Branding – A Concept From Our High Eyes

Branding through our eyes is just like storytelling

The concept of Branding is like tales as old as time. Like some wine and cheese and stories, the key ingredients and magic elements of Branding are churned over time for the best possible result. While you mesmerize over the taste of wine and cheese, ponder what you believe inspires, leads, connects, and can not be defeated by time and is immortal.

branding, wine and books

“STORIES”

Let’s create a good story together, the one that relates.

brand storytelling

As the great Joseph Campbell said, “If you’re going to have a story, have a big one.”

Do you have a story that can create a bond so strong that selling becomes unimportant? A  connection so powerful that you don’t think about anything else? Do you see McDonald’s in every curvy M? what do you think of when you hear the word apple: gadgets or a fruit? Does your break start with KitKat because breaks are important?

Is it telepathy? Psychic? Or some supernatural bond?

Now the real question is:

Who is going to create it? 

Where should we do it?

What is it going to be?

When should we start?

Why should we do it?

How are we going to do it? 
There’s always room for a story because everyone loves a great story.

Who would have realized that the above pages promoted something more or less illegal to promote in the real world? That’s provoking, isn’t it.

So am I,

Come,

Let’s wine, know stuff, and be provocative…

Evolution of a Brand & Emotional Branding

A company starts out with a product/service that solves a rational concern in their TA’s life.  The company has to grow and therefore focuses on selling, parallelly trying to create an identity. As the identity gets created internally and sales become superfluous, the company has to look towards adhering to its Brand Promise and striving towards operational excellence to provide best possible user experience on a repeat mode. That is exactly the time it becomes an idea, a Brand, that fulfills TA’s emotional needs.

“Isn’t it all about thoughts & emotions”

From being just a functional unit the company changes to fulfilling emotional needs. A consumer will keep a brand on his/her category ladder only if he/she has an emotional connection to it. 

“What do I see upon closing my eyes. Am I too dubious?

What do I see about tablets when I close my eyes and think about buying one”

The emotions we feel inside compel us to convert them into actions and thus influence the decisions we make.

If I had to name one of the top brands in the world, it would be “GOD”. And we all know – it is emotional – it could be fear or happiness.

Emotions:

In 1970’s psychologist Paul Ekman identified six basic emotions that are: Joy/Happiness, Excitement, Surprise, Sadness, Anger, Disgust and I would like to add which I believe is the most important of all in today’s world- Contentment.
Maslow’s theory of Hierarchy of Needs classified emotional motivation through social and biological needs. Humans ought to wrap up their physiological needs (air, food, shelter, water) before they start working their way over and to meet all their emotional needs: (respect, strength, status, and self-actualization)

What if Maslow’s theory of ‘human needs’ was applied to branding? What’s the secret to the world’s most successful brands’ captivating power to enchant large populations and how do they apply the principles of human nature (primarily emotions) to branding?

Realizing what needs your service or product is to fulfill and how well your brand’s value proposition fits in the pyramid you are climbing can assist you narrow down which emotions to target.

Why Prefer The Emotional Concept?

Everything from your brand’s design, user experience and icon can be optimised through the concept of emotional branding which establishes loyalty among the users.

Brands that attach the emotional component to the value their brand synthesizes, are more plausible to be perceived favorably by their consumers, as compared to their competitors, who, without emotional branding, can feel like soulless firms.

Endnotes

Decisions are commonly made subconsciously. Most of the businesses are said to happen through one’s initial emotional reactions to it, lying well below the foyer of awareness.

Choosing colours,messages, fonts, and the general “feel” of your brand does not have to be a daunting and complicated task when you’re thoughtful and also pay attention to your users’ reactions.

Using emotions throughout your branding and marketing strategy can assist you create a loyal and life-long brand for your consumers.

Design Thinking in Real Estate Industry

Design thinking functions at the core of the design process rendering a creative and human centered approach to problem solving. Design thinking, an iterative process with 5 phases, Empathize, Define, Ideate, Prototype and Test, creates innovative solutions to any problem statement.

Design Thinking processes in Real Estate Industry

Design thinking, for the real estate industry, has become extremely crucial to generate inference of ill-defined problems and develop ground-breaking, disruptive solutions. With the constant downfall discerned in the Real estate business, it has become crucial for firms to take a step back, comprehend the overall approach towards the problem statement, analyze it and step forward stronger, while getting assisted with the across-the-board process, which is empathetic to their customers.

