brand strategy that’s been built.
Your Brand Identity includes:
01 - Logos
A logo is not your entire brand, and a logo is not your entire brand identity either. It’s a mark, an icon, a symbol or signature that people come to recognize and associate with your company. It’s a visual translation of your brand and the logo is derived from the meaning you’ve assigned to your brand (you don’t create a logo first and then use that as a catalyst for your brand meaning, experience or strategy).
02 - Typography and Font Hierarchy
Your brand and brand strategy also inform that kinds of fonts you use and once you’ve decided on the fonts to represent your brand, creating a font hierarchy is essential so you and any team member or consultant working on your brand knows exactly how to translate that into any marketing communication.
03 - Color Palette
Colors have meaning too. That’s why it’s a good idea to think about the color psychology for your brand, taking a strategic approach to developing your color palette and how it’s expressed.
04 - Illustrations, Patterns or Graphics
Some brands will have additional illustrations, patterns or graphics that will help communicate different aspects of the brand. Since these are part of your brand visuals, they fall under your Brand Identity.
05 - Brand Photography
You want all the images you share for your brand to have a consistent style. Determining these photo style guidelines is an important decision so you know whether you work with a brand photographer or are choosing to work with stock photography, you can direct your shoot or only pick images consistent with your brand.
06 - Brand Video/Audio
These days, you’re not just creating the look of your brand through photos and graphics, videos are also part of your brand identity as well as any sound. Think about a brand video featured on your website homepage or your podcast that's all audio that still needs to sound like your brand.
In summary, your brand identity can only be successful when you design a visual style that represents your brand and create guidelines for your brand style in order to be consistent.
PRO-TIP:
If you need help developing your brand identity, you would hire a Brand Designer for your logo, marks, color palette, fonts, graphics and overall visual brand style guidelines. You would hire a Brand Photographer to develop a plan around your consistent image style. And, finally, you can hire a Videographer or Podcast Producer to help with videos and podcasts to create a consistent look, feel and sound if you want these elements to be part of your overall brand.