Branding For Start Ups

Over the years we have worked with many different entrepreneurs who have had great ideas, great products but limited budgets to get a proof of concept live.

I wrote back in 2017 about what comes first for businesses the product or the brand and the answer is always probably a mixture of the two. Looking back at the businesses that have gone on to be a great success like Public Desire, Lancashire Farm and Mojo they all have a commonality in that they invested the time at the outset to think strategically about their business and who they were targeting. Having this clear business or brand strategy then allowed us to execute a visual identity and initial brand that had more chance of resonating with their customer base.

 

Public Desire, View the case study here

 

3 blue yoghurt pots in front of a white background. Highlights brand packaging design for Lancashire farm yoghurt pots

Lancashire Farm, View the case study here

 

Our ethos at BGN and our processes are all based around balancing strategic thinking with creative output. And our branding process, although flexible does require time. Time to think, time to develop ideas and time to create and refine visual identities.

For a start up business with limited resources to invest at the outset, this often prices them out of working with branding agencies. So we set about building a process where we could adapt to the pressures of a startup and value to their journey.

The following processes still puts strategic thinking at the heart of what we do. But the emphasis is passed to the brand owner themselves to develop this. We give people the tools to ask themselves the right questions. We even advise to continue to do this regularly until they settle on what’s right.

One thing we have noticed over the years is that businesses and propositions often change in the first few years. Especially in tech, where we have seen some major pivots in idea that have resulted in really strong brand propositions.

So there are 4 simple stages…

 

1. Strategy & Brief

We will send across our DIY brand strategy kit that covers 4 key exercises that you can do in isolation to develop the core elements of your brand strategy. That, along with our briefing document we supply will give us all of the information we require to start the project.

2. Research & Exploration

Sketching out up to 4 different rough creative concepts, explaining our reasoning for why we think each would be a good fit for your brand, and agreeing with you which route(s) are worth taking through to creative concepts.

3. Creative Concept

Creative concept development looking at up to 2 different routes that can be taken from the brand. Inspiration on how the brand can roll out will be mocked up on 2 key touch points that we agree in the briefing so you can see the brand in context.

4. Refinement & Manual

Following on from the strategy, exploration, concepts and your feedback. We will develop a final brief, we will refine the concept and artwork the final brand elements. This will then be documented into a 10 page brand manual that covers everything created to date.

 

Depending on the business and the sector we can help with how you launch the brand, your website, packaging, etc. But first off we believe that developing the brand and then taking a brand-led approach to all elements of your business will benefit you in the long run.

Beyond the services that we can offer directly we can add a lot of value in terms of the networks that you have access to. Whether it be helping point you in the right direction for PR, digital marketing and social agencies. Or introducing you to other business owners and entrepreneurs in a similar space for advice. We have many people we have worked with over the years and are always happy to make relevant introductions wherever possible.

If you are an early stage business and want to speak to us about how we can help, then just email Antonio.

 

Some examples of recent work with start up brands

 

Mojo, View the case study here

 

V1BE, View the case study here

 

Yark, View the case study here

Mapping your brand – why every touchpoint matters

Whenever we start a new branding project with clients we always begin with going back to the basics of what a brand actually is. It’s not your logo, it’s not a clever strapline and it’s not your product or service. It’s what people say, feel and think about your business.

If this is the case (which we think it is), then there is a lot more that goes into creating your brand than simply what goes in your brand guidelines.  It’s the culmination of every direct or indirect experience a customer has with your brand. In this post we’re discussing why it’s so important to have a full and complete view of all of these touchpoints, and how to go about getting it. 

 

Why is mapping your brand touchpoints so important?

To ensure a consistent brand experience:

Every touchpoint a customer has with your business is an opportunity for your brand to either be strengthened, or diluted. Imagine receiving an email from Apple which doesn’t include beautiful product photography? Or walking into an Apple store and not being able to play with the latest iphone? How would that affect your overall perception of Apple as a brand?

For lesser known brands, ensuring this consistent experience across every touchpoint is crucial for your brand to gain momentum with audiences and become recognised for a certain style or type of content. Take the time walk in your customers’ shoes and question every touchpoint you come across – does it look, feel and speak like your brand should?

 

To influence the buying decision:

Every point at which a customer interacts with your brand is an opportunity for you to influence their behaviour or buying decision. In order to create a comms strategy that takes advantage of these moments, however, you need to understand the customer thought process at that point in time. Without actually mapping that journey and thinking about the process a customer is going through, it will be extremely difficult to do this.

Consider the customer journey of a new car buyer for example. After taking a test drive, the customer is likely to be impressed by all the features of the product and how they felt when they were sat behind the wheel. But they are also likely to have concerns or challenges around making such a big purchase. Do they need to spend the extra money on the leather seats and sports package, for example?

