Author: Tenet Admin

There are few areas of design and branding more subjective than color. Despite long-standing scientific studies of color and its effect on human behavior and psychology, the saturation of brands in any given market and the continued flattening of cultural boundaries make color selection for an identity a less-than-scientific endeavor.

That’s not to say that traditional rules of color theory should be thrown out. It simply means there are numerous criteria and inputs that can lead to the most powerful color selection for your brand’s identity. All appropriate considerations and brand objectives should be presented and weighed accordingly. Here are five things to remember when determining how to make color work for your brand.

1. Buck convention

Everyone acknowledges a key role for a brand identity is to help differentiate in a category. Yet we are still amazed at how the brands in many sectors still fall within a strict color spectrum. Don’t be afraid to go against the grain and use color as a platform for telling your distinct story, even if it raises an eyebrow or two initially. We can think of a major telecommunications brand that’s pink, a global logistics brand that’s brown and a commercial bank that’s purple.

2. Understand how color will be used

Depending on where your brand will be applied and displayed, you might think about color in a different way. While the line between B2B and B2C brands gets blurrier by the day, there are different considerations for color when your primary touch point is a retail environment versus a website. For example, if one of your critical brand expressions is internally-illuminated signage, you might want to steer clear of dark blue as a primary color, due to its notorious legibility issues in that application.

3. Two can be better than one

It’s easy to point to some great brands that a singular color in a category as a branding best practice, but ultimately that can be pretty limiting. Color combinations can be just as effective if used consistently, and in some ways they can be even more differentiating and recognizable. Think of FedEx’s purple and orange, Mastercard’s red and yellow and Harley-Davidson’s Black and Orange.

4. Look outside your category

While understanding what your peers are doing from a color standpoint, don’t forget other categories that might have a very distinct color association in terms of mindshare with the general populous. For example, it can be tough to use earth tones and not be confused with an organic foods company, and the design blogosphere is full of folks asking if pink can ever be used again without being associated with breast cancer awareness.

5. Don’t be shortsighted

We’ve been in identity design presentations where someone asks, “Well, what’s the color forecast for next season? Have we considered that?” Color forecasting for fashion, interior design and even industrial design is a very viable and powerful tool in those categories; but color in terms of identity is not a “next season” decision. It’s a 10-year-plus proposition, and needs to be considered with the criteria discussed above: differentiation, personality and attributes, primary application and yes, knowledge of basic color theory.

Hiring managers should take into consideration that hiring practices have a strong correlation to some commonly used strategic branding practices. In fact, the similarities in branding 101 and a hiring manager vetting a group of candidates and selecting one for employment are strikingly familiar. It all comes down to the consumer (i.e. the potential employer) selecting one brand (i.e. the potential employee) over another who best meets specific needs. There is no doubt that candidates must represent themselves as preferred brands in the eyes of Human Resources regardless of the industry or position for which they are applying.

Here are five lessons learned from branding when interviewing and hiring potential candidates:

1. Brand platform: understand the brand promise of the candidate

People, like brands, possess foundational elements similar to a brand platform. Keeping this in mind can be quite useful when it comes down to evaluating potential candidates. Every candidate comes with their own personal positioning, which summarizes what it is they stand for and what differentiates and makes them superior over others. Key messages around personal experiences, job skills and expertise and extracurricular activities support the positioning. Additionally, personality traits and attributes help mold and shape personality and define both verbal and visual expression. All of which ladders up to an overall promise – the core of who the candidate is.

2. Visual expression: appearances matter

Whether we like to admit it or not, first impressions oftentimes set the tone for what employers think even before the actual interview process begins. The look and style of a resume and how candidates physically present themselves are not unlike a brand’s logotype, advertising, website or packaging. Whether alone or in combination, colors, typestyles, imagery and patterns conjure immediate perceptions and establish points of distinction between candidates that can strongly influence decisions.

3. Verbal expression: it’s not just what they say, but how they say it

Similar to visual expression, verbal expression is also a significant determining factor in the selection process. Catchy headlines, relevant benefits and a clear communication hierarchy can give one product the edge over another. This also holds true for how candidates present themselves during telephone and in-person interviews. Being knowledgeable about your company and industry, clearly communicating relevant experience, effective listening and timely, written follow-ups are valuable assessment tools.