The research has got to go deeper than just the needs. It has to tickle the brain’s primary thought process, ideating “Out of the box” formulates that cater to it. All this requires alternative paths to analyse  the problem and later specify the solutions. The usage of technology, throughout, plays a crucial role.

Approach is required to develop an experience for the brain that does not just restrict itself to the needs and wants of the customers but also caters to their pain and fears.

The concept is as simple as the question, ‘Why does my customer buy a house?’ Get its answer/reason from a client in such a way that shoves him to lend you the explanation he hasn’t shared and then activate that pain juncture by providing an explanation in every designed touch point. And as a unit each of the direct stakeholders (Management, Processes, Client servicing team, Websites) needs to be ridden in caring for the clients and align with his pain point.

“It’s no more about convincing the customer’s latent needs, everytime.”

According to a study by EY, the Real Estate industry is already confronting disruptions due to the technological advancement, mindset of the new generation, demographic shift, and globalisation. However, this gives rise to new opportunities for most of the real estate firms to redesign their approach of reaching out to the customer. Using the Coworking concept is the most recent illustration of such a new opportunity.  

Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality & Artificial intelligence can be availed for developing an experience that caters to the fear and pain of the client. 

Let’s take a case study in which I suggested one of my clients utilize Virtual Reality for not just showcasing the ultra luxury undertaking description via Virtual Reality but an event where the security features of the undertaking are leveraged and act as a catalyst for the customer.

VR in Real Estate Industry

A builder always builds a 2D & 3D model along with the property’s floor plans. I solicited this real estate client to go one step ahead and utilise CGI to visualise space via 2D rendering and experience design. Think about how the problem is solved: It saves time and accelerates the most important need of buying home –safety. 

The real estate business requires design thinkers to arise with imaginative ways of catering to customers.

Please share your thoughts on how Design thinking can be utilised to scale up not just organisations but entire industries. 

If you enjoyed reading this, I’d be very grateful to you for sharing this post to the most relatable person.

Glossary – Branding

Brand:

A physical representation of a company’s offerings and values that also exists as a subjective perspective in a customer’s mind. Brand is the essence of one’s unique story that relates closely to their target.

This is chiefly influenced by a person’s comparison of the brand’s offered promises versus their perception, experience, and interaction with every touch-point with an organisation.

Quote: It’s not what or how you boost, it’s how your customer perceives/defines your Brand.

Brand Identity:

Brand identity is the visual language of your brand, conceivably, the most vocal one. It’s not just about the logo, the colour, the design; it’s more about a visual enchantment that bolds out your brand’s competence and uniqueness and how your target audience idealise, perceive and identify your brand. Brand identity explicitly portrays itself as the most potent tool swaying the target audiences’ cognisance of your brand.

Brand identity is not amassing colours, slapping them into a logo. It mandates a strategic thinking and ongoing tactical approach which resonates throughout all aspects of your business decisions.

Each of the brand identity’s components should seek an incremental-cumulative contribution towards ensuring an optimistic, trustable federation and association between the brand and its target audience.

Branding: 

Branding is an art of aligning and structuring what you want your customers to think about your company. Creating and blending attributes that differentiate your product/service from your competitors in an attractive, meaningful and compelling way. 

Quote: Branding is creating a bond so ingrained that marketing/sales becomes superfluous or even unimportant.

Branding Agency:

An agency specialised in creating, developing, maintaining and improving brand’s focusing on strategically positioning of a brand in the market and in the mind of the consumer rather than just tactically communicating brand services or offerings.

Quote: Don’t make the company look smart, make its customers look smart

Branding Evangelist:

An individual who believes in the power of branding, pursues it with that singular cause and dedication, to bring about a change in thinking and simultaneously connect others to pursue this mission.

Quotes: Your story should be solving a singular problem, bring a community together to solve that very problem – You do that, your story sells.

Building a community around the philosophy of solution and would like people to be part of the solution.

Do you know the biggest Brand in the world…? – I’ll say GOD (No offenses)

Coming Soon….

Brand Evangelist

Brand Ambassador

Brand Archetype

Brand Architecture

Brand Assets

Brand Attributes

Brand Audit

Brand Awareness

Brand Discovery

Brand Equity