Would it be better to follow this customer up a week later with a personalised quote detailing their deposit and monthly payment cost, to try and seal the deal? Or would some more inspirational content about driving a car with a sports package work better? Clearly, both touchpoints are necessary in order to make the sale, but the timing and content of the touchpoint is crucial in influencing the buying decision.

 

To spot opportunities for cross/up sell: 

By mapping a typical customer journey (and preferably, backing this up with data), you can start to see where you can add extra value to your customer’s experience. In turn, this can also provide a business case for offering new products or services to your customers which are linked to that touchpoint.

If I go into a coffee shop every morning and buy a latte, it’s likely I’ll be in the market for breakfast as well as coffee. If my coffee shop mapped this journey and thought about my potential need for breakfast, they would spot the opportunity to capitalise on the fact I’m in their shop, and send me a voucher for 50% off a bowl of porridge or a pastry to get me to try out their breakfast offering.

Investigate your typical customer journey and see if you can spot any patterns in customer behaviour or buying cycles which can help give you insight into their life or habits. Are there any other needs your customers may have when they interact with your brand? Can you take advantage of these opportunities by offering another product or service?   

 

Need help mapping your brand?

Many businesses we have come across at BGN start off in our process thinking they know their customer journey inside out.  But this is often not the case. It can really help to work with people outside of your business to complete your brand touchpoint map and spot the opportunities and challenges that we’ve discussed here. If you’d like to learn more about how we can help, get in touch with Antonio.

BGN’s take on the great in-housing debate

2019 has saw a rising trend of brands taking gradual steps to move away from agencies and instead, focus on increasing their internal marketing capabilities – otherwise known as ‘in-housing’. The trend doesn’t seem to be slowing any time soon, with new brands hitting the industry headlines every day having reported multi-million pound savings through the process of in-housing.

As with anything that ever generates debate, there’s arguments for and against. We wanted to stick our two cents into the mix…

 

What do brands stand to gain from going in-house?

It’s impossible to ignore the fact that there are cost savings to be had from improving your in-house marketing capabilities. Not having to rely on agencies gives you greater control over costs and ultimately, more budget to plough into marketing spend.

Also relating to cost is the huge improvements which can be made to the efficiency of your operation should you bring certain skillsets in-house. A consistent frustration with agencies is the time it takes for them to turn around briefs. With an in-house function this time can be greatly reduced and work can be prioritised based on business need. Putting control back in the hands of brands. You’re no longer dependent on an agency’s workload and studio capability to deliver projects.   

Having in-house capability also increases transparency around the process taken to produce work. Agencies need to get better at showing and justifying the value we bring to the table. Rather than fearing becoming redundant if we pass on knowledge. This means helping brands onboard the work they do so they can replicate it themselves, rather than hiding behind a fog of ‘we’ll do that for you’ and hoping no one questions the cost.

 

But what are they losing?

On the flip side, it’s also impossible to ignore the huge value that agencies can bring to a brand’s overall marketing and creative output. In-housing often means hiring staff who have the experience in doing from an agency side, but rarely have the experience in the thinking side of things.

If you get rid of this thinking, or try and bring it within your organisation, you’re bound to lose out on some of the quality of what you’re putting out. Or, if you aim to bring in the same level of skillset and years of experience, it’s likely to cost the same or perhaps even more than when you were using agencies.

One thing businesses don’t always realise is the importance of keeping yourself switched on to different industries or sectors outside your own. Agencies often work across a number of different sectors, so you also get access to this knowledge (and all of the out-of-the-box thinking and ideas that come with it.

 

What we think

At BGN we think we’ve already wasted too much time debating the pros and cons of in-housing vs using agencies and that actually, it should be about creating the perfect balance for the brand at that moment in their journey.

A start-up with no brand heritage, for example, might rely more on an agency to ensure consistency and quality in the crucial early stages of launch. A Unilever, or a Ford, however, is going to benefit from having more agility and speed in its creative production. We’ve found with our long-term retained clients that their in-house teams are really benefitting from skill and knowledge sharing to up-skill their teams, especially when teams are more junior.

The world of branding and marketing continues to get more complex every day, so it’s important we take the best bits of both worlds to create a new model for the changing landscape. If you’re wondering how you could benefit from some external creative thinking to complement your in-house team, or you need help in forming that, get in touch with Antonio.

How customer-centric is your brand?

How many times have you been involved with a business and they talk about their brand as being ‘all about the customer’? Perhaps you’ve even referred to your own business in this way? There are so many brands that shout about being customer-focussed, but what does this actually mean?

Being customer-centric is more than just putting your customer first or offering fantastic customer service. It means designing your products or services around the specific needs of your customer, creating a seamless experience for them throughout their entire journey with your brand and building your business’ philosophy or purpose around what meaningful difference you make in your customers’ lives.

Here are some steps you can take to investigate how customer-centric your business (or the businesses you’re involved with) actually are.

