How to Help Branding Agencies Find Your Company's Personality

If you’ve enlisted the help of a branding agency to create a shiny new identity for your company then it’s a good idea to get to grips with the basics of branding yourself before you let them start work. Agencies work in different ways so there’s no set process for defining your company’s brand, however, a great way to start is by turning your brand into a person by applying human characteristics to your company.

I’m Ikea, nice to meet you

All brand identities are open to different interpretations but many of the big, every day brands have very distinct personalities. If Ikea was a person then they’d be a friendly and creative hardworking Swedish chap who is always calm and who puts up flat pack furniture in minutes.

I’m... er, who am I?

For a successful marketing campaign to work your brand has to be seamless and if you don’t know who your brand is then it will be virtually impossible to have brand consistency across all your advertising channels. For example, graphic design agencies work on brands every day by creating memorable logos, websites and graphics for advertising campaigns. However, if these graphic design agencies are working on a brand personality which is quirky and friendly (say Innocent Drinks for example) but you want your brand to come across as more serious and sporty (Lucozade for example) then your brand won’t have the consistency required to be a success. To begin to define your brand’s personality ask yourself simple questions about your brand such as whether they’re male or female, how old they are, what type of house they live in, what books they read, what they like to eat and drink and so on.

As you find out more about your brand you will begin to get a clear idea of how you, your company and your target audience fit together which will strengthen your marketing efforts and ensure that the branding agency you’re working with nails your brand.