Table of Contents
Blog Branding Strategy: Creating an Impactful Brand Brief
Introduction
Creating a strong brand is crucial for any business. It helps establish a clear and complete vision for your brand, ensuring that all marketing initiatives, creative direction, and sales collateral are consistent and aligned. To achieve this, it’s important to compile a comprehensive brand brief that effectively communicates your brand’s essence, goals, and expectations. In this guide, we’ll walk you through the process of creating an impactful brand brief that empowers your team to craft memorable, consistent, and engaging brand experiences across all touchpoints.
What is a Brand Brief?
A brand brief is a comprehensive overview of exactly what a brand is and what it stands for. It outlines the objectives, goals, values, and vision of your brand, allowing anyone involved with creating brand assets to communicate the direction, purpose, and positioning of the business as clearly as possible. A strong brand brief should include:
- Mission Statement: This provides a summary of how you intend to achieve your vision.
- Brand Promise: Encompasses the solutions and expectations your brand aims to communicate to customers and prospects.
- Brand Values: Express the unique core values a brand is based around.
- Target Audience: Outlines the types of consumers a brand intends to engage with and serve.
- Brand Positioning: Provides the ultimate reason why customers should choose a brand over other options.
- Competitive Advantage: Includes the conditions or circumstances that allow a brand to offer better solutions over key competitors.
- Brand Voice: Outlines a brand’s style of communication.
- Brand Culture: Provides a list of principles, a code of conduct, and work ethics that should exist within the internal environment of the brand.
The Difference Between a Brand Brief and a Creative Brief
Many teams often confuse brand briefs with creative briefs. While both documents serve the purpose of communicating creative ideas, they have distinct differences. A creative brief is an overview of a brand-specific project, outlining the project-specific mission, goals, objectives, and how a creative team intends to achieve them. On the other hand, a brand brief focuses on the overall brand perception and goals, providing guidelines for creating brand assets that align with the brand’s vision and values.
The Advantages of a Brand Brief
Providing a brand brief offers several advantages for your business:
- Ensuring Brand Accuracy: A brand brief allows your creative team to accurately depict your brand story and values through their work.
- Collaboration and Feedback: Creating a brand brief should be a collective effort, involving input from executive leadership, key members of management, and even customers. Gathering various opinions and insights contributes to a more comprehensive and effective brand brief.
- Control Over Brand Image: A brand brief provides clear guidelines and expectations for all brand communications, ensuring consistency across all touchpoints.
- External Communication: A brand brief serves as a reference for external contractors and agencies, guiding them in creating brand assets that align with your brand’s vision and values.
Writing a Brand Brief: The Process
Now that you understand the importance of a brand brief and who should be involved in creating it, let’s dive into the writing process. Before you start writing your brand brief, it’s essential to clarify the core idea behind your business. Your answer to the question “what do you do?” should provide a quick yet accurate response. Additionally, define your target audience, considering factors such as age group, gender, income level, marital status, and occupation.
Next, focus on creating a compelling brand promise. List all the reasons why customers choose your brand and count on you to deliver. Identify the attributes that make the most sense to you and that you want to build your brand promise around.
Establishing a clear mission and vision for your brand is also crucial. The mission defines the who, what, and why of your brand, while the vision outlines the impact your brand hopes to make in the world. Differentiate your value proposition from your brand promise by identifying the reasons customers should favor your brand over competitors.
To gain insight into your competitive advantage, analyze your top three competitors and identify what sets your brand apart. Compare your products to your competitors, and ask your customers why they choose your brand over others.
Brand values and culture are important aspects of your brand brief. Ask employees and customers what they believe your company values most and what your brand stands for. Use this information to create a brand culture that aligns with your brand’s vision, mission, and values.
Finally, define your brand voice, which is the unique attitude and personality of your brand. Determine the tone and style you want to use in your brand communications.
Inspiring Brand Brief Examples
To inspire you as you write your brand brief, here are a few examples from well-known brands:
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Virgin: Virgin’s brand brief starts with a company profile, including the company’s history, market activities, and brand values. It provides a simple yet informative overview of the brand.
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Nike: Nike’s brand brief includes an executive summary, target audience information, product features and benefits, brand image, and competitors. It offers a comprehensive look into the brand’s positioning and goals.
Conclusion
Writing a brand brief may seem overwhelming, but it’s a crucial step in establishing a strong and consistent brand identity. By clarifying your brand story, values, and goals, you provide your creative team with the necessary foundation to create work that aligns with your brand. Remember to involve key stakeholders in the process and use this guide as a reference to get started today. Streamline your brand management processes with Ziflow to ensure consistency and efficiency in your creative content production cycle.
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