Branding

Every business owner knows that investing in a new brand identity (or refreshing an existing one) is a big commitment.

Just look at the buzz around some recent, high-profile brands and rebrands – from Australia’s controversial new trade logo, to the Facebook refresh of late last year. If the first audience response is an emotional one (‘love it’, ‘hate it’), the second one is always a gasp around what it cost the client.

But what should a branding exercise actually cost? And what’s included for the different pricing structures you might expect? What are the essential components of a brand, and how can businesses build on their brand later if budget or time is an issue?

Branding in the big end of town

First things first – let’s consider what’s included. Ideally, a branding exercise should include a comprehensive package of works designed to ensure your business communicates a clear message on all fronts. That work starts with weeks of research, analysis, customer interviews and discussion. From the insights generated here, the branding agency can shape a memorable brand platform consisting of all strategic writing, customer journey map, tone of voice, logo, visual identity system and then dozens of collateral (physical and digital, internal and external, major and minor) the client needs.

(We’re quite obsessed with going deep to deliver a holistic brand for our clients, and you can understand our methods more by reading our brand audit series here).

Next, let’s talk costs. A multinational corporate branding or rebrand exercise is going to stack up in the millions, especially once you factor in the rollout of a complex and highly secure website, multiple vehicle fleets, staff uniforms, building signage and countless digital and physical brand touchpoints.

So, when the trolls sneer on social media on that “the government spent millions of taxpayer money on that logo,” they’re often neglecting to say the actual logo was a financial drop in that ocean of activity. Even a local council rebrand will cost hundreds of thousands, when you consider the amount of legacy signage that needs to change across an entire locale.

Branding for SMEs

Go deeper within the business landscape, and chances are you’re contemplating the rebrand for your small to medium-sized enterprise (from 20 – 200 employees). We love SMEs. They account for 35 per cent of Australia’s GDP and 45 per cent of Australian incomes, according to a 2019 report by the Australian Small and Family Business Ombudsman, and they’re growing in number. These are agile young businesses – regularly pivoting, growing, merging, demerging and launching initiatives, meaning their brands are often in the spotlight and they need to communicate new strategies.

We often get asked when is the best time for a business of this size to get its branding in place. Our answer is always the same – get the intangibles right first, then come and see us about the brand. That means have a compelling vision, values that inspire your people, a sensational product that meets real need, and customer service that fulfils (or exceeds) expectations every time. With these fundamentals in place, we can build a visual and verbal brand platform that communicates this to the outside world.

Most creative agencies bill using a time-and-resources based pricing model (rather than value-based), and the breakdown for a branding exercise looks roughly like this:

• Research and immersion – between five and 10 full days of work, involving various talents on the team (creative director, copywriter, strategist and designers of junior through to midweight seniority). The typical output here is a strategic document that captures, among other things, the high-level positioning statements your team will end up referring to repeatedly as they help to grow the business.
• Creative development – this takes another five to 10 full days of work, depending on the scale and complexity of your project. As client, you can expect to see several presentations during this phase: starting with the mood boards, progressing through several rounds of creative, and ending with your new logo and snapshot of the accompanying visual identity system.
• Asset creation – once your new logo and visual identity are signed off, the agency needs to develop all the materials that will feature your new brand. Allow another five days for a small consultancy needing little more than stationery, presentation decks, social media templates and the odd bit of signage.
• Asset production – production can make or break a creative concept. Imagine a stunning brochure printed on flimsy stock and poor colour reproduction, or a website full of broken links and slow-loading pages. Make sure your agency has the capacity to advise on the best possible production.
• Asset handover, documentation and follow-up – typically, the client owns all brand assets created and should receive an orderly pack of folders containing all logos, typography and other assets. At The Offices, we also deliver clients a large file showing all their assets at a glance, and we check in to see if anything needs to be amended.

