Designing an identity for your company is a lot like creating an image for a personality figure: you need to determine what you should look like in order to attract and appeal to your target customer at first glance.
Take a moment to look at what you’re wearing and imagine yourself walking into a party room filled with rock stars. Ask yourself this question: “Do I fit in?” Now, ask yourself what your chances are of selling anything to them. Are your chances good or bad?
A Company introduces itself to a potential customer in very much the same way, by its first impression. If you’ve made a good impression, they will listen. If not, look over your shoulder. A Bouncer is lurking behind you.
People are either turned on or off to a company by the way it visually presents itself before even a word is read or spoken in an advertisement. This is because people instinctively compare and judge what they see, based on their own personal values, as a protective mechanism. We don’t want to be confronted with something we don’t like. If our instinct tells us to stay away, we stay away.
No matter how good of a product or service you have, the viewer’s mind has already decided whether they’re going to listen to what you have to offer before you offer it! If they don’t like you from the beginning, let’s face it: you’re fighting an uphill battle.
This is why it’s so important that you devote time to making sure that your company’s identity attracts and appeals to your target customer at the outset. For example, if your product or service is for teenagers, you need to figure out how you should appear to that age group. You will also have to appeal to a particular taste within that age group. Different interests and tastes can divide even teenagers into groups.
A great example of this is how the music industry “brands” their artists’ music and images according to particular tastes within the youth market. Browse through some heavy metal, jazz, bubble gum, and pop music CD’s at your local music store and you’ll notice the differences.
So, how do you dress your company for success? There are three basic things you need to do. 1. Research your market well, 2. Define your company in a desirable way within that market place, then 3. Go shopping for a good designer! Here are some suggestions:
1. Research Your Market. Any company that’s serious about competing in their marketplace will have a scrapbook of their competitors’ brand identity, products and a profile of their target customer’s likes and preferences. Keep tabs on what your successful competitors are doing in regards to their Identity. Make notes, take pictures, create a scrapbook and use it as a reference like a bible.
2. Define Your Company. Figure out what it is that sets you apart from your competitors. Are you more resourceful, clever, in tune with what’s going on, entertaining, or simply a helpful friend? Then, imagine how your customers will think of you when you first set eyes on each other and how they’ll react. When you get to the point where you think that you’ll be accepted, you’ve successfully defined the image you’ve been looking for.
3. Go Shopping for a Designer. Find a design consulting firm that will help you develop your own unique personality based on the information you’ve gathered and the image you’ve defined. Just like a fashion designer knows how to create a unique style for a movie star personality, a good design firm will know how to “dress” your company with a unique identity that will get you noticed, set you apart from your competitors, and make you remembered.
Yuri Kusina is President and principal design consultant for Ayacom Design Inc. You can visit his site at: http://www.ayacom.com, or call 818-558-5985.
