Brands are just like people

28 November, 2024

Building a brand is a structured and ongoing journey

Think of it like building a house. You start by asking how many people will live there, how many rooms are needed, how you want to live together, what feeling and atmosphere you want to create. Is it realistic and affordable? Once the house is built you continue to look after it and adjust it as circumstances change. With brands it’s the same. Often it begins with a great product or service. Who are you making it for? What are potential customers looking for? What value can you add to their lives? What problem do you solve? And how are you different from everyone else? A mistake I often see entrepreneurs make is treating brand building as a finished project. They run through the checklist and assume it is done. Wrong. Your brand, along with your people, is the most powerful asset your company has. Treat it well, continuously and consequently. A brand is so much more than a logo.

What is in a name?
Villa TRINARI sounds fancy, right? Until the French introduced population records in the 19th century, houses did not have numbers. They were simply known by their names. Today proud villa owners are bringing back that tradition to stand out. Quote magazine wrote a wonderful piece about this, explaining that Villa Trinari, which sounds very chic, is simply the home of Trinie and Arie, two successful entrepreneurs.

Should you use your own name?
If you are your product and you do not want to spend time searching for a brand name, then just use your own. It is usually unique and powerful. Brand associations build up faster because you are already the brand. The catch is that you are your brand everywhere all the time. That can be tricky if you are in a bad mood and snap at a waiter, because your brand suffers too. Reputation damage is always close by. As your company grows, you cannot keep doing everything yourself. How do you handle team members who are proud of their work and want recognition? Customers may feel disappointed if they no longer speak directly with the founder. Suddenly you are accused of arrogance. And if you want to sell your company one day and relax under a palm tree, what will your business be worth if the brand is only you?

So how do you build your brand to outlast you?
Take YSL as an example. It is still a powerhouse brand even though Monsieur Yves is no longer with us. Why? Because the brand values and the soul of the company were carefully documented, protected and lived out in practice. A strong brand guide lasts longer than just one season.

And what about your URL?
Your Uniform Resource Locator, in other words your web address, needs to be simple. Avoid hard to pronounce names, hyphens, complicated spellings, zeros that look like the letter O, long strings or clunky combinations. Easy, right? Except by the time, you come up with the perfect name, the URL is often already taken. Take Brandsparkle. We secured it in the Benelux with brandsparkle.nl, .be and .eu. But brandsparkle.com belongs to a company in Australia. For now, our focus is the Netherlands and Belgium, and we are dreaming of France too. As for Australia, that stays on the holiday wish list. But remember claiming your domain name does not mean you own the trademark. Not at all. So, register your brand too, for example with the Benelux Trademark Office.

At Brandsparkle, our goal is to share knowledge in a clear, convincing and down-to-earth way. Did this article help you? Share the sparkle. Thank you.