You’ll notice we didn’t tally any final costs yet. Will you pay $15,000, $50,000 or $80,000 for all this work? It all depends enormously on who you’re working with, what the work entails, and what time pressures or other constraints apply. A hint, though, is to take your own day rate (or that of your lawyer or accountant), and multiply by the days quoted.

And the justification? Calculate the value of sales you could generate in the first one to three years following the brand launch (or relaunch), and you’ll be able to put this into perspective.

Controlling the costs of your branding exercise  

A couple of things can blow out your branding budget. Here are our top observations.

1. Key people not consulted in time – heard the one about the major sports organisation that had to axe hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of creative just before it was supposed to launch? That happened because their sponsor was not made aware any rebrand would take place during their sponsorship contract. True story, and it’s a cost you probably won’t want to wear. Involve decision-makers right from the beginning to avoid an expensive redesign.
2. Due diligence not completed – or perhaps you’ve heard about a business that invested heavily in a new brand, only to find out that the trademark was not available in a valuable overseas market? Or the new brand logo that resembled a swastika when viewed in a certain way – making them open to litigation, unless they redid the work completely.
3. Brand strategy not in place – if you’re able to write your own plausible, compelling brand strategy as a team, you can save on the costs of engaging your creative agency to do this for you. Otherwise, expect to pay another chunk of investment.
4. Brand strategy changes midway through – while several rounds of amends are accepted practice in any creative project, that doesn’t apply if the business changes its strategic objectives midway through the project.

A side note on microbusiness branding budgets

Some big businesses start small, and their branding has to be budgeted accordingly. If you’re a microbusiness with a tiny budget (as in $1,000 – $5,000 tiny), then you should read up about branding essentials, look up some design websites to see what you like, and put together a simple brief with a strict budget.

And do aim for simplicity. Unless you’re in skilled, experienced (and thereby pricier) hands, you’ll run the risk of a predictable or uninspiring result. Partner with a local freelancer who is in a similar growth stage as your business, and you’ll then be able to co-design more valuable enhancements as the business grows bigger. There’s nothing more jarring than a brand that makes ad-hoc additions to its collection of brand assets each year, all of them by different designers who missed the brief on what properties should be unshakeably consistent each time.

Everyone’s talking about the brand audit. Here’s how to approach it, and why your business should do this regularly – not just as a one-off activity.

Can you think of a successful business that isn’t a brand? We didn’t think so. Because whether it’s your favourite back-lane Chinese noodle shop, or the corporation that powers your internet, everything you recall about that business is its brand. Every sound, visual, word or other experience. Did we mention the logo? That’s part of the brand too – one small part.

Brands are living entities, meaning they need to be upkept. Sometimes they need light overhauling, where the business might tweak the colours, fonts, photography or messaging so they stay relevant for customers. Sometimes they need a big overhaul, like if you’re a supermarket wanting to tell customers you’re more about quality fresh food, less about cheap basics.

Brand upkeep takes time, resources and clued-up people. It needs to be done annually, or at least biennially. And it can’t be rushed because you suddenly realise there’s a big event coming up and you’d like a new presence.

How to start your brand audit

In this seven-part series, we guide business owners through the process of auditing their brand, using a simplified version of what an agency strategist might use. Why simplified? Because the concepts can get a little lofty. If you haven’t done this before, you’re going to have a lot of questions – of the ‘am I doing this right’ kind.

And we don’t want you to self-doubt. We want you to get on with the task of probing what your business stands for, how you’re really different, and what tactics to roll out next. You can then engage various creative resources to help, knowing these efforts will be supported by solid thinking.

Here are the essentials.

1. Five strategic steps to design a great brand

How did some of your favourite brands grow to become the success stories they are? By following proven processes to build a memorable brand platform, of course. The five steps in this brand audit will help develop clarity around your own branding, in several areas from the experience to the visuals.

2. Get up close and personal with brand experience and business data

Is your business today the same as when it started? Of course it isn’t. But in the hustle of daily delivery, perhaps it’s been a while since you took a bird’s-eye view of emerging opportunities – or issues. Great branding won’t compensate for flaws in the customer experience, such as bounced orders or lagging communications. This part of the brand audit involves a customer walk-through of your brand experience. From this, you can see what business fundamentals have to be fixed before you refresh your brand.

