If you want to brand or rebrand, all you need is a new logo, right? Some colors, some fonts, maybe a tagline if you’re feeling frisky, slap it on anything and everything and you’re good to go…aren’t you? Not so fast, because a logo isn’t a brand. A logo is PART of your brand, yes. But your brand goes farther, and developing it takes more than color and letters.
When McDaniels undertakes a branding process for a client, we began an intensive process of awareness, assimilation, fact finding, discovery, absorption, research and assessment. Our Brand Discovery process looks at every aspect, every corner of how present yourself to the world – both how you think you do, and how you truly do.
Case in point: We recently partnered with the Princeton, Illinois Chamber of Commerce/Tourism Bureau to help revitalize their brand through a reenergized tourism effort – we call it “attracting talent through tourism.” We started with a discovery process to uncover the unique qualities about the destination. (If you’re a company, replace “destination” with “company,” and the process works for you too!)
We determined existing and desired brand attributes. We identified customer touch points, gathered information from a few stakeholders about goals and objectives and compiled a SWOT Analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats).
Your brand should accurately represent the essence, whether you’re a town or a company. By understanding that, we can target your marketing efforts to groups that are the right fit. And you’ll begin to see authentic portrayals of your organization shared with potential customers from all over.
In Princeton’s case, they came to us asking for a fresh new brand to drive traffic to the mid-size central Illinois community. As part of it we wanted to replace their oft-used slogan, “Where Tradition Meets Progress,” and develop a new, consistent logo, as they had been using several different versions of older logos.
Through our Brand Discovery process, we determined that the town has a unique lure that wasn’t represented in the current brand. We developed a brand architecture with powerful concepts that evoke an unforgettable feeling, that help the audience draw their own picture of where they want the road to Princeton to take them. (In fact, at a recent brand unveiling, journalists speculated that one of the graphic elements we incorporated into the new logo could represent a road – we’ll never tell!) Based on our Brand Discovery, we paired that design with the tagline, “A short drive that takes you far,” leaving the possibilities – and the road – open for anything when it comes to Princeton tourism.