 

Check-in on your culture

The employee culture of a business is arguably the biggest barrier to achieving true customer-centricity. This is because most businesses remain product-focussed or sales-driven. Often, employees will only be rewarded for customer-centricity in certain areas or business functions. This is usually with employees that are customer-facing, such as in a retail arm or a contact centre.

To become truly customer-centric, however, every employee needs to think and act with the customer in mind, regardless of how close they are to ‘actual’ customers. Are you, or your business’s leaders cultivating this customer-first mindset with your employees?

If your answer is no, you could take a leaf out of Adobe’s book. Way back in 2011, they implemented a Customer Immersion Programme to ensure their business leaders could experience first-hand what their customers experience. This led to a realisation of the changes that needed to be made, as well as giving them the drive to actually make them. They creating a culture of the importance of customer from the top down; the results speak for themselves.

 

Take a look at your community

Too many businesses disregard (or simply don’t realise) the importance of talking directly to customers. This doesn’t just mean sending out a customer satisfaction survey or asking them how likely they are to recommend you to a friend or family member. Whilst these are important measures, being customer-centric is more about creating a community. It’s about asking your customers for their thoughts, opinions and ideas (and actually acting on what they say).

When was the last time you checked in on your community? Do you even have one? There are a new wave of brands entering the market that have this down to a tee. Beauty and skincare brand Glossier is a perfect example where creating and engaging with your community has worked as a successful business strategy.

Glossier uses insights gained from comments, questions and polls from their loyal army of followers to create more relevant and targeted products. They’re tapping into real life customer pain points to educate themselves on what customers really want, and evolving their product range and service offering to match. Finally, they communicate their brand in a ‘you asked, we delivered’ fashion, ensuring their audience feels listened to and important, winning their loyalty in the process.

 

Re-evaluate your measures of success

When businesses want to grow, the tendency is to focus all of the attention on customer acquisition. How many new people are coming through the door? Which channels are generating the most leads and when can we shift more budget into them?

The ultimate measure of a customer-centric business, however, comes down to the loyalty of your customer base. How many of your customers keep buying from you, instead of switching to a competitor? If you don’t know the answer to this question, but you can easily tell me how many new customers you acquire in a year, then you need to re-evaluate the way you measure your success.

It’s really important you get a good handle on your data to start measuring yourself effectively on customer loyalty. You need to know the customer lifecycle inside out and agree on the set of characteristics or behaviours which make up a loyal customer to your brand. To use Glossier as an example, given their demographic and industry, it’s not reasonable for them to assume their customers will never buy from a competitor-brand. But perhaps 1 purchase every 3 months feels like the right pattern for a loyal customer? On the other hand, for Adobe’s customers, cancelling a subscription to Photoshop probably means that the customer has ended their relationship with the brand, and is no longer loyal.

Once you have a clear view on what you determine to be a loyal customer, you can effectively measure how loyal your customers are, and ultimately how customer-centric your business is.

 

Need help with creating a customer-centric brand?

The great thing about customer centricity is that you don’t always have to make that many changes to your business. The impact these changes can make, however, are tenfold, whether it’s brand-building, revenue-driving, retention-improving and so on.

If you’d like to chat to us more about how we can help you be more customer-centric – talk to Antonio.

Now Hiring: Across design, client services and strategy

Note: We are not using recruiters for these roles. Recruiters please don’t contact us, we have a select group of recruiters that we already use when needed.

BGN is a brand-led strategic design agency based in city centre Manchester. Our services cover everything from brand strategy and design, through to packaging, ad campaigns and digital. We are passionate about brand a helping business maximise their potential with effective design. Our client list includes Carlsberg, Lancashire Farm, Mark Hill and Public Desire. We are entering the next phase of our businesses growth and we have the following roles available in our team:

Deadline for all applications is Friday 18th October.

 

Looking for:

Brand Strategist / Brand Planner
Account Executive / Senior Account Executive / Account Manager
Graduate / Junior Designer / Middleweight Designer
Marketing Intern

 

Perks:

  • 23 days holiday (Plus bank holidays)
  • Excellent pension scheme
  • Private Health insurance
  • Regular team building socials
  • City centre location 7 mins walk from Piccadilly
  • Breakfast, fruit and drinks provided

You:

  • You have a good work ethic
  • You are eager to learn
  • You have good communication skills
  • You have an eye for detail
  • You love working collaboratively with designers, developers and strategists

 

Brand Strategist / Brand Planner

We are entering the next phase of our businesses growth and are looking for a bright and collaborative brand strategist or brand planner to join our team.

Required Skills:

  • You have 2+ years experience working within an agency or marketing environment
  • You dream about branding
  • You have an ability to develop clear strategic thinking
  • You’re intrigued by consumer behaviour
  • You have excellent copywriting skills
  • You get excited about finding nuggets of industry and consumer insight
  • You are a creative thinker
  • You are a positive person and enjoy communicating and collaborating with other team members
  • You’re confident presenting ideas to clients

Nice to have:

  • Experience using Adobe Creative Cloud
  • Experience of conducting primary research
  • Experience planning and scheduling social media posts for clients
  • Knowledge of social media advertising

Salary:

  • Up to £32k
  • Dependent on experience

Interested?