3. Major overhaul or subtle update? How to decide

Having taken steps one and two of your brand audit, perhaps you’ve decided some updates are in order. Will this take time and resource? Yep. And will it tell your sophisticated, modern customers that you inhabit the same world they do? Absolutely it will. Plus, those updates don’t have to mean a complete departure from the important elements of your brand. We’ll explain how to determine which brand features to retain, and which ones to evolve, in this rebrand vs brand refresh article.

4. Start with simple, powerful words

Could you imagine a Panadol ad without its message of quiet freedom? Or a Nike post without its forceful go-get-‘em attitude? Voice is a powerful brand reinforcer, and this article will help you choose, craft, and polish the words your brand might need.

5. Now move onto the core brand assets

Being two-thirds through your brand audit, and having a renewed clarity on your purpose, strategy and unique voice, you’re ready to start thinking about tweaks to your core brand assets. These include the logo, fonts, graphic lockups, photography styles and other elements. A simple test of your target audience will reveal whether you’re on track or not, and in this article we’ll share an essential scorecard of what your core brand assets are saying about you.

6. Vary your core comms to suit different user journeys

If consistency is key, does that mean using the same look, feel and tone in everything you do? Of course not. We’ll explain how to stay on brand while injecting the right degree of variety into all foundational business materials you produce.

7. Website facelift in six transformative steps

We’ve saved the website for last, because there’s so much to cover: the many graphics, animations, videos, articles, downloads and other content you’ll want to create with the refreshed brand materials. All have different implications for time and cost when you go to add these to your site. Plus, there’s the question of how to manage the ongoing process of performance optimization.

Once you’ve reached the end of the brand audit, you may still have questions and choose to engage a professional to help. But you’ll be much further down the process than you would otherwise be.

“I think my client needs to update his brand,” one of our business contacts confided over coffee recently. “But I don’t know enough about design to put my finger on it. Do you have any tips?’

Actually, yes. We have so many, we can’t contain them within a conversational answer. That’s why we’ve written this lengthy roundup instead.

Best of all, the principles of a well-conceived brand are not as elusive as you might think. If you’re already sensing something’s wrong, you’re probably right. After all, to quote Jeff Bezos, ‘Your brand is what other people say about you after you leave the room.’

Simply put, brand design is a form of communication: a tool for sending the right messages about your brand. Or your client’s brand. Or your employer’s brand.

Getting the basics right

First of all, let’s look at the basics of a brand identity. This is so much more than just a logo. It starts with the actual brand experience, from the swiping or tapping or other usage features, to the unboxing and after-sales support.

Then there’s the visual language of your business, from the logo to typefaces, palettes, graphic elements and photography. These should be consistent across every output: internal materials and external ones. There’s also voice: the way language reinforces the design, to project the business’ authority, warmth, guy or girl-next-doorness, sophistication or other defined value.

In short, the brand elements need to reflect a business’s peerless values, audience mindset and strategy. So make sure to first audit that brand platform by considering its original strategy and whether this still applies.

With the brand audited and strategy reviewed, you can go through the checklist below, loosely ordered from fundamental to surface elements, to see if your brand needs an update.

Fundamental areas where the brand might need an update

1. Design doesn’t support brand values

Even for the uninitiated, design has some fundamental cues that designers use and audiences subconsciously respond to.

The branding for a tech firm will have movement, energy, surprise. For an artisan food producer, it’ll have warmth, craft and earthiness.

Remember, we’re not just talking obvious areas like the logo and website. Look at every output. The thoughtful packaging from a premium retailer, for example, exudes brand values right down to the nutty aroma of the organic inks used on the tissue paper.

2. It contravenes the standard principles of good design

Multiple fonts. Cookie-cutter graphics. Conflicting styles. Photos that don’t reinforce brand values.

