People do not buy products and services. They buy stories and relationships. People do business with people.

I love a good story. When someone shares an experience with me it puts my whole brain to work and if it is told well I will remember it.   

Your customers are making choices and buying decisions every day. These decisions are often made as a result of what comes to mind first. If you can tell a story about your business that gets remembered, well then your product or service becomes top of mind.

Your brand story begins when a customer hears your name or sees your logo for the first time. The signals you send out about what you do and what you stand for build a picture of your brand.

However, your story is not just what you, yourself, tell people. It is also what they believe about you, based on the signals your brand sends. Everything you do, each element of your business, is part of your brand story. Everything from your logo design and marketing material, to your team or staff.

Creating a brand story is the best way to differentiate your business, but it is not simply about standing out and getting noticed. It is about building something that people care about. Something they want to buy into.

To achieve this, you need to start by caring about your customers and the work that you do. What motivates you? What inspires you to wake up and come into work every day?

​You also need to ask yourself why your product or service could be important to your customer. How will what you do or sell fit into the life of your customers?

Why will people care?

There’s nothing like some inspiration from the best and I love everything that Innocent does. You can read their story here.

How will your business change the world? Some of the most successful brand stories begin with answering that question and here’s some inspiring stories from some of them, including AirBnB and Uber.

If you want to build a successful and sustainable business that will create a meaningful bond with your customers, you have to start with your story. It is the foundation of your brand. Here’s a link that can help you get started: www.forbes.com

The “Personal” Brand.
​How can you introduce some “personality” to your brand?

What is a brand? Wikipedia defines a brand as “a name, term, design, symbol, or other feature that distinguishes an organisation or product from its rivals in the eyes of the customer.” Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon.com, says “branding is what people say about you when you’re not in the room.” 

What are you selling? If the answer to this question is something bigger than the category your business is in, you could be on your way to building a brand.

A brand is your business reputation. 

It is through branding that you will create consumer trust and emotional attachments. A good example is Lego. They’re not just building blocks for kids. They represent childhood imagination and creativity. 

As a graphic designer I have worked with several branding experts over the years. And although things change constantly there are a few fundamental principles when it comes to branding and these are pretty much unchanged since I started out in the industry some twenty odd years ago. 

Here is a very simplified introduction to these principles. 

Do your research
Finding out where a brand stands or where it doesn’t stand in a market, is a crucial first step. You need to research everything there is to know about your business (or product) and the market in which it will compete. Look at what other businesses are doing. Work out where you are and where you could be in the future by making a list of these three things: The facts. The obstacles. The opportunities.

Know your customer
You can’t be all things to all people. The most important task in building a brand is to get to know your audience. You need to know who your customers are and how to reach them. What do they like and what do they dislike. You need to know their needs and motivators, as well as their overall profile. Think of your brand as a person, and create a persona for your ideal customer. 

Tell a story
Position your brand by defining what makes it truly unique and how it will slot into an available space in the market and in your customers’ minds. Make double sure there is a market in that gap. Define your brand by stating what it stands for and what value it promises to deliver. Done well and chosen carefully, these believes and values can become critical in defining your business.

Get your mission right
Create a voice for your company that reflects your brand. This voice should be applied to all written communication and incorporated in the visual imagery of all materials, online and off. Develop a tagline: Write a memorable, meaningful and concise statement that captures the essence of your brand. 

Think design
Carefully tailor your design, sales and marketing activities to your target market and do so consistently across all channels so the brand becomes easily recognisable. Be clear. The foundation of your brand is your logo and your design guidelines. The guidelines allow a brand to be recognised for its attitude to imagery, choice of photography, tone of voice, personality and writing style. Great brands have a clear approach to their entire communication and not just the logo itself.

Blow your own trumpet
The greatest strategic idea or the worlds finest symbol will fail if it isn’t seen, heard or understood. Implementation is key. Branding extends to every aspect of your business and every encounter with your brand must consistently convey your brand promise, whether it is with your staff, product, website, social media (etc, etc). Successful branding takes on average 2 to 3 years to develop, so stay true to your brand and give it chance to grow. 

​So do you have a business or do you have a brand? What are you really selling? Is it something bigger than the category your business is in?

My name is May but it is pronounced ‘My’. It’s pronounced this way because I am Norwegian. My surname, Sivertsen, is even trickier to pronounce. Hence my name breaks the first rule of naming a business, namely that it is easy to pronounce!

Naming your business is the most challenging process of branding. Millions of names have already been registered by hundreds of thousands of businesses across the globe so finding, generating, choosing and purchasing the ‘right’ name is difficult. Very difficult. But it is critical.

The sound and feel of your business name should suggest what your business is all about. It should reflect the character of your business. How do you want people to feel when they read or hear this name for the first time?

Your business name needs to be unique and memorable and it should be easy to say. The shorter, the better. You should also make sure that the name doesn’t translate into something inappropriate in a different language.

There’s plenty of ways to go about developing a name for your business. Here’s 10 ideas and some successful examples.

Use the founder’s name 
Hewlett-Packard (David Packard and William Redington Hewlett), Marks & Spencer (Michael Marks and Thomas Spencer), Boots (John Boot) and IKEA are a few examples. Ikea is named after the initials of its founder, Ingvar Kamprad, the farm where he grew up called Elmtaryd and Agunnaryd, the nearby village.  

Describe what it does 
Create a name that describes what the business does. Microsoft’s Internet Explorer is a perfect example of a descriptive name. Consumers use it to explore the Internet. 

