Online Branding Introduction and Best Practices

Introduction to Online Branding
by Measured Voice

Agenda
Branding 101
Brand fundamentals
Brand identity best practices
Online branding best practices

Branding 101
A brand, at its core, is a set of ideals

What is a brand? What is a brand?
A brand is shorthand for an organization’s value and reputation
Brands help customers remember organizations and what they stand for
People develop strong feelings toward brands, including loyalty, love, and disdain
Branding is important for organizations of all sizes and even individuals
A logo is not a brand
branding iron by robalicious on Flickr

What is a brand? What is brand identity?
Brand identity is comprised of the tangible things people associate with your brand
Components of a company’s brand identity can include its name, logo, voice, or the uniforms of its employees
Brand identities appeal to people’s senses to remind them of a brand and its qualities
The American Alphabet 2000 Heidi Cody (cc) by-nc-sa

What is a brand? Who makes a brand?
Brands are build through countless touchpoints and experiences
Every interaction, touchpoint, and experience a person has with an organization contributes to that organization’s brand
Strong brands are built by organizations that create consistent consumer touchpoints
Ultimately brands exist in the minds of consumers
Is the Whole Foods brand shaped by its name, logo, products, customers, employees or its CEO?

What is a brand? Why invest in branding?
Organizations require a strong branding strategy to survive in a cluttered marketing landscape
Consumers experience ~6,000 marketing messages each day—strong brands are able to distinguish themselves
Employees of organizations with a strong brand benefit from a clear understanding of their objectives
Strong branding increases organizations’ value by increasing awareness, repurchase, and customer loyalty
Top Global Brands 2008 © 2009 Interbrand

What is a brand? When to invest in branding
Organizations benefit from investment in branding at a number of stages
Reasons to invest in branding:
Launch a new company or product
Name change
Reposition a brand
Revitalize a brand that’s fallen behind
Create consistency out of fragmented operations
Merge companies
Many organizations are currently softening their brands New York Times

Brand fundamentals
A brand is based on the ideals and capabilities of the organization behind it

Brand identity fundamentals Vision
Great brands are built upon grand visions that describe what a company ultimately wants to accomplish or become
Organizational visions are often set by founders or executives and rarely change
A strong vision can energize staff, attract collaborators, and recruit top talent
A vision should stand on its own as a core statement that describes why an organization exists
Few organizations publicly reveal their vision statements
Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. That's our commitment. Wikimedia Foundation Vision Statement

Brand identity fundamentals Mission
An organization builds its brand while carrying out a mission to achieve its vision
A mission statement broadly describes an organization’s activities, scope, and core values
Mission statements may change more frequently than vision statements
A coherent mission statement helps organizations by:
Ensuring that staff, consultants, contractors and clients are working toward the same goals
Informing voice and tone
Enabling consistency across all programs
The mission of the Wikimedia Foundation is to empower and engage people around the world to collect and develop educational content under a free license or in the public domain, and to disseminate it effectively and globally. Wikimedia Foundation Vision Statement

Brand identity fundamentals Values
Organizational value statements, founding principles, philosophies or other guidelines can also reinforce a brand
Vision, mission, and value statements only work if they are championed by leadership and adopted by staff
Focus on the user and all else will follow.
It's best to do one thing really, really well.
Fast is better than slow.
Democracy on the web works.
You don't need to be at your desk to need an answer.
You can make money without doing evil.
There's always more information out there.
The need for information crosses all borders.
You can be serious without a suit.
Great just isn't good enough.
The Google Philosophy “ Ten things [Google] knows to be true”

Brand identity best practices
The best brands identities are consistent and meaningful

Brand identity best practices Coherence
A good brand is quickly recognized wherever it is encountered
Coherence is achieved through:
Uniform look and feel
Unified voice
Consistent strategy
Constant quality
Clarity and simplicity
What do you expect from McDonald’s?

Brand identity best practices Names
A brand name gains strength by being used consistently and frequently
Qualities of effective names
Recognizable
Memorable
Meaningful
Legally defensible
Common types of names
Founder (Ben & Jerry’s)
Descriptive (Petco)
Fabricated (Hägen-Dazs)
Metaphor (Twitter)
Acronym (CNN)
Combinations of the above
Names are extremely important on the Internet How many names do you recognize in this picture?

