Every specialist branding agency will have a comprehensive methodology based around a similar approach.

That process will always start with Insights – research to understand your audience, what motivates and defines them relative to your category, and research to understand your competitive environment, who your competitors are, how they are positioned, their brand value propositions and what they look like.

The Insights phase leads into the brand strategy process where we establish the most effective positioning and differentiated value proposition for your brand. We then develop the layers of brand definition required for an organisation to truly understand how they must behave to deliver on their brand promise, but also how they must look.

The strategy directs the design process, setting the framework for creativity. The role of the brand identity and visual language is to engage with the target audience and subtly communicate the brand proposition, brand story and brand personality through the power of visual language. Creating a palette of visual assets to be leveraged across all brand touch-points.

Which leads to the final phase of the process; implementation of your new brand identity.

Click here to view a more detailed breakdown of our branding approach.

Sometimes it seems like every marketing agency is pitching themselves as a branding expert. However the process of separating the specialists from the generalists is relatively simple: Advertising agencies are best at advertising, Marketing agencies best at marketing, Graphic designers best at design, Web agencies best at building web sites… you get the picture. The first and most obvious proof point is answering the simple question; ‘Does the agency have an experienced and dedicated, brand strategy professional?’

Click here to view a detailed approach to selecting the right branding agency for you.

When it comes to specialist branding project experience, you can’t have too much. Because every client is different, every branding project an agency delivers provides a greater depth of experience that can be leveraged to the advantage of future clients.

With 28 years of experience developing brands for more than a thousand different businesses across virtually every possible category, our knowledge and insights are the most valuable asset we offer our clients.

We share our experience and insights through our Brand Blog which has been rated the number 1 branding resource in Australia for more than a decade and consistently one of the top branding blogs in the world. You can get a taste of our brand thought leadership here.

Whilst choosing an agency without a specialist competency in brand development is clearly the largest mistake you can make, there are other pitfalls to ensure you avoid. These pitfalls include: Making sure you have the Board and Management Team onboard before embarking on brand development; Wanting to implement a new strategy before the business is ready; Not securing the required budget for implementation; and wanting to take slices of different creative ideas and mesh them together.

Click here to read our detailed list of 10 of the biggest brand development mistakes businesses make.

As with any business investment, the potential return for branding must justify the cost. Your rebranding project should be supported by a business case that includes an estimate of increased sales, margins and profits. The commercial benefit of the rebrand will then provide clarity on how much it makes sense to invest.

For different businesses in different stages of maturity, this value equation will vary. Click here to view a more detailed article on how much to budget for your branding.