Describe what it is 
Mark Zuckerberg originally wrote Facebook as a social network for the student community in Harvard where he himself was studying at the time. A face book is a printed or online directory found at American universities consisting of individuals’ photographs and names, helping students get to know each other.

Make up a word 
The name Google came about by accident. Whilst trying to think up a good name, something that related to the indexing of an immense amount of data the words “googolplex,” and “googol” were suggested. Both words refer to specific large numbers. When they did a search of the domain name registry to see if Googol.com was still available they made the mistake of searching for the name spelled as “google.com ” instead.

Pick a geographic origin 
Jeff Preston Bezos, the founder of Amazon.com, picked up a dictionary and scanned word after word until he discovered the word “Amazon”. He liked this name for two reasons. In the past, websites were listed alphabetically, which meant Amazon would always be higher on the page, giving a slight competitive advantage. And secondly, he picked the largest river in the world to communicate Amazon’s vast selection of books.

Add a Prefix or Suffix
You can turn a common word into a product name simply by adding a prefix or suffix to it. An example is Apple’s iPhone, iPad and iMac. BMW 2, 5, 7 series and Audi 2, 3, 4 and 6 series are examples of similar ‘naming systems’.

Change Spellings 
Flickr and Liquid-Plumr use real words that are misspelled. It’s creative and helps when the name you want is already trademarked or the related domain names are already taken.

Take a word out of context 
The name Matrix Electronics didn’t cut it. Apple Computer was named so after Steve Jobs’ visit to a commune he called  an ‘apple orchard: “Partly because I like apples a lot and partially because Apple is ahead of Atari in the phone book and I used to work at Atari.” Siri was also named by an Apple employee. Dag Kittalaus, the Norwegian co-creator of the voice-activated assistant had actually planned to name his daughter Siri, which means “beautiful woman who leads you to victory” in Norwegian. Until he had a son. 

Use a Verb 
You can use a verb as your product name, like Bounce dryer sheets or Apple’s iPod Shuffle. Some examples of brand names that have turned in to generic verbs are Skype, Hoover, Photoshop, Tipp-Ex and Google.

Make an acronym 
Richard Saul Wurman created TED to inspire greater communication between emerging industries. “It occurred to me during frequent airplane flights in 1982 that the only interesting conversations I was having were with people in the technology business, the entertainment industry and the design professions.” Two years later, he planned the first TED conference in California and invited leaders of the technology, entertainment, and design (TED) industries to attend. 

I hope some of these ideas has inspired you to come up with a name for your business. 
My business is called Trumpet, as in “blow your own trumpet”, and that is exactly what you have to do if you want your business to succeed.

Listed below are several articles that I have written about branding and design. Please do not hesitate to contact me at any time if you would like some more information. I would absolutely love to hear from you!

​You have done your market research. You know who your customers are and you know what your competitors are doing. You have defined what makes your business truly unique and you have found a gap in the market. You know what you stand for. (If you do not have a name yet, read my blog post called ‘Name your business ’.)

Now you want to tell your story. 

You want to build a strong connection with your customers through telling them your brand story and I can help you with this by designing a clear and unique brand identity.

Brand identity are communication components related to your business, product or service. I will design your logo along with brand identity guidelines that will allow your brand to be recognised for its attitude to imagery, fonts, colours, choice of photography, tone of voice, personality and writing style. 

In order for me to start designing your brand identity we need to establish a clear objective and I will need all relevant information about your business. This is called a creative brief.

A creative brief is a communication tool that outlines a project’s requirements, expectations and resources. It helps ensure that everyone involved in a project are on the same page. I spent several years working as a freelance designer for various design studios and advertising agencies. They all had different ways of writing a creative brief. There is no absolute ‘right way’ to go about this but key elements to be included for a brand identity project are:

The objective. 
Be very clear about what you want from this brand identity work. Why do you need it? What are you hoping to achieve with it? What are your goals? How will you measure success? 

Who are you? 
Information about your business, service or product. How would you describe your business? What background info is relevant? What are the benefits and features of your product or service?
 
Who are you here for? 
Mindset that unites the complete target audience. If possible, try to describe a person you know. What is the most relevant desire, need, hope or fear held by target audience that your business can address?

Competitors and obstacles. 
Understanding what the competition can offer will provide a clearer picture of where your product or service stands in the market. List main business challenges. 

What is your brand ambition? 
Where do you want your product or service to be in the mind of the target audience? 

Brand personality. 
What tone of voice will the target audience best react to? 

Tagline. 
What are the key points that need to be communicated?  

Practical considerations.  
List all elements that need to be included. Are there restrictions of any kind, like certain colours that can’t be used etc?

Budget. 
A ballpark idea of budget sets the parameters for how much time I have to work with. Are other resources required? 

Scheduling. 
We need a realistic time frame to keep the project on track. This schedule should include design presentations, client feedback, content delivery and approval dates.
It is vital to list all the work to do and to be clear on who are responsible for what.

​I appreciate any guidance as to what inspire you so please include a few examples of designs you like or don’t like. Not for the intention of copying, though. I know Picasso said that ‘good artists copy, great artists steal ’ but if you want to copy someone else’s design you are better off asking another graphic designer to do it...

Click here to download the Trumpet Creative Brief template.

Before I end this blog post I’d like to talk about managing expectations. I develop brand identities and the foundation of your brand is your logo, your website, packaging and promotional materials. However, I do not build brands. 

Branding extends to every aspect of your business, whether it is with your staff, product, the price you charge, how and where you advertise, social media (etc, etc, etc). As concluded in my January blog post: ‘A brand is your business reputation’. 

“Before beginning, plan carefully”.
Marcus Tullius Cicero