YOUR BRAND IS MORE THAN YOUR LOGO

Your BRAND is more than just your LOGO.

The American Marketing Association’s definition of “branding” is:  “a name, term, design, symbol or any other feature that identifies one seller’s goods or services as distinct from those of other sellers.”

Doubletake is proud to be an AMA member and this definition serves the understandable purpose of giving a tangible element to branding, but it’s overly reductive if viewed in a vacuum.

Your brand is every way in which you make an impression on someone.  It includes:

• Your logo/graphics
• Your company name
• Your tagline/messaging
• Your company colors
• Your sales process
• How your salespeople make prospects feel the first time they interact
• How members of your team dress
• How you approach servicing your clients
• The types of questions you ask clients in discovery
• How you communicate with clients during a project
• How you resolve problems
• How you communicate with your team
• How your firm comes across to applicants for job openings
• How you onboard new hires
• Your internal culture
  

Maya Angelou said, “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, and people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

That quote nails the essence of branding.  How does someone FEEL when they see your logo? Why?  What else is happening in how you interact with the public, or what is happening behind the scenes that materializes in how you interact with the public that shapes how your brand is viewed?

Your logo is the tip of the iceberg, or an even better analogy is that your logo is the eye–the visible window we have into the innerworkings of a person’s brain.  When people see your logo, what comes to mind is everything else you do (or don’t do) that shapes someone’s perception of you.  Your logo is simply the trigger that evokes those emotions.  Create a positive emotional response and you’ve got a brand that is irresistible when people see your logo.