If you're not bored of your branding then you're doing it wrong...

Reading Mark Ritson's riff on the new MasterCard branding this morning, I was reminded of a very wise piece of branding advice.

You (as the marketer, owner/founder) of your business will be sick of your own branding looonng before your customers will be.

It's so true. I've seen it happen often in marketing teams and departments, your using the same assets, colours, symbols day in and day out. Surely we need to change things up soon you think?

Think again!

Your brand needs to be consistent. The symbols and stories you want associated with your company need to be used over and over and over. Until you're sick of seeing it!

Remember consumers walk about in their own bubbles. The bubble of me, me me. They are not concerned with your company branding like you are.

While we are at it. If you're thinking of your brand as your logo then you're also doing it wrong.

And you have an opportunity! I like to think of brand as a company's reputation. Branding, therefore will be anything you do to help build and shape your reputation. This could include:

How you look (brand assets/symbols)

How you speak (brand tone of voice, style)

How you show up (are you consistent, authentic, walk the talk)

And the stories you tell.

If you think of marketing as the colouring in, or logo department then it means your business is missing a big opportunity!

Not just a logo

If your starting from a place where your brand = your logo then I encourage you to think wider about the symbols that could be associated with your brand.

Consider the 5 senses you have! Yes even smell! Peter Alexander uses this to great effect - every store you walk past has the same strong smelling vanilla candle wafting out. Ditto for KFC or your favourite warm cookie shop (Mrs Higgins for me in Wellington).

Mark Ritson talks about all brands having 'codes' rather than assets. Which is a great way to think about it.

"All brands have codes; graphical and symbolic devices that are associated with the company or product. A logo is a code. But a well run brand has more than just its logo. It might also have a colour. A pattern. An additional motif. Whatever." Source: Marketing Week, Mark Ritson.

Mark talks about codes as the things that customers will associate immediately with a brand. For example the purple colour of Cadbury's chocolate! (yum).

" The next lesson – and this is the tough part – is to apply your codes mercilessly to everything. Packaging. Windows. Uniforms. Advertising. You name it, I recommend you codify the shit out of it."

Tiny action:

• If your brand is 'just a logo' then think about creating 4-5 codes that will be associated with your brand. And then stick with them! Use them until your sick of seeing that symbol! Once your sick of seeing it, your target customer may have registered it once or twice.

What about brand updates and changes?

Now I'm not saying never change! Far from it. I've done many a brand refresh or rebrand, but it should be based on sound research and a need, not just because an asset or 'brand code' as Mark calls it, has been overused or your marketing team is bored.

For example when I worked for Site Safe New Zealand we updated the logo imagery, based on solid research that one of the brand symbols we were using largely represented a white, male senior site supervisor. And was hardly representative of the diverse audience we served. Many of the other assets though (such as colourways) remained the same.

In contrast to this I think about one of my favourite NZ brands, 'the stick-man' from Pak n Save! I admire the Pak N Sav branding for its cut through, its consistency and the strong connections they've been able to make. When you think about Pak n Save what springs to mind? For me it's yellow and black. Yellow, yellow everywhere. And those hilarious stick ads.

Now think about their marketing team and agency... 10 years they've been working with that bloody stick! They must be sick of seeing that bright yellow colour! Occasionally they might consider ditching the stick man... But he has so much brand equity, so much value, he's easily recognisable (you get the idea). They've built those strong associations and while they may be sick of seeing him I'm definitely not!

So in summary. Don't be afraid to stick. And if your marketing at Pak n Save then please don't kill off the stick man!