In the business world, branding has almost become a “buzzword” that gets tossed around inside board rooms. With social media being as prevalent as it is, companies are more conscious than ever about the image they send out.
Branding comes down to the inspiration behind your business, and the story or image you cultivate around it. In turn, it’s directly connected to the ways you promote your service or your products. What people traditionally think of when they imagine branding is a name, logo, packaging materials, and other visual stimuli. But in the end, these are just tools to help associate service or product with a certain feeling or result.
How Brands Get Their Message Across Online
Physical products and services have the benefit of being local to your customer. They may see your products when they go to the grocery store or pass by your business location. You may be the only option available to them in their hometown. Online branding is less of a necessity for companies like this. If your company is mainly online focused, your business competes against every other business and thus, branding is crucial in this arena.
Many internet based industries are also looking to refresh their branding and get away from older themes. Online poker giant PokerStars has started a new branding initiative that launched this week with a new TV advert. This ties in with their newly launched PokerStars Sports and PokerStars Casino. This fresh campaign establishes the company as a full entertainment based brand, not just a poker platform.
GoPro is another great example of a company that is killing it with online branding. While they of course have physical products, their revolutionary action-sports cameras, it really is thanks to their online initiative that the business reached such massive sales. GoPro focused on making high-adrenaline promo videos with their products and getting their millions of viewers to share them online. They not only created a niche with their products but understood the power of platforms like Instagram and Facebook to help push their cameras.
Airbnb is a company that has really approached online branding in unique ways. First, they established themselves as the leading online marketplace for accommodations. Then they added experiences to their list of offerings. Experiences are the activities, courses, and classes that are available in the places you visit. To promote these experiences, they released videos showing exciting activities in different picturesque locations. Your life could be like this too if you use Airbnb, this is the message they are sending to the world. Airbnb understands the nuances of traveling and vacations thoroughly and has become an all-in-one platform for everything you could want out of your trip. Their branding has established them as the leader for online accommodations as a result.
Classic Branding Used by Companies
Even in the high tech world we live in, the importance of a good logo in your branding efforts cannot be denied. A well-designed logo can last a lifetime and often serves as your identity, the symbol that represents your company. The Mercedes logo as we know it has been around for more than 100 years. Everything about its logo has come to represent class, luxury, and dependability.
Another great example is the Starbucks logo. Not only does it represent the beloved coffee chain, but it also tells the entire story of the brand in just one image. As Starbucks hails from Seattle in the coastal state of Washington, ships, ports, and legends of the ocean have long since been a part of the history here. The Starbucks logo features a mermaid, the mythical sea creature. While the original design was much spookier than its current version, it retains the same qualities and effectively tells the origin story of this brand.
Of course, if we are discussing logos, we simply have to mention the influential and iconic Coca-Cola stylized design. This seemingly simple logo has endured more than a century worth of changes in the world. For the most part, it remains unchanged and yet still feels as fresh and relevant as when it was first introduced. This demonstrates that your branding has the potential to last if done correctly.