What’s the problem?

Countless small business owners experience points of dissatisfaction as they pursue their goals.

There are many reasons, but one that gets little airtime is a dissatisfaction with their business brand.

If this is you, then this piece aims to surface any lurking anxiety about your brand’s situation, but then also offer potential pathways to improvement.

Most conversations that we’ve had with business owners point to one of a few possible scenarios:

1. A brand identity crisis

2. Inconsistent application

3. Unoriginality.

A brand identity crisis

The brand identity crisis is when business owners see a misalignment between their brand’s foundational assets and the purpose it now represents. This can be as a result of a shifting business model; whilst business may be booming, strategy has taken the business away from its original roots. And now, the original brand assets don’t quite fit what the business is and does. For example, a business may have begun with considerations of providing services to farmers, but has seen itself transcend to include customers in the larger rural context; therefore, a brand promise and a logo that was designed to cater particularly to farmers alienates the newfound customer segments. The more aware business owners then ponder how they may properly align the brand with the markets they now serve.

The best course is to plan a brand transition carefully and purposefully. That could be any or all:  rewriting copy, creating a new brand promise; evolving a wordmark or logo mark. Please be sure to take your existing customers and prospects with you, as you transition, as there are countless tales of business owners getting this wrong, and leaving their stakeholders confused.

Inconsistent application  

A brand’s function is to create a point of distinction, in the minds of the people you want to do business with.  Inconsistent application of brand identity is a lack of regard for uniformity — and is one of the common errors that brand owners can make.

You brand identity may be inconsistent in multiple ways. For example, Brandeeq once audited a small business, only to find 13 active variations of the company’s logo mark; while no one could identity the authentic original.  Instilling discipline goes a long way, which is why establishing a simple brand asset management system is usually part of the solution. It places the brand guidelines and the master files in one place, and grants access to the people who need to utilize them.

Unoriginality

Unoriginality presents in two forms.

Firstly, there just wasn’t the proper combo of applied creativity & due diligence to create a distinct brand identity from the outset. Consider brand naming, for example: In Pakistan, a significant percentage of new businesses still default to Real-Descriptive brand naming.

That is adopting a person’s name, or a place name, as a brand name. It’s usually the name of a founder, or loved one; or, the place where a business was founded. This isn’t bad practice, but in naming science terms, it’s the least creative, the least rigorous and they are the least protectable.       

Then, the other form or unoriginality is blatant copying of established, usually successful brands. This is a result of both laziness and ignorance, on the part of a brand owner. Copying other brands’ logos, either in part or in full, or other brand identity elements, creates ambiguity and distrust. In some cases, it may culminate in reputational disasters and even worse still, legal repercussions could follow. Beware, you may one day find somebody knocking on your door, rightfully claiming money from you, because you copied their trademarked brand asset. This is a real risk of not doing proper due diligence.

These scenarios are precisely why we emphasize the use of professional help. Reach out to our experts at Brandeeq for a free 1-2-1 discussion that can help you diagnose the problems with your brand identity.