Think of design as a tool that conveys the qualities and feeling of the product or service. At its very minimum, it should convey texture, movement, scale and mood, which you can learn more about in an amazing 2016 talk by the prodigious John Maeda.

Even if you’re not a design pro, you’ll know you’re looking at a badly designed brand identity just from the flat feeling you get. Look away from that design, and chances are you won’t even remember what the business stands for, let alone what it might look, feel, smell or taste like.

3. Unclear user pathway

Imagine a major hospital or university without clear signage or an ecommerce website without a distinct shopping cart. Clear thought plays a major role in good design, and not all the tricks are necessarily new.

Just go online to find the infographics created during the Crimean War by Florence Nightingale, a data scientist in her own right. We still use these graphic styles today.

Compare that with the current wayfinding graphics at Sydney’s Town Hall Station. With few signboards showing from which platform to access which lines, infrequent rail travellers are forced to flag down a staffer to ask.

Even if you don’t operate a railway, your website, onboarding systems and follow-up should guide a clear, consistent and logical set of actions.

Outward brand areas to update

4. Get out of your stylistic rut

Remember the 90s? Yeah, so do we. Grunge. Supermodels. Madonna’s cone bra. They’ve all gone now, and so should your drop-shadow typeface or mirror-finish logo.

Nineties aside, every era has its hallmark graphic elements. Today’s crossed-oar logo or gradient graphic will be tomorrow’s joke, so make sure that any on-trend styles are relevant, sparing and combined with more timeless elements.

If you’re still not sure how to direct your team, just Google any styles you suspect are naff. You’ll soon be scrolling pages and pages of evidence. Swoosh logos, retro fonts, starbursts, websites that play music… they’ve gone the way of the dodo.

5. Incorporate something new

Ever wondered why so many 1950s brands have a screen-printed feel, or why 80s brands look so loud and tricked-up? Simple – they reflect the technology and production methods available at the time.

Similarly, newer innovations in digital technology are leading brand elements that simply weren’t possible 10 or more years ago. That ranges from small-run prints that let you use a different colour on each person’s business card, to video everything, mobile-responsive websites, animated logos, GIFs and more. Embrace these ideas, and update them often to stay relevant.

6. There’s too much jammed in

Clutter is the enemy of good design.

For example, a clash of stock photo styles: sleek business people in icy greys one minute, and warm golden coffees on a wooden table the next. Or multiple fonts: for headers, subheads, breakouts and body copy. Or overbearing finishes: breakouts, underlines, backdrops. Even some of the video backgrounds for the latest crop of websites are overdone. Background motion graphics should be a gentle jiggle on the screen, not epic cinematography. Otherwise you’ll start to detract from the main message and make your viewer feel carsick.

7. There’s not enough added in

Don’t get us wrong; minimalism is a core feature of good design. We haven’t had a client yet who wanted a complicated brand identity – most yearn for the super-sleekness of Apple, Uber or Xero.

But for corporations with a lot to talk about – technical specs, news, people, projects, products and more – you can’t just expect the logo and palette to do the work of navigating users to the sections they want.

You’ll also need an entire graphic concept for the navigational elements, information hierarchies, calls to action, user engagement pieces and other parts of your physical or digital materials. You’ll need a photography concept so that all other imagery sings from the same songbook. You’ll need an actual team photo (not just sleek, square-jawed stock photo people).

So as you can see, good branding draws on a certain degree of common sense principles. It also takes an experienced eye and an understanding of key terms to get it right. The same applies when your brand needs an update. 

This understanding is best nurtured by reading some of the world’s great design blogs. (For the record, some of our favourites are BP&O, the Brand New blog of Under Consideration and Logo Lounge, especially its very entertaining annual wrap on logo trends). Make sure also to follow design companies you like on social media.

Soon, you’ll develop a hawk-like ability to spot good design from afar, and can guide your client or company to the right design firm to help update the brand.