It’s a common misperception that a company’s logo is its brand. But a logo is only one aspect – albeit an extremely important one – of your brand, and in reality, your brand is formed from a multitude of different factors..
The definition of ‘brand’ is: “a name, term, design, symbol, or any other feature that identifies one seller’s good or service as distinct from those of other sellers”. This means your brand is a complex mixture of physical and emotional cues derived from every aspect of your company, including industry sector, ethos, values, USP, identity, pricing strategy, quality, customer service, etc. It’s what makes consumers choose your products or services over those of your competitors.
The main job of your brand is to provide an emotional connection with your clients and customers, encouraging trust between you and them, which will increase the likelihood that they will buy from you rather than another company. In a shop, your brand is a shortcut for time-poor customers, enabling them to identify your product from a competitor’s and encouraging them to choose it over and above a different one. It’s therefore important that your brand delivers on its promises, otherwise you’ll lose all that trust, loyalty and custom.
In the competitive retail world, branding is a vital element on the high street. Many of our clients are major retailers that need to stand out from the crowd to attract people to their shops – especially in busy shopping centres and malls.
Our previous work in this respect has involved projects such as branding the exterior and interior of Gap stores with colourful stripes that matched the design of one of their new ranges, including the stairs. In one study of consumer behaviour, it was found that “task-oriented shoppers preferred shopping in spacious stores, whereas recreational shoppers preferred high-arousing store environments” and that recreational shoppers “enjoy and prefer the arousing properties of color”. So this branding was designed to encourage recreational customers to come into the shop and browse. The stripes had the additional benefit of seeming to direct customers into the store and then guiding them through it to the display stands.
Another great project for us to work on was the graphics for Nike’s collaboration with Neymar Jr. on the “Ousadia Alegria” range of football boots, which is inspired by his tattoos. The whole project had a street art vibe, which allowed us to make a vibrant in-store display with large format posters, wall wraps, flooring and branded podiums.
When the world-famous department store Selfridges hosted a celebration of music, we created a suite of displays for Music Matters. This included hanging posters, signage, and the set, including the bar area.
Window displays are hugely important to the retail industry, which is why shops spend so much time and money getting them right. A window display is important because it gives potential customers a good (or otherwise) first impression of your shop. Whether they are fair or not, first impressions last – get it right and you’ll attract customers in; get it wrong and you’ll not only lose their interest this time, but you’ll have to work much harder to get them to look twice at your store in the future.