There seems to be a common misconception from some small to medium sized businesses that their company ‘logo’ is actually their ‘brand’, and while it’s certainly the public facing mark, or signature of the company, it should really be viewed as just a small part of their overall brand landscape.

A company’s ‘brand’ is shaped by all of it’s touchpoints, including staff and their behaviour. It’s an all-encompassing personality that should come through from the moment you open their website, read their brochures or sales tools, walk in to the reception area or shop front of the company’s premises, and has much more to do with the experience the user or customer is subjected to, than simply the logo alone. In short, it’s much more about the brand ‘experience’.

At Flying Pigs Creative, we often come across new client prospects who’ve had a history of various suppliers looking after their graphic design needs, someone else looking after their website or digital requirements, perhaps an internal designer pulling together their fluctuating day to day needs, and quite often, a range of staff writing copy for the website or social media requirements. While this may seem OK to them, it’s certainly not a great way to build a brand, when brand building is generally achieved through continuity of appearance, consistency of message and its ‘tone of voice’. It’s a simple case of the old adage of ‘too many cooks spoiling the broth’.

Creative people, by nature, usually want to claim some level of ownership of their work and output, and will more often than not have their own interpretation of what their client needs, but when there’s no Brand Guidelines’ in place to guide them, it’s often open to interpretation.  Having multiple creative people from different agencies, or individuals for that matter, all working towards the same cause but never speaking to one another, can only end with a fractured brand DNA due to the volume of differing fingerprints on it and mixed messaging.

What most businesses should be striving for is what’s called by some in the marketing industry as a ‘smashable brand’. A piece of communication that even when the logo’s removed, you still recognise its origins or who it’s from. The text book example of this is the old classic Coca Cola bottle, as the smallest piece of glass from one of those that you might see in a street gutter or garbage, is automatically recognisable for what it is, due to its unique shape and the consistency and long term exposure to its audience.

Of course, not everyone has the budget of Coca-Cola to manufacture something quite as unique, but brand continuity like this can be built over time, and let’s face it, it took Coca-Cola some time to build theirs.

So, if you’d like some help to build your own smashable brand, why not give us a call and let us help show you how to do it!