Send over your CV with a little about yourself and why you think you would be a good fit for BGN to antonio@bgn.agency

 

 

Account Exec / Senior Account Exec / Account Manager

We are entering the next phase of our businesses growth and are looking for an enthusiastic, hard working account executive, senior account executive or account manager to join our client services team.

Required Skills:

  • You have 1-2 years experience working within an agency or marketing environment
  • You dream about branding & marketing
  • You’re interested in working on exciting digital projects
  • You get excited about spreadsheets and planning projects
  • You’re confident presenting in front of clients
  • Researching new industries and finding nuggets of insight for the creative team
  • You are a great relationship builder
  • You love being organised
  • You are a positive person and enjoy communicating and collaborating with other team members

Nice to have:

  • Excellent copywriting skills
  • Experience using Adobe Creative Cloud
  • Experience planning and scheduling social media posts for clients
  • Knowledge of Google analytics
  • You can navigate your way around a CMS

Salary:

  • £18-24k
  • Dependent on experience

Interested?

Send over your CV with a little about yourself and why you think you would be a good fit for BGN to antonio@bgn.agency

 

Graduate / Junior Designer / Middleweight Designer

We are entering the next phase of our businesses growth and are looking for a graduate, junior or middleweight designer to join our team. We will consider talented graduates but ideally you will have 1-2 years commercial studio experience

Required Skills:

  • You have a portfolio of commercial work
  • You love solving brand problems
  • You know your way around Abode Creative Suite
  • You dream about working in an agency
  • You are a positive person and enjoy communicating and collaborating with other team members
  • You love to learn

Nice to have:

  • Knowledge of responsive design
  • Knowledge of Sketch
  • Knowledge of Cinema4D
  • Knowledge of After Effects

Salary:

  • £18-24k
  • Dependent on experience

Interested?

Send over your CV a little about yourself and why you think you would be a good fit for BGN to antonio@bgn.agency along with your portfolio.

 

Marketing Intern

We have an opportunity for an intern to come and join us for 1-3 months. You will get to work closely with the agency founders and get a great insight into what it’s like working at a boutique design studio. Tasks will be split between marketing, account management, research and new business.

Perks:

  • You get to learn loads about agency life
  • City centre location 7 mins walk from Piccadilly
  • Breakfast, fruit and drinks provided
  • Travel expenses will be covered

You:

  • You have a good work ethic
  • You are eager to learn
  • You have good communication skills
  • You have an eye for detail
  • Keen to get stuck in, learn new skills & be part of a friendly, energised team
  • You love working collaboratively with designers, developers and strategists

Interested?

Send over your CV a little about yourself and why you think you would be a good fit for BGN to antonio@bgn.agency.

How to Solve Business Problems with Brand – Part 2

When businesses are first starting out, outlining a strategy for brand development is normally top of the list of priorities. As time goes on, however, and businesses become more mature, some will focus on brand less. In the first part of our blog series on how to solve business problems with brand, we showed how powerful brand can be in helping to solve the common problems that businesses face.

In part two, we’re discussing some more unlikely ways that brand can help with business problems, such as in the new product development process.  Have a browse through and get in touch if you’d like to learn more about how BGN can help your business if any sound familiar. 

 

My industry is dying/facing challenges and I want to challenge the status quo

Let’s face it, being a business that challenges the status quo is more of an opportunity than a problem. But it’s still difficult to crack nonetheless. You might be in a situation where your industry is showing no signs of change any time soon. Consumers may have embraced a tried and tested business model. Even if your audience isn’t actively asking for a different kind of brand or business however, it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try and be one. All industries need to change, everything needs to evolve. The company who is bravest about embracing change will be in the best position to maximise the potential within their sector.

This kind of challenge requires a brave business mentality. It’s important that your brand strategy capitalises on the flaws with the current status quo. You need to highlight why your process, people, model and solution is better than the rest. Your brand look and feel will be important to ensure you grab the attention of your audience. It’s your messaging strategy, however, that’s going to be most important element in differentiating you.

First things first, you’ll need to review the way you’ve talked about yourself up until now. Is it right? Or does it need to change? How are you going to sound going forward? This may include developing a completely new tone of voice. You may need to re-establish your brand essence and ‘why’ statement, deciding how you’re going to communicate right down to individual word choices. Consistency is going to be key for this kind of brand strategy, so you’re going to want to have strict brand guidelines.  Committing your voice to paper and make it easy for anyone in your business to understand and replicate. With revised messaging that challenges the status quo and surprises consumers, and a visual identity to match, you’ll be in prime position to capture market share.

