Australia’s Specialist Brand Development Agency
What makes a Brand Development Agency?
The world for brands has changed for-ever. No longer can businesses differentiate from the look of their corporate image alone. Market leaders across every category are positioning themselves strategically for success. The one thing these market leaders and fast growing businesses have in common, something critical to their success is that they’ve built their brands on a well defined strategy.
The Emperors New Brand
Whilst many design studios and web agencies talk about brand on their web sites and in their proposals, most fall woefully short of the required skills and experience. Brand strategy is not an add-on, it cannot be delivered by a smoke and mirrors graphic designer asking “if you were a brand what animal would you be?’.
Like business strategy, brand strategy is a highly specialized process delivered only by experts who have studied and worked in this very specific field for many years, defining, crafting and delivering nothing but brand strategy.There is simply no way of avoiding the additional cost and time required to build this critical foundation for every corporate identity design project. But as with any important business investment, there is no excuses for not doing things the right way. If a brand development team does not include a specialist, dedicated brand strategist, you’re talking to the wrong people.
The Brand Development Process
Once the brand strategy has been established, it provides clear direction for the visual language of the corporate identity design. Again, the different capabilities of a graphic designer when compared to a specialist a brand identity designer are chalk and cheese. Once the multiple layers of brand definition have been established, they need to be communicated to your target market by way of visual language. Visual language that both attracts and connects with your desired market, and also communicates your proposition and market positioning by way of visual cues. This craft is far more complex than creating a catchy symbol, choosing a matching typeface and a fresh colour palette.
Avoiding an Expensive Mistake
The complex and endless combinations of visual language available to a designer when developing a brand can and usually does lead to a visual identity that provides confusing and conflicting visual messages. When a brand identity is not designed by a specialist brand designer, the probability that it will fail to connect with the audience, fail to position the business where it desires relative to the competitive market, and fail to communicate the unique brand proposition (if in fact one exists). When this outcome occurs, not only have the designers fees been wasted, but more importantly the opportunity cost of time wasted and often the even greater costs relating to implementation such as stationery printing, web site design, signage, etc.
We regularly work with clients who have been through the deflating and uninspiring experience of working with generalist graphic designers attempting the specialist task of brand identity design. Whilst the results of us working with these clients inevitably is a great outcome for them and their business, we gain no satisfaction from the wasted time, money and resources they have expended through not working with a specialist from the start. No matter how well priced the generalist design option may-be, if the outcome does not position your business for success, whatever you spend will be wasted.
Our brand development for specialist National car insurer; Just car Insurance.
Working with Brand Development Experts
As with any investment in professional service expertise, by engaging experienced specialists to position and design your businesses brand identity, you give yourself the greatest return on your investment in both the project budget, and your future marketing spend.
We highly recommend researching the right brand development agency at your project’s outset:
• Ensure they provide in-house, specialist brand strategy expertise;
• Select an agency with demonstrated capacity to design brand identity programs, not just a page of logos on letterheads;
• Speak to some of their clients – testimonials are the best way to establish whether the brand agency has the expertise to add real value to the business (you can find a stack of our client testimonials here); finally
• Ask for a cost estimates at the outset – as in life, with professional brand development you get what you pay for. Brand strategy and brand design expertise does not come cheap. If the agency is quoting you less than $10,000+ they almost certainly cannot deliver the specialist expertise you require.
Our place brand development for the Eyre Peninsula, Australia’s Seafood Frontier.
No two Business are the same – So no two Brand Identities should look the same
As surely as the brand is there to serve the business, the role of the brand identity is to communicate your unique proposition and personality to your market. As surely as every brand demands to be differentiated from it’s competitors, every brand’s visual identity must look unique to its competitors also. Below are some more of our brand development solutions.
The Critical Elements of Brand Development
For every different brand, the specialist demands are also unique. Whether it is product of company naming, brand architecture or portfolio management, brand identity or brand communications design – each layer of a brand development project must interrelate to create a potent brand with sustainable cut-through. Each of these elements required to successfully develop your brand call on unique skill-sets and experience only found in a specialist brand development agency such as Truly Deeply.
Is Brand Development of Value to your Business?
The business benefits of successful brand development are of equal value to brands across virtually every sector of every market. Whether you’re a retailer, a manufacturer, professional services firm, Government department or not-for-profit – the advantages of differentiating yourself from your competition with a clear value proposition, communicated to your market in a memorable and engaging manner are many and highly valuable.
Our brand development for Spudbar, a National chain of baked potato stores.
“The brand definition work and brand identity design Truly Deeply developed for our Spudbar chain of healthy food stores has blown the lid on the potential for our business. We believe what was previously a nine store franchise now has the market positioning, store design and brand image to expand into a significant national network. As a return on business investment I can’t rate the brand work Truly Deeply produce more highly.”
Ant Morrel, Spudbar Owner & National Director of Marketing & Sales
Much more than just a pretty face for business.
Your brand development is more important than just a stylish looking letterhead or business card. It is the role of your branding to clearly position your business to your market. Make no mistake, your brand’s visual identity is a valuable business asset to be invested-in, built upon and leveraged. If your brand identity is not a sharpened, effective asset to your business, perhaps it should be. Many of our clients are only too happy to talk about the value we’ve delivered to their businesses. You can read what a bunch of them have to say here, and further, we invite you to call and speak to them individually to get their perspective on our branding process and the value it provides for business.
Our brand development foe Alla Wolf-Tasker’s new range of produce – A Wolf in the Kitchen
Our brand development for GXY Search, Australia’s leading specialist Gen Y Recruitment firm.
Like what you see?
We are Australia’s leading, independent brand development agency. A big statement perhaps, but our confidence is founded on the value our work provides to our clients and their businesses. We invite you to call us or drop us a line to make a time to discuss the commercial benefits of working with us to develop your brand.