What sets a recognizable brand apart from the rest? Perhaps unsurprisingly, it’s their approach to branding.
If you’re a CMO, brand manager, or marketing exec who knows your brand deserves the spotlight, you've likely asked yourself: what makes today's most notable brands stand out from the rest?
The answer lies in how well their agency's brand team understood—and communicated—their core purpose.
According to marketing agency London : Los Angeles (LO:LA)—recently named one of the top brand management firms by MarTech Outlook—while effective brand leadership incorporates creativity, consistency, and relevance across customer touchpoints, the most important question branding experts should be asking is not about the 'what' or the 'how,' it's about their 'why.'
Effective brand management brings clarity and purpose to every piece of creative produced. This means guiding clients through pivotal strategic moments with a purpose-first approach rooted in storytelling and insight, and focused on why these elements matter.
When conceptualizing brand identity, it's important to consider its purpose, values, personality, and how it will be represented visually and verbally. This begins with a number of target personas aimed at establishing a shared understanding of your messaging possibilities. The approach you settle on then needs to be tested, refined for clarity, and translated into a brand story, and then rolled out.
If you're feeling like your brand is almost there, it's possible a rethink is in order, beginning with an in-depth reexamination of the 'why'. Nicholas Platt, CEO of LO:LA, says that reexamining the core ‘why’ is what provides creative teams with the foundation for a radical interpretation that directly and clearly communicates the brand's value proposition.
While many companies focus on short-term promotional tactics and fragmented messaging strategies, today's top brand management firms understand how to create a cohesive and coherent narrative within a messaging continuum.
Establishing what your brand stands for and the values it represents is just the beginning. Brand clarity, cohesive storytelling, and a team that can bring it all to life across every platform all need to be woven into the plan.