 

 


I need to accelerate my business’ growth 

We work with a number of businesses who have recently secured funding. They need to scale quickly to satisfy investors, or reach the next stage of their business’ development. On the flip side to this, there are also many businesses we’ve experienced who are long-established. They’re often under similar pressures, facing stretching targets with short deadlines. In both of these cases the problem is the same, they need results fast.

Obviously there are many factors which are going to come into play in making sure your business hits these targets. Things like market conditions, employee/supplier performance and even seasonality. But we firmly believe that brand will also be a huge contributor in overcoming these challenges. This is especially the case for recently-funded start-ups. Having a clear brand strategy is crucial to keep you on the right road as you need to always keep in mind what you set out to do. Being clear and consistent in your messaging will ensure that newly-introduced consumers will understand who you are and can get on board with you quickly. In turn they will recommend you and act as ambassadors for your brand during your crucial first stage of growth.

It’s a similar case for long-standing businesses. In order to drastically increase their turnover or market share, they need to do something different to what they’ve been doing thus far. That’s the only way they can expect consumers to react. But It’s usually the case that long-standing businesses are larger in size with more people involved. It’s easy for drastic changes in strategy or processes to become diluted. This results in messages not landing as well as you’d hoped. Setting a clear brand strategy at the beginning of your journey and communicating this clearly through employee onboarding is imperative. You will benefit by having a solid partner on board to support you in this. At BGN we have the varied skillsets required to help you through this process. 

 

 

My business needs to innovate / develop new products

Not every business we come into contact with needs a new brand strategy. Often we’ll meet businesses that have a robust brand that the entire company already stands behind. These businesses still face challenges, however. Often we’ll come across businesses who know they’ve not yet reached their full potential. This is where you can build upon your strong brand strategy to lead innovation. This could be new product developmentor diversification of your business, or perhaps just getting involved in new things which secures your brand positioning even further.

Sometimes it’s not always what makes the most sense or drives the most revenue. It could be something that fits with your essence and the ‘why’ of your business. This could be getting involved with a charity, introducing a new corporate social responsibility strategy or creating new products that take your brand in a new direction, like a range of organic products for example.

By understanding your brand and your customers, and most importantly, what those customers want from a brand, you can start to work on building out your business strategy further.

 

Interested IN LEARNING MORE?

As we’ve shown, it’s not always common business problems like awareness or employee moral that can be helped with brand. Brand can also help to tackle some other less expected challenges. It’s crucial you have a partner on board that can support you through working through the issue. If you’d like to learn more about our process or talk to us about one of our free brand audits, get in touch with us here.

How to Solve Business Problems with Brand – Part 1

Having a solid brand strategy is often resigned to being something ’nice to have’. It’s much easier to measure a return on investment with trackable marketing channels like PPC or social advertising than something as intangible as brand strategy. You put a certain amount of investment in, and you generate X many leads or £X revenue as a result. This is a tried and tested principle. It makes perfect sense if you’re a Marketing Director deciding where to put your budget.  

But what if your business is facing bigger problems? Issues or barriers that upping your PPC spend won’t solve? These fundamental business problems will take more work to chip away at. This is when starting with your brand is the only way to go. 

In part one of our series on how to solve business problems with brand, we’re discussing changing perceptions and behaviours. Have a browse through these common business problems and see if any of them sound familiar in your organisation:

1. My business has a perception issue
2. I want to change consumer behaviour
3. I need to improve employee morale 
4. My business is tired and needs reinvigorating

1. My business has a perception issue

Sometimes your customer’s perception of your brand does not always align with your own, this is known as the ‘brand gap’. The perception of your brand influences everything. From the type of customer you have, to how much they will pay. If it’s a physical product, it also influences which retailers will stock it. All of these factors can have a massive impact on the success of your business. There are many signs that your business has a perception issue, perhaps sales are declining or your customer demographic doesn’t seem right. If this sounds familiar then it’s important to address it as soon as possible. The positive thing to bear in mind here is that if your business is suffering from this problem, it is possible to turn things around. 

To begin to try and tackle the problem, the first thing you need to do is get to get a clear understanding of your current perception. Once you’ve got this, you can start to come up with a plan to shift this perception. This starts with setting a solid brand strategy. Use your consumer research to develop your brand identity, values and messaging to ensure they resonate with your desired audience. A strategic branding agency like BGN can help you to do this. We’ll use your insight to create concepts that move your brand on from where it is today. You can then put these in front of focus groups or review internally. This will ensure your brand hits the mark before you invest in promotion.

2. I want to change consumer behaviour

Perhaps you’ve come up with a product or service that is completely new to the market. It’s often the case that businesses like this are trying to enter traditional sectors. Industries where consumer habits are long-established, like banking for example. Businesses in these sectors have years and years of experience and heaps of brand equity with audiences. This means it’s going to be really difficult to change the way those consumers do things. 

