Brand analysis: second step to the brand identity

Preliminary, we have thoroughly studied the first stage of work with branding — brief, you can read the material about it in our article. For the brand analysis, we will need to go back to this document, and pay attention to critical issues, which could help us:

• why does your company have this kind of naming?
• do you have a website? Do you plan to change it?
• how would you describe your consumer?

Also, careful attention should be paid to the way of communication with the target audience. It will help to create the necessary branded design for their communication channels. But we will talk about it further. After working with essential information and refining the details, we move on to it – brand analysis.

Preparing for the brand analysis: interpretation of the brief

In this block, we will discuss the analysis of the brand situation, highlight its positioning, and study the company’s niche, customers, and competitors. We will conditionally divide this stage into five main ones:

Define the market type

We need to understand who our client’s buyer is, as the markets for producers and consumers are characterized by differences: the first is more emotional. The second is more rigorous, and there is much more critical analytics and clarity of data understanding.

We need to understand who our client’s buyer is, as the markets for producers and consumers are characterized by differences: the first is more emotional. The second is more rigorous, and there is much more critical analytics and clarity of data understanding.

Define essential communication tools for the market

The development of design depends on the chosen tool, whether it is native advertising or social media content or working with opinion leaders.

Analyzing competitors

This segment is the largest among the three presented, as it covers more details that will be distinctive for the brand. The most significant factor is the choice of the color space. Here, everything is not as simple as it seems: you can pick up a right combination of shades; however, almost identical will appear in the competitors. Naturally, that will be a failure. To avoid such situations, it is necessary to analyze a niche segment for the choice of brands shades. Having collected this data, we can visually place it on our competitors’ color circle and determine the niche we want to be closer to or wish to differ. It is very cool if we can break down colors on semantic components and correlate this data with each competitor. Thus, we can make a more thorough analysis of the market, and all this only within the framework of color solutions.

Customer product analysis

When working with a product, depending on the specifics,different characteristics are selected for its analysis. The most trivial example is the popularity of the product. If we are working with a popular brand, such as water, which everyone knows how to apply, our main task is the right visual solution, as well as the form of delivery. Naturally, the number of characteristics is much wider, but they are all combined depending the situation and the product.

The hypothesis of brand positioning

In the final stage of this section, its essence is defining the strategic direction of the brand, archetypes with which we can associate it, and highlight emotional and rational advantages, to form brand values.

<div class="post__style-link">We wrote this point particularly carefully in the article about archetypes.</div>

Setting tasks and forming criteria for creating elements of the corporate style

We already need to define the main technical tasks for logo creation, as well as graphic tools with which we can implement these tasks.

It is crucial to collaborate with the customer in terms of goals and tasks so that the customer understands which tasks are solved by which graphic element. When we analyze values, we recommend using archetypes. In the article about archetypes’ methodology in building branding, we talked about our modernized scheme of work and what tasks are solved by this or that prototype.

Particular attention should be paid to work with the logo to produce various materials of corporate identity. Depending on this or that carrier of corporate identity, there are nuances of manufacturing elements of the identity. For example, if a product needs a box, it is more logical not to print it with the chosen logo location‍, and much less expensive will be to print out labels and choose the most appropriate place for them.

<div class="post__style-link">What is logo location you can read in our article about the brief.</div>

Sometimes there is a need to structure the corporate identity, for example, an already existing brand, with all identical elements, does not know how to use the details together correctly. Maybe there is a lack of the distinctive pattern, so the brand colors could form a useful template.

When developing a logo, we always form an accompanying Guide, which specifies in detail how to interact with the logo, what colors to use, the fonts associated part, and so on.

Changes in communication channels

This situation can easily affect the corporate identity in the following way: the company, during its establishment in the market, realized that it had made a shift in the target audience, maybe it has outgrown it or wants to change its positioning, etc. Here arises the question of brand presentation, as well as the formation of a different image. If we speak for social networks, then it’s worth reconsidering your tone of voice, modernizing the content, making it more emotional and status. It is possible that earlier, the brand did not pay special attention to the goods transportation objects (a box or a package). Still, now it has become necessary, and it is essential to design additional brand packages in the conceptual brand style. Of course, all that happens after a specific moderation. It is important enough to preserve the heredity of the brand and create new versions of the logo for other locations. A similar situation can be with an entry into a new market. But in this context, we focus on the target market and produce additional color palettes for all brand identity carriers.

Changes in the internal structure of the company

When changes take place within an enterprise, they must also be shown in the branding. Because if a company was at one stage of growth and after a certain number of years decided to significantly change its position in the market according to the company feeling, it should be shown.

There are also specific issues here:

• It is necessary to reflect the previous company mood. However, we have to modernize it;
• we need convey a friendly attitude and a warm team atmosphere;
• maybe we should think about developing a flexible system for several enterprise groups. Perhaps each group is working on a specific product of the company, and then you can choose one template with different colors to harmonize each product with the other in the corporate ecosystem.

Final stage of the brand analysis: a collection of references and formation of mood boards

There are three types of references collections:

• The regular one, you can divide collections by groups: different fonts, materials, techniques, etc.;
• For the certain case, where you pick up graphic techniques for specific tasks;
• Experimental decisions, which can be useful in your work.

The resources you are looking for references are significant. They help not to miss with taste and style. Next, while working, we put the selected examples on the workbench and start working in a specified style.

It was the second phase of working with the brand. In this article, we have left resources that may be useful for a more detailed understanding of the material.

Our team has an extensive portfolio, so if you want to create your brand, mail us.

With Love, Halo Lab Team ❤️