Brand identity best practices Taglines
Taglines are quick phrases that capture a brand’s essence and appeal to people’s emotions
Tagline Characteristics
Short
Unique
Easy to say and remember
No negative connotations
Evoke an emotional response
Difficult to create
How many do you recognize?
Just do it
Think different
Expect more. Pay less.
A diamond is forever
The ultimate driving machine
You’re in good hands
Drivers wanted
All the News That’s Fit to Print
Happy jetting
Government made easy

Brand identity best practices Voice and tone
A brand’s voice can underscore or undermine its message and reputation
An effective brand voice is:
Consistent across all channels of communication
Easily understood by its audience
Reflective of its organization’s vision and beliefs
Elements of a brand’s voice and tone include:
Content
Style
Personality
Vocabulary
Punctuation!?!?
You’ve got mail!

Brand identity best practices Staying on message
Effective brands adhere to a memorable, identifiable, and customer-centered message
Every communication, from every outlet, is an opportunity to reinforce the brand’s message
Consistency is built on repetition
A brand’s message should be polished, clear, brief, and precise
Maximize impact by eliminating language that distracts from your message
Apple uses very specific language to talk about its products

Brand identity best practices Logos
Logos use shape and color to instantly remind customers of their brands
Logos exploit the fact that the brain processes shapes and colors faster than language

Brand identity best practices Logos – stewardship
Many companies use guidelines to ensure that logos stand out are used consistently

Brand identity best practices Look and feel
Look and feel refers to visual and tactical elements that makes a brand distinct and recognizable
Contributors to look and feel
Design
Color palettes
Imagery
Typography
Sensory
familiar straw by paper or plastic? on Flickr

Brand identity best practices Color palettes
A brand’s color system should be easily recognizable
A company may have one overarching color system with different systems for individual products or business lines
Color systems should include RGB or HEX codes to facilitate design for the Internet
A well-defined color system simplifies design decisions
Some companies, such as Tiffany & Co. and Kodak, have trademarked their key colors
Century 21 colors

Brand identity best practices Typography
Brands use consistent rules for typography to reinforce their look, feel, and tone
Some organizations have designed their own typeface to distinguish their brand
Well-defined typography guidelines simplify design decisions
Barack Obama for President consistently used the Gotham typeface in campaign materials

Brand identity best practices Brand architecture
Brand architecture refers to interrelationship of a parent company and its brands
Brand architecture seeks to simplify naming, marketing decisions, and operations
Brand architecture systems are extremely varied across organizations

Brand identity best practices Governance
A brand identity is maintained through guidelines and vigilant maintenance
Brands are kept healthy by individuals with executive authority over brand identity decisions
Staff should be trained using documented brand guidelines to recognize elements of the brand identity and how to use them properly

Online branding best practices
The Internet presents new opportunities for organizations to build and maintain their brands

Online branding best practices Domain and URLs
The URL is many people’s first point of contact with an organization’s online brand
Characteristics of good domains and URLs
Easy to say, spell and remember
Consistent with brand name
Descriptive
Readable
Intuitive
Clean
Where do you think these go?
nba.com
nba.com/wizards
apple.com/iphone
facebook.com/cocacola
patagonia.com/about
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Lincoln

Online branding best practices Content
Internet users become loyal to site content before they become loyal to a site’s design or the organization behind the design
People interact with organizations online largely through content
Content should be easy to find, understand, and share online
Content should appeal to its audience and be consistent
Developing an effective content strategy is a key element of online branding
Cascading style sheets (CSS) are a brand’s best friend to maintain consistent look and feel across content
Which domain has content that I can trust and understand?

Online branding best practices User experience
Users are loyal to online services that “just work” and are easy and pleasant to use
Positive user experiences make it easy for users accomplish their tasks, engendering loyalty
Frustrating and error-laden user experiences damage users’ brand perceptions
Recognize that huge button?

Online branding best practices Usernames
Organizations should follow consistent naming guidelines when choosing usernames for social media sites and other Internet services
Usernames should match the brand name as closely as possible
Consider brand architecture when choosing usernames
Consider that usernames may appear in a variety of contexts including vanity URLs and alongside comments
Social media provides many opportunities to highlight brand names

Online branding best practices Profile pictures
Follow branding guidelines to choose consistent profile pictures customize themes on social media sites
Profile pictures should incorporate branding elements appropriately into the dimensions of a profile picture
Consider how profile pictures may be resized or used in different contexts
Do you recognize these Twitter profile pictures?

Online branding best practices Favicons
A favicon is a tiny icon that helps distinguish pages and domains
Favicons help users identify content by appearing alongside URLs in browsers’ address bars, tabs, and bookmark menus
Favicons remind users that they are in the right spot
The favicon provides another opportunity to reinforce visual branding elements
Favicons offer subtle brand reminders

Questions?
Get in touch:
Jed Sundwall
619-681-1856 x208
[email_address]
@jedsundwall on Twitter

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Online Branding Introduction and Best Practices

by Jed Sundwall

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