What's up brand builders! Stephen Houraghan here of BrandMasterAcademy.com and in
this video we're looking at the difference
between brand design and brand strategy so you can understand the fundamental
difference between the two and make better decisions for your own brand.
now if you're new to the channel and you want actionable brand strategy tips and
techniques to grow your business well then hit that subscribe button and
the notification bell and you'll be well on your way
the brand design and brand strategy is a comparison that's being made
more and more today and the reason for that is
twofold on one side you have entrepreneurs
who previously understood that a logo was
a brand now learning more about branding through
reading through reading articles watching videos watching
influencers talk about the importance of branding and now they're starting to ask
those questions and they're starting to ask whether or
not they need a strategy for their own brand and on the other
side you have branding professionals who previously offered the likes of brand
design or copywriting looking at their services
now and asking if they should include a higher level of service in the form of
brand strategy so that they can help their clients
on a higher level so let's break the two of them down and a great place as always
to start is with definitions so brand design
refers to the visual design of a brand so a brand
can go out and communicate itself visually a brand
strategy on the other hand is a plan for the brand's expression and
that's expressing the brand on a whole which includes
visual design and visual expression but goes beyond
just the visuals now no doubt you have heard the term a million times over that
a brand is not a logo and the reason that you've
heard this so many times is that for a long time
the terms logo and brand became synonymous
in fact it went beyond that it went beyond just the synonym
it went to a place where people believed that a logo was a brand and they were
used interchangeably but that is a fundamental flaw in the
understanding of what branding is and what a brand is
and any entrepreneur or business owner that goes out into the market
armed with just a logo are setting themselves
up for failure they're walking out into the market thinking
that they have a business that's branded when all they really have
is a set of pixels that represents their brand visually now no doubt if you're
watching this video you're already aware that a brand is not a logo and you're
aware that branding is not the process of designing a logo
branding or the term brand is nothing more than a perception
in the mind and branding therefore is a game
of shaping those perceptions now although the visual brand does play an
important role in shaping perceptions it's only a small role and it's
certainly not enough very few buying decisions are made based off
of visuals alone there are many different
ways that we perceive a brand and many different ways that a
brand can shape the perceptions of its audience and that's what any
brand needs to consider they don't just need to consider the visuals and
how the visuals will shape the perceptions in the mind of their
audience they need to consider every single angle
that can potentially shape the mind of their audience to ultimately own a
position in that mind so what is the outcome of
brand design well hopefully if the designer is on top
of their game and they do a good job well then you
will have a brand that is perceived well visually so it will make a positive
visual impression on its audience so the outcome of the brand design can
provide a logo an image style colour palette typography
illustration or graphic style and all of these visual elements
work together to put forward an idea and put forward
a visual representation of what that brand means
so how does that differ from the outcome of the brand strategy well
again if the brand strategist is on top of their game if they do a good job
well then hopefully the outcome will be a well thought out plan for brand
expression so that will consider who the audience is
and what competitors are already playing in the landscape so
they can define a position for that brand and once that position is defined
in terms of how that brand is going to be different
then it's about communicating that position it's about communicating
the brand so that considers the human brand persona what kind of personality
is it going to have what kind of tone of voice and language profile will it use
what kind of messaging framework is it going to use and this will go
beyond just a core message it will include
multiple key messages and also what stories is it going to tell what kind of
story will resonate with that audience and how's it going to tell those stories
and then finally how is it going to express itself
visually and this is everything that the brand design
includes so that is the outcome of the brand
strategy it's about providing a plan for brand expression
that considers all angles and ultimately aims to shape
the perceptions and influence the mind of the audience
so in reality every single brand needs a strategy
because every single brand has an audience that makes decisions that goes
beyond the visuals so if you take the time to
map out that plan you significantly increase your chances
of influencing that audience of influencing
their buying decisions and ultimately growing
a successful brand but I'd love to hand it back over to you now where do you
stand on brand design versus brand strategy do
you build brands using only visuals at the moment and do you believe that's
enough to influence decisions and to shape perceptions or do
you provide brand strategies and are you including all those
messaging and storytelling frameworks within your services are you providing
positioning strategy as well and do you have processes
in place to develop brand strategies from scratch I'd love to hear from you
in the comments below if you've got any questions or challenges
let me know I'll do my best to answer all of those if you like this video
give it a thumbs up hit that subscribe button and the notification bell as well
it'll let you know when I've got new videos coming out
if you want actionable brand strategy tips and techniques
head on over to BrandMasterAcademy.com and get yourself signed up for the list
there's plenty of resources on there as well that you can
download that will get you going with brand strategy as well if that's
what you're looking to do but as I said let me know in the comments below what
your experiences are what your challenges are I'll do my best
to answer all of those until next time brand like a master and I'll see you in the next video!