How To Create A New Brand Identity

Executive Summary

• A brand identity is a compilation of elements that influence how consumers see and recognize your brand.
• When creating a brand identity, you will need to conduct in-depth research and analysis to understand the market, your competitors, and your target audience.
• Creating a new brand identity involves defining new brand elements and refining brand messaging for effective outreach efforts.
• You should use feedback from consumers to guide your brand messaging and determine whether you should adapt your brand identity.

Creating a New Brand Identity

Your brand identity is everything. This identity incorporates the visual design elements that define your brand as well as the messaging you use to connect with customers. Altogether, this identity influences how your target audience will see your brand and what opinions they will develop.

A good brand identity will intrigue and excite new consumers in your target audience. Among existing customers, this identity should invoke feelings of familiarity. Meanwhile, it should be unique and recognizable while staying true to your business values.

Because of the brand identity’s power, it’s crucial that brands take a detailed, research-based approach to creating unique elements that highlight the brand’s values and goals. Understanding how to create a new brand identity that resonates with your consumers will allow you to maximize your reach and spark the emotion you hope to spark.

What Is a Brand Identity?

A brand identity is the unique presentation of your brand that makes it stand out amongst a sea of others. This identity often includes the logos, brand colors, fonts, and other visual elements that represent the brand. These elements speak to not only the presentation of your brand but also play an integral role in defining your brand’s personality and relatability to consumers.

For example, Coca-Cola is instantly recognizable because the brand has such a strong identity. Aspects of the brand, like the iconic bright red, the classic cursive font, and the polar bear mascot, make Coca-Cola products unmistakable and familiar. This identity is clear in their visual elements, but it also expands into their marketing efforts, as their content is consistently centered around joyful moments and togetherness.

A brand identity is often a consumer’s first introduction to a company or product, and it defines their initial opinions and perceptions. Your brand identity may invoke specific emotions, inspire initial opinions, or spark curiosity among your consumers. Creating an identity that pulls in customers and communicates your brand’s values requires detailed thought and strategy.

Step-By-Step Guide To Creating a Brand Identity

Creating a brand identity may seem as simple as choosing a name you like and drawing up a logo, but it’s important not to overlook the process and rush into selling your product. Having a strategy ensures that your identity is most likely to build a positive perception of your brand. To create a new brand identity that will resonate with consumers, you should take the following steps.

Research & Analysis

You can’t jump into creating a new brand identity if you don’t know what will work—research and analysis is an essential first step.

Start with market research and competitor analysis. Look at other brands in your industry or niche and assess what they’re doing to be successful among consumers. Think about your initial reactions to their brand elements and how they make you feel so you can do something fresh while learning from their core strategies.

Above all else, you should research your own target audience and determine the type of consumer you are trying to reach. The demographics and customer preferences that exist in your target audience will influence what brand elements and communication styles will best connect with them.

As part of your research, ask the following questions:

• Is there a competitor who has been successful at establishing a new brand identity? What can you take away from their success?
• Are there elements of popular brand identities that you can learn from? Do some feel fresher than others?
• How can you use elements from other successful campaigns while ensuring your brand stays unique and stands out?
• Who is your target audience? What branding and messaging might resonate with them the most?

Using your answers to these questions, you can build the foundations of what your rebrand will look like. You should use these answers to inform the styling of your brand elements and your brand messaging so you can increase their impact.

Defining Brand Elements

Brand elements are an essential part of your brand identity, as elements like your brand name, logo, font, and colors will make your brand identifiable and relatable in the eyes of your target audience. These elements should align with your brand identity and values by invoking the emotions, feelings, and thoughts you want your consumers to feel when they use your product.

Key brand elements will include:

• Creating a brand name – Your brand name is the first impression that consumers gain about your brand.
• Designing a memorable logo and visual identity – A logo plays an important part in influencing customer perceptions of your brand.
• Choosing brand colors, fonts, and imagery – These elements are crucial for defining your consumers’ initial reactions and which emotions you inspire when they first interact with your brand.