As revolutionary as your product or service may be, it’s unlikely to be persuasive enough on its own to get consumers to use it. This is also due to the fact that long-established businesses are likely to have big budgets devoted to making sure that they retain as much market share as possible. But all is not lost, there is a way to change consumer behaviour. You just need to get people to sit up and take notice of you. Products or services that are disruptive and seek to change behaviour need to look and feel disruptive too if they are to get those initial trailblazers to give them a try – which is where your brand comes in. 

3. I need to improve employee morale

At BGN we’re big believers in the importance of your employer brand. If you’ve identified a problem with your internal culture or the morale of your employees, it’s likely to end up hurting your brand externally. It’s really important your staff are engaged and you work on resolving this problem before anything else. 

People often think that branding or brand development only matters to the consumer-facing brand. In reality it all starts with how you live that brand internally. Forget about the visual aspects of your brand for a minute and start thinking about what it actually means for your business. Why do you exist? What do you stand for? What is your vision? If your employees don’t know the answer to these questions or they don’t believe in what you do and where you’re going, you’re never going to get the best out of them.  

These are the questions we’d ask you first and foremost in one of our branding workshops, getting to the heart of what you understand your business to be, where your strengths and weaknesses lie, and what your vision for the future is. It’s crucial to understand whether your current brand strategy is aligned with these things, and if it’s not, establishing where you need to take it to make sure it does align.

4. My business is tired and needs reinvigorating

When you have a successful business that’s been trading well, taking a step back to think about your long term strategy isn’t always a priority. This can sometimes result in your business becoming stagnated, lacking in motivation to go to the next step. 

Going through the process of reassessing your brand and what your business stands for as part of a rebrand or a brand evolution can really give you the clarity you need to solve this problem. Why not try involving your employees in strategy workshops and getting everyone’s opinion on what consumer need your business fills. This can often lead to finding new avenues to explore and maybe even new services your business can provide. 

Interested IN LEARNING MORE?

As we’ve shown in part 1, brand can help to tackle some really challenging business problems. But first you need to get some clarification on what the major issue or barrier is in your business. Then you can start to think about how you’re going to use brand to overcome it and ultimately maximise the potential of your business. If you’d like to learn more about our process or talk to us about one of our free brand audits, get in touch with us here.

Five Reasons to Focus on your Employer brand

When people talk about ‘brand’, they’re usually referring to how a business is perceived externally (or how it wants to be perceived) to customers. It’s right that your external image and voice should form a crucial part of your brand strategy, but to focus on this alone suggests that no other factors influence your brand. Whilst this has been true in the past, when consumers were more easily influenced by marketing messages, it is no longer applicable today.

In today’s world, information is in abundance and consumers are demanding more transparency from the brands they engage with. It’s not enough to rely solely on external communications to build your brand – consumers also want to know about the inner workings of your business, your reputation as a place of work, your culture and your values.

Building this employer brand is integral to having a successful brand strategy overall, but what are the tangible benefits you can stand to gain from focussing some time and energy inward?

1. you will build consumer faith & brand loyalty 

The businesses that have caught on to today’s consumer and their demand for transparency are using it to their advantage. By giving equal importance to internal image and employer brand and showing this to consumers, you give your audience other reasons to love your brand, above and beyond the product or service you’re providing. You can use this to bolster your external reputation, winning brand loyalty and improving your business’ success in the process.

2. you will attract THE RIGHT TALENT

Recent studies suggest that after location and opportunities for career development, the external image of an employer is the third most important factor to candidates when choosing their next role. As talent is becoming harder to attract and even harder to retain, having a solid employer brand helps to ensure you attract employees who appreciate your internal culture and are much more likely to be the right fit from the start.

3. you will be in demand

Being an attractive brand for prospective employees means you’re naturally going to attract a larger pool of skilled individuals. This means you can have your pick of the bunch – candidates will have to work harder to earn a place in your business. A strong employer brand also gives you bargaining power, arming you with other benefits to leverage when negotiating with candidates. It no longer becomes a conversation simply about hygiene factors like salary and holiday entitlement, and instead about getting to work for a brand with an amazing internal culture and workplace.

4. you will CUT DOWN on COSTS 

A crucial benefit of investing in your employer brand is cost savings. Having an audience of candidates who are already aware of you and your employer brand means you’re naturally going to spend less on expensive recruitment processes, as they will come to you direct.

5. You will have high performing employees

When a business completely understands its employees and builds a platform for them to thrive and an employer brand for them to invest in, you will earn their loyalty. Loyalty is crucial in motivating your employees to keep performing and give their best at all times. Lower staff attrition also helps to keep teams consistent, build skill and retain faith in your brand and business.

Interested IN LEARNING MORE?

Whether you’re a business with only a small team, or a large organisation with multiple teams, you need to be thinking about your employer brand as part of your overall brand strategy. Hopefully we’ve given you some reasons to do it, and if you’d like to learn more about our process or talk to us about one of our free brand audits, get in touch with us here.

