When we are starting up, we all make mistakes and branding is something that most entrepreneurs take for granted. In this highly competitive world, it becomes really important to concentrate on your brand and make it stand out. Just imagine if you are opening a restaurant in a mall, you would be easily competing with 15-20 other restaurants. So what will make you standout from other brands is not just your product but also how are you branding the whole experience.
Mistake #1- My logo is my brand
First of all, it’s important to understand “What is a brand?” Most layman answer, “My logo is my brand.” If I start takin money for whenever some says this, I could easily become a millionaire. (:p)
NO! NO! NO!- Your logo is not your brand. Your logo is just a visual identity by which people recognize you. If I have to say it in the simplest of terms, brand is “what people say behind your back?”. For example if you meet someone new and you have to describe it to a friend of yours, you might talk about the looks (in a restaurant terms- the interiors/graphics/other design elements), you might talk about “persons nature” (staff attitude, products/services a restaurant offers) and maybe “how the person made you feel” (food’s taste, drinks feedback etc). All these various little little components make a BRAND. So please next time don’t think of your logo as a brand, it is just a teeny tiny component which is required in your branding activities.
Branding Mistake #2- Failing to define your brand’s Target Audience.
Whenever I ask startups about defining their target audience, most of them will come up with age. Recently I was consulting a homegrown food brand, the owner told me her target audience is from 22 years to 60 years of age. I was like wow! From a 22 year old who has just got out of college & just started adulting to a well settled 60 year old, everyone is your audience?!! How do you make your brand creatives for such a wide audience?!!
Lets take a small example:- if you have to talk to a 22 year old, you might want to keep it a lil fun. “Yo wtsup?!” “Hola” “Hey bro” are just few examples but if you have to talk to a 60 year old, you might want to make the conversation a lil mature & respectful; for eg “Namaste”, “Hello! How are you?!” Etc. Do you see how the language immediately changes? Accordingly your brand creatives need to change, depending on your target audience!!
My fav case study is of Coke vs Pepsi. Both sell cold drink but both are positioned so differently. Pepsi has always targeted the youth and the brand ambassador has been always a youth icon. On the other side, Coke has been always a family brand, even its communication says “open a bottle of happiness”. It’ll try to target families on Diwali & other major festivals. Both brands selling the same product but having such different Target Audience. Time to define yours?
Branding Mistake #3- Not having USP
USP or Unique Selling Proposition is something that every brand should think of before launching their brand. What is that “one thing” that would make your target audience try your brand over the other existing competitors brand products.
For eg. If you are a coffee brand, maybe your brand is organic or you are giving coffee cheaper than your competitors or your packaging is a cool bottle which acts as a souvenir after the sale etc. These are some USP’s which your brand might have. Keeping your USP in mind your branding needs to be done and accordingly your target audience needs to be defined. For eg. teenagers might not be interested in an organic coffee but they might like the idea of a cheaper coffee or a free souvenir.
What if you don’t have USP? Then you should go back to the audience you would want to target and understand the habits, likes/dislikes of that audience set. For example, you might want office goers to be hooked on to your coffee. Then maybe designing the packaging of your coffee in a way that its travel friendly or coming up with coffee recipes which has the right amount of coffee to “wire up” an office goer etc.
Mistake #4- Not having a brand Strategy!
Every brand should have their next 6 months brand strategy chalked down. This means for the next 6 months, what events are you participating in?!, would you be running social media ads?! would you be coming up with new recipes? What is the next 6 months plan of action?
For eg. you are planning to participate in a food festival after 3 months. So in this case, first 3 weeks you might want to try out some new recipes, that you might want to launch in the festival. In the next 4 weeks, you might want to look into packaging of the product. That means hiring a graphic designer, getting few prototypes made and then sending the final design for print. Lets take it hypothetically this all gets done in 4 weeks (in my work experience very very tough timelines :p) then you might want to get into product shoot. So getting in touch with a photographer, getting a food stylist on board etc. Once your photography is done, you might want to look into the marketing collaterals, such as standees, kiosk design, social media activities, pamphlets, take away menu etc. Once you have defined these, you might need to train your staff on different social media activities and offers that you are providing on the day of the event.
So do you realize for a single event, how much planning needs to go in. If you are not doing an event, your brand still needs to talk on different occasions/festivals. For eg. Republic Day, Independence Day, Diwali etc. Maybe as a brand you might want to take out Diwali Hamper, again the 3 month process would need to be repeated.
Step 1:-Figuring out what goes in the hamper
Step 2:- Packaging design & printing
Step 3:- Photography
Step 4:- Promotion material design
Step 5:- Staff training
Mistake #5- Not having a defined 30 second elevator pitch.
You need to understand, you are the brand ambassador of your startup. If you don’t know how to get clients/potential investors interested in your product, you are losing out on a huge market. All it takes 30 second to lose someones interest in what you are saying. So go on and get the right elevator pitch!
About me
Hi! I am Astha Aggarwal, a freelance Brand Consultant. I have been consulting big and small brands past 8 years of my life. This is my small way of giving back to the fantastic food industry that I am a part of. If you liked this article of mine, please do like and share it with your friends & family. If you have any queries/questions, please do leave it in the comment section and I would definitely reply!