Don’t rush while creating any of these elements—they are all integral to how new consumers will see your brand and play a key part in making your brand memorable. In the creation stage, be sure to keep your market research at the forefront of your mind so that you can convey the proper visual messaging that your target audience would hope for.

Once you create and define these brand elements, they should be displayed across all your online social media platforms, your website, all product packages, and any marketing materials. Crafting and displaying these brand elements is the first step in building familiarity with your brand and making it instantly recognizable to potential consumers.

Developing Brand Messaging

How you communicate to consumers is another crucial part of your identity. Your messaging is a fundamental part of your brand’s personality and informs how you structure your customer outreach, what ideas you pinpoint in your marketing efforts, and how you express your unique offerings to your consumers.

As you develop your brand messaging, consider all the following elements:

• Brand story – A brand story describes how your brand came to be and what drives the products or services you offer. Crafting a brand story provides an additional opportunity to engage with and relate to consumers.
• Taglines and slogans – Consider what quick one-liners or phrases can draw consumers in by providing a glimpse into your brand, what it’s about, and what consumers can gain from it.
• Unique value proposition – Your unique value proposition is a simple, to-the-point statement that expresses what your brand offers consumers that other brands does not and why consumers should buy from you.
• Brand values – Your brand values are indicators of what your brand cares about, what problems you want to solve, and why your brand exists altogether.

In all your brand messaging, you should maintain a unique voice and tone that is likely to resonate with your target audience. This voice and tone should be consistent across all channels so that your brand personality is easily recognizable.

For example, if your brand targets a younger, outdoorsy audience, your voice is better off fun and laid back, whereas if your brand is a luxury brand targeting high earners, it makes sense to have a more refined, serious tone.

No matter how you choose to focus your voice and tone, it’s important that it speaks to your audience and provides an opportunity for them to relate to you.

Testing & Feedback

Conducting testing and gathering feedback will provide some insight into how consumers receive your new brand identity and whether it’s gaining the reactions you hope for.

When you implement your brand identity, you should maintain a degree of flexibility. Although some elements will remain non-negotiable, you should allow feedback to shape elements of your brand identity to maximize its appeal to consumers.

Some ways to gather feedback surrounding your brand identity include:

• Conducting focus groups – Organize groups of people that fit your target audience and assess their opinions using a series of prompts and questions. Focus groups are the best way to gather insight before you launch your brand, giving you more flexibility to make changes.
• Customer surveys – Present surveys through either customer service staff, email, or other methods to solicit customer feedback regarding their reactions to your brand identity.
• Social media listening – Monitor social media to read through comments, hashtags, and posts that mention your brand to gather an understanding of customer sentiment toward the identity you portray.

With this feedback, you can refine your identity for the sake of maximizing the impact of your messaging. If consumers aren’t excited or intrigued by your brand identity, you may have work to do to flip the script.

Maybe you should reconsider the voice and tone you use in your messaging to better relate to your audience, or maybe the visuals you use for your social media posts are not as appealing to your followers as you initially thought.

Regardless, conducting consistent research is the only way to learn these things and make refinements. These consistent assessments should guide your brand messaging going forward and provide insight into when a refresh is on the horizon.

Create an Unforgettable Brand Identity

A brand identity is important for establishing a strong first impression and building a sense of familiarity with your target audience. To create a new brand identity, you need a thoughtful strategy that involves market research, unique brand messaging, and ongoing feedback gathering.

At PETERMAYER, we support brands in finding and building an identity that speaks to their target audience. From there, we guide brands in presenting this identity to consumers through effective messaging, relationship-building, and creative outreach. As we help brands find their identity and personality, we help them unlock the inherent joy that exists in what they do.

Schedule a discovery call with us today to learn more about how we can help you create a new brand identity that resonates with your target audience.

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