4. Brand alignment: integrating personal brand and corporate brand

A candidate’s brand platform and visual and verbal expression are key performance indicators (KPIs) that provide insights into a candidate’s ability to achieve success within an organization. In addition to performance, these KPIs will also provide insight for one of the most important hiring credentials — brand alignment. The company has a brand that reflects who it is and what it does, way beyond its logo. The brand extends to all internal and external touch points impacting processes, behaviors and communications – including person-to-person interaction. Employees living the brand is critical for company success. Therefore, hiring practices must be in alignment with the corporate brand

5. Ensure optimal ROI through on-going management

Selecting the right candidate is a mutual investment. Once a candidate is selected and an offer is extended and accepted, the hiring process is far from complete. Successful training, acclimation and integration are required in order to position your candidate for success and to help guarantee a high return on your investment. During the employee’s first year, performance evaluations at three-month intervals help keep the line of communication open, provide a forum for evaluating performance against expectations and help ensure that everyone is in alignment with the brand.

Deciding whether to grow or to remain hunkered down is a key issue for America’s business leaders today. Companies can do more to take their future into their own hands and move forward faster in the economy by addressing their brand. Here are five critical steps that a company can take to drive growth through branding.

1. Know where you are relative to the competition.

Continuously monitoring your competition will help identify where you are today and set the direction for the future. It will help to determine whether your positioning is still unique or if it needs to evolve to better separate yourself from the pack. It will also gauge the momentum of your corporate brand on multiple attributes. Familiarity and favorability measures versus your industry and the competition can provide key strategies for future growth.

2. Develop a long-term five-year brand strategy.

Your brand strategy should support your business strategy. Base the branding budget on what it will take to achieve specific revenue and asset growth goals. Branding is an investment, so establishing long-term goals today is critical for future success.

3. Communicate to the world.

Show that you are serious about your growth plans. Demonstrate how you are retooling your brand to reflect a current look at who you are. You might refresh your logo or your brand identity. Whatever you do, communicate your new brand position to both internal and external audiences.

4. Energize your employees

Your employees build your brand. Therefore, it is critical that they are in alignment with your brand. By sharing the vision, plans and direction of the company, and by training your employees to adopt the new energized culture of the company, you have a better chance for success.

5. Measure your success by evaluating the ROI.

Report the costs of branding as an investment in the company, and you can consider the returns based on the growth achieved and estimated value of the intangible asset as adding to your corporate brand.

Social media is dispersed and fluid. Brand management is centralized with limited flexibility. Yet these worlds must co-exist. As companies become increasingly social, communication is no longer the exclusive domain of Marketing and PR. Maintaining a consistent voice across all vehicles, social and otherwise, is a key challenge and hurdle for many brands. Here are five tips to help you make sure that your social media efforts contribute positively to your brand experience.

1. Have goals.

What role do you want social media to play in the brand experience? Are you looking to simply drive awareness and build followers? Or are you looking to deepen customer relationships? Or do you see opportunities to open new data streams on customer behavior? Maybe social media is mostly a channel for customer service or recruiting. Each of these requires a different plan of attack. Without goals, your efforts will be scattered, inconsistent – and a poor reflection on your brand.

2. Have a channel strategy.

You don’t sell your product in every store or advertise your brand on every network. Keep your social media efforts focused on those channels that are most important and relevant to your audiences. The “mile-wide and inch deep” approach will limit your ability to drive real relevance for your brand. A strong presence across the most important platforms for your audience is significantly more desirable than a token presence across a dozen vehicles. Great brands are not all things to all people; social media doesn’t change this.

3. Listen.

In building a brand, one of the most important things you can do is listen. How do your various stakeholder audiences see you today – and how do you need to evolve these perceptions to take you where you need to go? The ease of setting up profiles on multiple social platforms belies the difficulty in doing it well. Who’s talking about you or about your competitors – and what are they saying? What types of things are your target audiences most concerned about – and how can you positively contribute to these conversations? Before you jump in too deep, take the time to listen.

4. Be transparent.

Social media is a human environment. Great brands make human connections. The irony is that brand management tends towards rigor and inflexibility. Public, real-time engagement can be an uneasy bridge across these two worlds. Mistakes are inevitable; running from them or trying to bury them will only make them worse. Acknowledging any missteps and behaving genuinely will speak volumes for your brand while fostering credibility and trust.

5. Be committed. And be patient.

Great brands are built by a sum of experiences. This takes time. Building your brand in social media also takes time – and more resources than you think. Your presence in the social world grows one follower / comment / like at a time. Set the right expectations internally to ensure that resources remain in place for the long term. Show commitment to your audiences externally by keeping your brand fresh, active and relevant across your chosen social media channels.