Initially, businesses approached branding as a strategy to differentiate one company from another. But at this tech-friendly age, thanks to numerous digital innovations and distractions, a simple yet catchy name and attractive logo alone, won’t do the trick anymore.
Branding has evolved into a multi-million dollar industry. Today, branding encompasses elements like social consciousness, excellent customer relationships, customer and community-centric communications and much more that create an identity and voice for brands. To build such brands, marketers should understand and implement the latest branding trends because branding is one of the few industries you can’t afford to be out-dated in.
Here are the top 4 branding trends that your business should capitalise in 2020.
“Blandification” of Brands
Image source: Reddit
The audience has evolved, and so have their expectations. These days the audience expect a clutter-free experience. Minimalistic and bland logos are becoming the latest trendsetter. In the business industry, many companies have caught up with this trend. For example, big brands like Google, Spotify, Airbnb and Pinterest have recently opted for minimalistic rebranding by changing their logo to popular typefaces with fewer colours possible.
Besides Minimalism, there is yet another reason for brands to go bland. They have a better chance of becoming iconic because with simpler fonts, and fewer colours, brand logos can be paired easily with any supporting graphics. This way, customers can easily recognise your brand’s logo. Nike and Levi’s have adopted the best example of this trend. Both brands have adopted minimalistic and bland brands so that they are easily recognizable no matter the background you put them in.
This trend comes with its own warning, though. Too much blandification can result in making your brand logo dull. To prevent this, try different colour schemes and font styles to stand out with a kind of simplicity that is interesting.
Branded Hashtags
The real test of all your branding efforts lies with your customer interaction and customer-centric communications. Social media platforms will decide your brand’s longevity. Adapting the latest branding trends in these platforms is a must. One such latest branding trend that is shaping social media platforms is branded hashtags. Branded hashtags are becoming a go-to trend in social media as it increases customer engagement by 50% and enhances brand awareness.
Not taking us for our word, here is an interesting statistics to convince you. According to Omnicore Agency, in Instagram alone 7 in 10 hashtags are branded.
You can employ this trend wisely to your advantage by asking your customers to post their recent purchases from your brand, using your official hashtag. Using the branded hashtag, you not only increase your reach but also encourage your customers to share their experience, making them your brand ambassadors.
Officialising Your Visual Content
Study shows that humans resonate to visual content better than other forms of content. The above inference can be used wisely for your branding efforts to elicit a positive reaction from your customers. To adopt this form of branding strategy, you have to create visuals that reflect your brand image and aesthetics. Some tips to enhance this trend for better brand recognition are
- Use official fonts in all forms of visual content.
- Follow a constant colour scheme for all your images, infographics and other forms of visual communication so that your customers can recognise your brand just with your colour scheme.
- In videos, add your brand logo.
Following these simple tips, you can subtly advertise your brand in a way that they recognise your brand, just with the visual content you use.
Adaptable Logos
In this digital age, only those brands that have found a way in being omnipresent can achieve success. The reason is, customers can’t be categorised anymore. There is a potential customer, even on platforms, you failed to explore. Hence brands have to be everywhere to be noticed. When brands are present everywhere, their logos have to be adaptable.
Adaptable or Shapeshifting logos that change according to the size, colour and purpose, answers the complexity of being present everywhere. In simpler terms, you can’t use the same logo for your website, Instagram account and watermarks. Hence you need adaptable logos according to the platforms it's being used. By having adaptable and shapeshifting logos, you ensure consistency across various mediums your logo is viewed on. Some of the advantages of using the shapeshifting logo are
- Your customers can recognise your brand in different ways, thereby ensuring brand recall.
- By providing visual variety in your logos, you keep your brand logo interesting.
- You ensure that your logos fit the purpose it is being used for
Branding boils down to the simple aspect of gaining your customer’s trust and loyalty. Your branding efforts should focus on how your brand is being perceived instead of how it looks. And as customer’s perception can change in an instant, it is important to stay updated with the strategies. After all, isn’t it your role as the marketer to ensure that the change is positive?
