In any premium kitchen, the head chef does wonders because the sous chef keeps the ingredients and processes flowing in order. A reputable dentist performs efficient work for patients because the dental assistant has the tools and process flowing in an effortless order. Have you ever watched the first Batman movie starring Christian Bale? […]
Attorney Derrick Davis is our guest on this episode of the Brand Shepherd podcast.
TOPIC: COVI-19 will spur a lot of new entrepreneurs, new businesses. Legal Guidance For Starting A New Brand.
New businesses will need to develop a brand for themselves, which we have covered in the 5 Ingredients podcast.
New businesses will also need legal guidance as they start or expand.
We will talk about what that looks like.
These 4 ingredients we have covered so far are vital to brand development, but there is a 5th ingredient that needs to be mentioned as well: A chef (aka, guide, shepherd) to help work through the process of brand development.
That would be us, Brand Shepherd.
Having a chef to guide brand development is obviously important from an expertise level. Brand and business stakeholders use experts for anything, from HVAC service to CPAs to facility maintenance and, yes, brand development.
Yet a guide is also important because having a mind from outside the brand will give the development process the perspective it needs to be successful.
Ingredients 1, 2, and 3 covered the essentials. A product brand cannot exist without developing its voice, knowing its customer personas, and having a smartly designed visual identity that captures both.
The next ingredient is something that has gradually evolved into a perceived essential ingredient in recent years thanks to a TEDx Talk.
By now, I actually have a lot of respect for anyone who is not at least a little familiar with Simon Sinek’s TEDx Talk about how brands should know the answer to the question: Why do we exist?
The brand’s visual identity (aka, logo) should reflect the brand voice, be familiar to the customer persona(s), and segue to the final ingredient, the brand’s “Why.”
Let’s talk about what goes into the making of a brand identiy.
Like so many of you, we have spent the last few days and weeks learning about the COVID-19 novel coronavirus and how it is impacting our world. For Brand Shepherd, that means understanding how it impacts the industries we serve by way of your brand, and then how it impacts our team.
Equally important to the brand’s voice is the customer persona the brand is talking to.
Brands that lack focus are not successful brands. You need to know who you are talking to, what their buying habits are, lifestyle choices, etc.
The brand voice will be compelling and even familiar when it speaks the sub-cultural language of its customers.
What if I told you that the role of the User Experience – aka UX – expert on a product development team is not a role that emerged in the 2010s?
What if I told you that UX was a top concern for product brands in the 1930s?
And what if I told you that in the 1950s, UX, as we know it today, was born from the Godfather of UX by a French-born designer by the name of Raymond Loewy.
Well, it’s true. It’s all true.
Trusted Tools
• Ideation: Paper & Whiteboards
• Digital Product Design: Sketch & Adobe Xd
• Tangible Product Design: Adobe Illustrator
• Prototyping & Collaboration: InVision
• Asset Hand-Off: Zeplin & Dropbox
On-Going Experimentation
• Research: this is a mixed process with many tools right now.
• Project Communication: heavy reliance on email, phone, and in-person for client communication; Slack for in-house chatter.
• Analytics: this, too, is a mix of what our clients already use, since they – not us – are the product owners.
The brand is always speaking, always communicating.
Product brands are always persuading, selling, and providing delight for their users.
While it’s true that the brand should reflect the values and even personalities of its key stakeholders, the brand ought to present as an entity of its own: Its own personality, unique value propositions, and tone of voice.
Developing the brand voice is done through a number of exercises with key stakeholders, product managers/owners, and user research – all with guidance from experts who know how to sort and organize the information into useful, actionable data.
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