BGN X Wood Street Misson Christmas Appeal

This year, we decided we didn’t want to wish our clients and connections a Happy Christmas by adding yet another card onto the pile. Instead, we spent the money on something with a bit more Christmas spirit.

Christmas for many of us is a time of joy, gifts, and precious time with family. However it’s also an expensive time of year, and can be an especially difficult time for those families struggling to make ends meet. Wood Street Mission is a charity helping children and families living on a low income in Manchester and Salford. Every year they run a Christmas appeal to collect gifts and goodies to distribute to families in need across Manchester and Salford.

If you are interested in joining us in helping this great cause, you can donate here. We hope you have a great Christmas and look forward to catching up in the New Year.

Christmas opening times

This year we will be closing from 3:30PM Friday on the 21st of December and taking a well earned break over the festive period, returning to the studio on Wednesday 2nd January.

Now Hiring: WordPress Developer

BGN is a brand-led strategic design agency based in city centre Manchester. We build brands for businesses of all sizes and digital is a major part of our output as an agency.

Our passion for digital is in bringing motion, animation and brand experience alive online. Our client list includes Carlsberg, Lancashire Farm, Mark Hill and Radio.co.

 

Looking for

We are entering the next phase of our businesses growth and are looking for an enthusiastic, hard working WordPress Developer to join our team.

  • You can build bespoke WordPress themes from scratch
  • You know and love the basics: semantic HTML and pure CSS (SCSS)
  • You dream about Javascript
  • You have enough knowledge of Photoshop and Illustrator to open and prepare design files
  • You enjoy bringing sites to life using CSS animation/animation libraries
  • Your sites load lightning fast
  • You are a positive person and enjoy communicating and collaborating with other team members
  • You love to learn
Nice to have
  • Knowledge of working with WooCommerce
  • Knowledge of working with any other CMS platforms
Perks
  • 20 days holiday (Plus bank holidays)
  • Pension scheme
  • Regular team building socials
  • City centre location
  • Breakfast, fruit and drinks provided
Salary
  • Based upon experience
You
  • You have a good work ethic
  • You are eager to learn
  • You have an eye for detail
  • You are passionate about what you do
  • You love working collaboratively with designers, developers and strategists

Interested?

Send over your CV with a little about yourself and why you think you would be a good fit for BGN to antonio@bgn.agency along with sample code of your best projects.

Links to Codepen accounts would also be great.

Now Hiring: Senior Account Executive/Brand Planner

BGN is a brand-led strategic design agency based in city centre Manchester. Our services cover everything from brand strategy and design, through to packaging, ad campaigns and digital.

We are passionate about brand a helping business align their business strategy with their brand strategy. Our client list includes Carlsberg, Lancashire Farm, Mark Hill and Radio.co.

 

Looking for

We are entering the next phase of our businesses growth and are looking for an enthusiastic, hard working Account Executive / Brand Planner to join our team.

  • You have 1-2 years experience working within an agency or marketing environment
  • You dream about branding
  • You have experience working on digital projects
  • You can navigate your way around a CMS
  • You get excited about spreadsheets and planning projects
  • You can read clients minds
  • You are a great relationship builder
  • You love being organised
  • You are a positive person and enjoy communicating and collaborating with other team members
Nice to have
  • Experience planning and scheduling social media posts for clients
  • Excellent copywriting skills
  • Knowledge of social media advertising
Perks
  • 20 days holiday (Plus bank holidays)
  • Pension scheme
  • Regular team building socials
  • City centre location
  • Breakfast, fruit and drinks provided
Salary
  • Based upon experience
You
  • You have a good work ethic
  • You are eager to learn
  • You have good communication skills
  • You have a eye for detail
  • You love working collaboratively with designers, developers and strategists

Interested?

Send over your CV with a little about yourself and why you think you would be a good fit for BGN to antonio@bgn.agency

Now Hiring: Digital Designer/Front End Developer

BGN is a brand-led strategic design agency based in city centre Manchester. We build brands for businesses of all sizes and digital is a major part of our output as an agency.

We pride ourselves in bringing brand experiences alive online. Our client list includes Carlsberg, Lancashire Farm, Mark Hill and Radio.co.

 

Looking for

We are entering the next phase of our businesses growth and are looking for an enthusiastic, hard working Digital Designer / Front End Developer to join our team.

  • You have a great portfolio of responsive design
  • You understand how users interact with sites
  • You love solving UX problems
  • You know your way around Abode Creative Suite and Sketch
  • You know and love the frontend basics: semantic HTML and pure CSS (SCSS)
  • You dream about Javascript
  • You enjoy bringing sites to life using CSS animation/animation libraries
  • You are a positive person and enjoy communicating and collaborating with other team members
  • You love to learn
Nice to have
  • Knowledge of working with WordPress
  • Knowledge of Cinema4D
  • Knowledge of After Effects
Perks
  • 20 days holiday (Plus bank holidays)
  • Pension scheme
  • Regular team building socials
  • City centre location
  • Breakfast, fruit and drinks provided
Salary
  • Based upon experience
You
  • You have a good work ethic
  • You are eager to learn
  • You have an eye for detail
  • You are passionate about what you do
  • You love working collaboratively with designers, developers and strategists
Interested?

