Every major million-dollar company has one thing in common: they rely on ad agencies to create their brand image for them. It is not an accident that companies like Target and IKEA sell products that we never knew we couldn’t live without, yet they fly off the shelf as if they’re a commodity. Why is that? This is because there is a team of experts from some of the most savvy ad agencies in the world that are creating a brand we all want a piece of.
Although the strategies that these ad agencies use when creating a branding image are as extensive as an Encyclopedia Britannica set (if you’re a millenial, Encyclopedia Britannica was how students of the 1990s did research before the invention of Google), check out our list of actionable tips for improving the image of your company.
Three Actionable Tips for Creating a Brand That Your Clients Want to Be Part of
- Be Relatable
If your target market doesn’t engage with your product, regardless of how beautiful or clever your brand is, they won’t buy into it. You want your potential clients to be able to picture themselves using your product, wearing your clothing line, eating at your restaurant, and so on.
Put yourself in the shoes of the consumers you want to draw in. What makes them tick? What are their greatest challenges? What appeals them? Use this line of thought to create a brand image that makes your target consumers picture their lives enriched with your product or service. - Be Timeless
One common mistake that companies make when they attempt to create their own branding without the input of professional ad agencies who know better is creating a brand that is trendy. When your brand follows a trend, it might be appealing to your customers initially, but all trends eventually lose their pizzazz. When it goes out of style, it actually has a negative impact on the impression you give your audience.
To drive this point home, try this little social experiment: Pick up a fashion magazine from five years ago and flip through the pages. What impact do the outdated ads have on you? It most likely you feel a sense of boredom, or maybe even a little repulsion. You certainly don’t feel inspired to go invest in the products being advertised. Any advertising firms worth their noodles will tell you to focus on a brand that is independent of trends, so that in a decade, your audience will still be loyal to it. A good example of this is KitchenAid and Coke. These brands haven’t changed their image in decades because they do not have to; they are timeless. - Be Inspirational
We will let you in on one of the most important secrets in the creative agency biz: inspired people are enthusiastic about investing in concept that inspired them. Create a brand that gives your audience hope that their life will improve with your product. This shouldn’t be gimmicky; consumers are adept in our advertisement-driven market and can smell insincerity a mile away. An authentic message of inspiration can work wonders for a brand image.
Consider the ad campaign that dish soap company Dawn created a few years ago that featured adorable little ducklings who were caught in an oil spill and coated in thick, greasy, black oil. The message of the ad was two-fold: Dawn’s powerful grease-cutting action was mild enough to clean oil off of delicate baby ducks’ skin (and thus powerful on dishes and mild on your skin), and also that Dawn donates a portion of their proceeds to saving innocent animals. That mission inspired their audience to do better and be better. While we don’t question the authenticity of Dawn’s animal-rescuing campaign, we do know that there was an ad agency behind the publicity of it to inspire the future Dawn customers who saw it. We have two words for that branding campaign: mission accomplished.
They say you only get one chance at a first impression. The image that your brand conveys to your potential clients is the ultimate first impression.
