4 MISTAKES TO AVOID WHEN CREATING YOUR BRAND

When you’re starting out as a business owner or startup founder, you are really geared up and excited about you first and you want it to stand as your brand. Is that all there is to a brand? A logo? Is there more? Sure there is. Here are some mistakes to avoid when creating your brand.

A BRAND IS A LOGO

While a logo is an important part of any brand, it does not make up the whole brand. Besides, not all brands have logos. As personal brands evolve in this day, we see more people creating brands around themselves without the need for any logo at all. For this reason, it is possible to create your brand without any logo at all.

A BRAND IS YOUR IDEA

You obviously have an idea of what you want to do, how you want to achieve your definition of greatness and how you intend to pass value across to your customers. All of these things probably come together one way or the other in your brand creation process. However, a brand is what people say your brand is, not what you say it is. For instance, while Nokia might say they are in the business of connecting people, most Africans know them as the most structurally reliable mobile devices ever made.

To get a better idea of this, you have to do a lot of digging. Research into what your target customers imagine when they think of the product/service they need from you. This forms the basis of your brand strategy.

ANY COLOUR CAN GO

I mentioned earlier that a brand is more than just a logo. A brand is the total experience a customer has with your product/service offering. The visual aspect of this is greater than just the logo. Colours also play a major role in this experience so be careful when you choose one for your brand. Certain colours automatically elicit certain reactions depending on the target audience and how they perceive that colour in that context.

For instance, while a lot of people above the age of 45 in Nigeria will negatively relate with the colours black and red in some contexts, people who live around the Nile might only negatively relate with red (the colour of desert sand) and relate positively with black (as black is the colour of the fertile soil found close to the Nile).

A BRAND NEVER CHANGES

A brand should be a dynamic entity, changing and growing with the passage of time. For something to endure for a long period of time, it has to appeal to changing generations and their specific desires. Remaining completely resistant to change will lead to the downfall of any brand that intends to succeed on a large scale. That said, you must take care when you need your brand to evolve. If you’re too slow, you risk losing out to competitors. If you’re too fast, you risk confusing your customers and community.

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