Send over your CV with a little about yourself and why you think you would be a good fit for BGN to antonio@bgn.agency along with your portfolio and any sample code of your best projects.

Links to Codepen accounts would also be great.

Brand vs. Product

How can new brands hope to stand out on supermarket shelves? Introductory offers only get you so far, and new brands don’t have the reputation and haven’t earned the loyalty of customers that gives more established brands the leg-up, even with completely new markets. On supermarket shelves, your product is literally sitting next to household names that have gone unchallenged for decades – so new brands are forced to make a splash when it comes to branding. The question is though, how should new brands split the difference between investing in bettering their product, and investing in fleshing out their brand?

Nine times out of ten, we walk into supermarkets knowing what we want to buy right down to the brand, range and size of the SKU. We go back to those brands and products time and time again because of a combination of their taste, price and packaging. Picking a new brand is a gamble, especially if the cost of the alternative product is higher than our usual go-to. All we have to go off is the look and feel of the new brand, so from that alone we have to decide whether or not to take the leap of faith and invest for the first time.

With this in mind, it seems obvious that brands need to invest in design – packaging design in particular – to make their product stand out. Without that visual appeal, they aren’t likely to picked up for a closer look, let alone dropped into the basket, bought and used. That said, even with the best visual identity and packaging execution in the world – this is just a short term win if the product can’t live up to it. Stand-out brands with weak products may gain initial inquisitive purchases, but will see a heavy drop-off beyond that with only the minority buying from them again in the future.

Is a 50/50 split between brand investment and product development the right way to go in that case? Or does it depend on the product? If we think of cheddar, for instance – shoppers have very little loyalty to any one cheddar brand, they just buy whichever one is on offer. Should cheesemakers invest more in brand than others, in that case? Or should they invest more in their product, hoping that doing so and supporting that investment with competitive pricing will gradually create loyalty in spite of the price being higher than the brands on offer?

Unfortunately there are no hard and fast rules here, so all we can do at this stage is pose the questions. We will happily meet with you to offer our own recommendations, or even just to contribute to the discussion as an expert outside voice – either way, chat to Antonio to start the ball rolling and we’ll help any way that we can.

The New Age of Naming

Naming a brand can be one of the most difficult parts of setting up a new company. Finding an appropriate domain for it is another problem entirely…

It’s only natural for businesses to want a web address that matches their brand name – we all want to be easy to find online. The problem is that the majority of companies will only settle for either .com or .co.uk… .co or .org at a push. Some new brands, desperate to maximise their search engine visibility, will even restrict themselves to keyword-focused brand names, finding themselves beaten to the punch in the process.

First of all, we would flat out discourage brands from a keyword-led approach to naming. All this does is create extremely bland names, which then struggle to rise above the noise in any industry. Market leading brands in most cases choose disruptive, recognisable names like Wonga or Zoopla – not ShortTermLoans.com or PropertyFinder.com. That said, disruptive names like these are, by no stretch of the imagination, easy to create and agree upon internally.

Even once you arrive at a completely original name you might still struggle to find an available domain for it, even the most random of domains are being bought up left, right and centre. The best example in our experience was the brand name ‘Chatify’, something which arose out of a naming workshop with a client recently. This was something discussed as an example of a route we could pursue more than anything, but we looked the domain up on the off chance and what do you know, it was already taken. To add insult to injury, the owner of Chatify.com has done nothing more than put up a contact form to get in touch with them and, presumably, pay them thousands. Back to the drawing board, then…? Well, we’d argue that a domain alone shouldn’t discourage you from pursuing a brand name you believe in – frustrating cases of domain parking like this can be resolved if you are willing to negotiate a more reasonable price with the owner.

Long story short, naming is a tricky business – one that, for us at least, shouldn’t be led by keywords and trying to game the search system, but at the same time, shouldn’t be determined solely by whether or not you can get a clean .com or .co.uk domain. Though the majority of our name recommendations in workshops will, in fact, be available on .com or .co.uk, there may well be cases where we suggest an alternative extension – the .agency on our site is a perfect example of how this could look – or recommend adding “group”, “consultancy”, “solutions” or any other number of suffixes or prefixes to stick with a brand name we believe will be the best for your bottom line.

For now, brands should think themselves lucky to only have to pay a standard registration fee when registering their new company name – it seems all but inevitable that soon companies may have to buy desirable names from third parties in exactly the same way we buy clean, convenient domains right now. We might be a few years off that as of writing, but that notion is no way near as farfetched as it once was.