Brand Identity: What Is It and Why Is It important?

Successful brands, such as Apple, Coca-Cola and Nike, have crafted strong brand identities that have formed the foundation to all their brand assets and marketing elements. Their brand identities are so much more than just their very recognisable logos. These well known global brands have created brand identities that creatively and clearly represent their business’ authority, expertise and values of their business.

What is Brand Identity?

Simply put your brand identity comprises the visible elements of your brand, such as name, design, colours, logo, typography and tone of your content that help your target audience to identify and distinguish your brand. It is how you want to portray your business to your existing and potential customers.

How to Establish a Brand Identity

In order to start building your brand identity, you need to have a clear understanding of what your brand stands for, what makes it unique, and the personality it conveys to your audience.

Brand Mission

This outlines the purpose or reason for a brand’s existence, encapsulating what the brand aims to achieve or the impact it wants to make in the world.

Brand Values

These are the principles or beliefs that a brand stands for and adheres to. They guide the actions and decisions of the brand and reflect its ethics and priorities.

Brand’s USP (Unique Selling Point)

This is what sets a brand apart from its competitors. It highlights the distinctive features, qualities, or benefits that make the brand unique and appealing to customers.

Brand Personality

This refers to the human traits or characteristics attributed to a brand. It helps create an emotional connection with consumers by giving the brand a distinct personality that resonates with its target audience.

Every aspect of your brand identity needs to be clearly thought out and developed in a style that supports the overall mission, values, messaging, brand personality and business goals. Once your brand identity is developed, we recommend that you create a brand guideline document that provides a guide to all employees and agencies you work with on how to best represent the brand across various channels to ensure a consistent identity across all brand touch points.

Benefits of Brand Identity – Why is Brand Identity Important?

1. Recognition

Your brand identity is a visual representation of what your brand is. In other words, it represents the personality and values of your brand. A carefully thought out brand identity will resonate with your target audiences, evoking specific feelings about your brand and become a symbol of recognition.

2. Awareness

Creating a strong brand identity and guide for how to implement it, will ensure that your brand is the focus of all your marketing collateral and communications, which helps to drive awareness of your brand through increased visibility.

3. Differentiation

Your brand identity helps you to carve out your brand’s unique positioning in the market place and differentiate it from competitors. It allows your brand to visually portray its unique characteristics and benefits, enabling it to stand out in a competitive market or industry,

4. Consistency

An effective brand identity with clear guidelines creates a cohesive branding package that ensures all marketing collateral and communications maintain consistent messaging as well as a cohesive look and feel that best represents the brand; enabling consumers to recognise the brand at every touchpoint.

5. Loyalty

With brand consistency comes brand loyalty. Through consistent messaging and design along the customer journey, customers are able to develop a real connection with your brand or company, building loyalty and trust in your brand.

Brand Identity Services

Our team of brand specialists would love to support you in developing your brand identity, implementing best practices, and using checklists for consistency.

Brand Identity

From start-ups to established businesses, IM London can help you position your brand by defining and refining your brand identity to ensure that it aligns with your values, personality, and target audience.

Brand Audits

Through examining your brand’s current position in the market compared to its competitors, IM London provides a clear understanding of the effectiveness of your current brand strategy. As well as identifying strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats, an effective health check also looks into elements such as the design, identity and visual aspects of your brand.

Start-up Branding

Getting start-up branding right from the word go is critical to success. As experts in brand positioning and start-up branding, we deliver everything that’s needed for start-ups, from naming, logo design and visual identity to colour palette, fonts, tone of voice and brand guidelines.

Best Brand Practices

Discover proven strategies and techniques for building a strong and impactful brand identity that resonates with your audience and sets you apart from competitors.

Brand Checklists

Utilise practical checklists to guide you through the implementation of your brand identity across various touchpoints, ensuring consistency and effectiveness in your branding efforts.

How to Create Brand Identity  

Want help bringing your business’ brand to life?. Please contact us at hello@imlondon.co.uk or request a free proposal to start crafting your new brand identity.