The Branding Gap Between Logo and Tagline
We can’t really talk about branding without talking about a cow’s derriere and a smooth imprint on cowhide.
It’s the mental stock image we all think of, so let’s dive into the history a teensy bit, because I’d be willing to bet the whole whopping farm (if I owned one) there’s a few fun facts you didn’t know.
A briefly hilarious history of branding
When we look at the evidence, branding was a thing way before cattle herding was cool. In fact, like pretty much all art, it all started with cave paintings. Apparently, painting in tar and bat excrement isn’t the most sustainable branding practice, which is why the Norse and Egyptians started burning their symbols nearly 10,000 years later.
These guys were amateurs though, using burning word to mark up clay pottery and brick tombs. It took another 4,000 years to upgrade to some quality iron that could be heated in a forge. It was a really useful way to track your inventory in case your competitor (who, conveniently, lived right next door) tried to steal — which happened all the time, and still does.
By the 1800s, industrialization had really kicked things up a notch and there wasn’t just one butcher, baker, and candlestick maker to a city; businesses had to differentiate themselves in a crowded marketing. Sounds freakishly familiar, right?
So, these companies started creating their own brand marks — just like the cattle farmers — to identify their cases and products as a way of indicating there was high quality stuff stuff. Naturally, that seemed like a superb marketing strategy, so everyone started doing it.
Thus, the world of modern branding began. Less than a century later, companies could register trademarks and become recognized by a symbol, sort of like Prince. These company brand names had become valuable in their own right and businesses were capitalizing on it like crazy.
There’s not just one type of branding
Branding has become so much more than a logo and a tagline. Branding centers on how you present your company, the experience you provide your clients, and the overall feelings your audience has towards you.
We can probably all thank the Mad Men of the advertising age for this, because they introduced a new marketing strategy of selling products through storytelling. They started telling stories through commercials and the world of marketing was turned on its head.
Suddenly, the story was everything.
And then the internet changed everything.
The void between the logo and the messaging
Historically, branding has been divided into two departments.
On one hand, there’s print/digital branding which includes the logo, color palette, business cards, website design, and overall graphic design. And on the other hand is brand messaging like your tone of voice, website copy, social media posts, and so forth.
We often think of branding as how your brand looks and what it says. But there’s something missing.
Given how experience- and perception-based branding has become, how your brand acts is just as important, maybe even more. How your brand acts determines things like which specific feelings your brand evokes and what experiences it creates.
This gap between how your brand looks and what is says (aka how your brand acts) gets called a lot of things: visual identity, brand visuals, brand mood, etc.
At the end of the day this gap is your brand personality made visual. Or as I like to call it, your brand’s visual personality.
The rise of brand photography
Your brand’s visual personality creates the link between your static brand elements and your dynamic brand elements. It’s the glue that connects print/digital branding and brand messaging together on modern platforms like every social media giant you’ve ever heard of.
Visual personality is more important now than ever before because there are way more butchers, bakers, and candlestick makers than ever before. Just about every industry, vertical, and niche is filled to the brim of companies that seem nearly identical.
Your brand’s visual personality telegraphs the core of your brand and the very edges of its personality in nano-seconds. It can set the tone, create a mood, and express your brand’s intention, which is why it can immediately communicate all of the things you struggle to say in words.
How your brand acts comes through in brand photography, and becomes your prospective client’s first impression and likely what catches their attention in the first place. Brand photography can show that you’re playful and quirky or bold and confident or striking and sassy. This visual personality zooms right up to your audience’s subconscious and whispers I’m what you’ve been looking for.
But probably most importantly, brand photography can filter and vet your ideal clients for you. It tells your story without words, resonates with your audience faster than you can blink, and connects with your ideal client before they read a word of your copy.
How most people get brand photography wrong
The sad truth is most businesses are getting the most important aspect of branding wrong. And I genuinely am saddened by this because it means incredible businesses are losing out and (in some cases) even being damaged by inaction or incorrect actions.
Done wrong, brand photography can bore people at best and make them distrust you at worst. We’ve all seen those well-meaning Instagram feeds filled with overused stock images or poorly photoshopped pictures. We naturally interpret and translate these visuals to mean the business is lazy, cheap, or unprofessional.
Are you making one of these textbook mistakes?
Posting the same category of images over and over
Choosing overused, bland stock images
Add confusing photoshopped elements to images
Using grainy, low-quality cell phone images
Reusing the same image without any changes everywhere
Focusing on the wrong thing(s) in the images
Stock photo by Martin Sanchez on Unsplash
When businesses with great messaging use cheap, bland, or low-quality photos, they’re positioning themselves to be perceived as cheap, bland, or of low quality. If it seems like a direct correlation, right? It is.
This gap they’re missing out on is the number one reason businesses aren’t connecting with their audience. If you’ve got a gorgeous logo and spot-on messaging, but you’re seeing a plateau in sales or engagement, it’s because your brand’s visual personality isn’t being accurately represented.
Branding doesn’t end with a logo or tagline. Branding is an ongoing process that is fueled by expressing its visual personality and supported by brand photography. Book a Branding Session today to jumpstart your brand’s visual personality on the right path.