CREATIVE BRAND STRATEGY//TASK 1
Chaw Zhi Ting (0347344)
Bachelor of Design (Hons) Creative Media
Creative Brand Strategy// Task 1 Case Study and Branding Proposal
LECTURE:
W1: What is Brand Strategy?
Brand strategy is built on a platform of differentiation, where a company can use its value to create competitive advantages and become memorable in the eyes of the consumer. A well-defined and executed brand strategy affects all aspects of a business and is directly connected to consumer needs, emotions, and competitive environments. Elements of a company brand strategy are purpose, consistency, emotion, flexibility, employee involvement, loyalty, and competitive awareness.
Figure 1.0 the branding process
W2: Brand Positioning
Basic branding development goes through 4 essential stages. First is formulating a brand strategy by understanding the brand's target audience, market, vision and mission. Next is creative execution, where we are supposed to create brand language and produce related visuals to give the audience a look and feel of the brand. Moving on is the implementation stage through various platforms and communicating the brand.
Brand experience is essential nowadays because brands create an emotional connection with the audience through their style and how they speak to clients. This will affect the user's perception of a brand. Apart from personal branding and SWOT analysis, positioning is also important in branding. Positioning is an internal strategy statement to guide external implementation, while a customer journey map shows the overview of customers' experiences with the brand across all touch points.
W3: The Creative Brief
This chapter explained forming a creative brief and developing a big idea involving the key messages and elements. We need to go through five stages to create a big idea. First, understanding and researching all the necessary data, such as the target market, emerge in narrowing the focus. Next is the clarifying stage to solidify target markets, competitive advantage, brand core values, brand attributes, and project goals, moving on, developing the positioning statement and uncovering the brand essence. Finally, forming the big idea with enough ambiguity for future development. It can be expressed in a sentence or a tagline.
Brand Positioning Statement: Target Customer | Market Definition | Brand Promise | Reason to Believe.
Figure 1.1 the big idea
W4: Brand Touchpoints
Brand Touchpoints are the possible interactions and exposures a consumer can have with a brand. Either website to a retail space or direct mail to a product builds a customer's relationship with the brand. There are three essential steps to prioritize brand marketing activities: make a list of the various Brand Marketing activities and Brand Touchpoints, and evaluate them to ease the implementation. Lastly, add the prioritized activities and touchpoints and map them along the consumer journey map.
Besides that, a moodboard is essential to provide clear guidance and affirmation for the brand identity. The other components are campaign logo wordmark, colour palette, typography, visual style (illustration, pattern, graphic element) and photography.
INSTRUCTION
Ms Lilian walked us through the information booklet and briefed us on the tasks. This semester is interesting because we have the opportunity to do personal branding for our friends. The lecturer randomly assigned the 'client' so we could step out of our comfort zone to get to know each other more. The person I will be branding is Wanda, and I'm excited to know more about her. At the same time, Lene will be branding me. I hope we can work together closely in the upcoming weeks.
Figure 2.0 Camille Walala studio, 29th Sept 2022
Figure 2.1 Camille Walala Instagram, 29th Sept 2022
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Figure 2.2 Camille Walala Website, 29th Sept 2022
Figure 2.3 Submission Task 1, 5th Sept 2022
Figure 2.4 Brand Value, 12th Sept 2022
Figure 2.5 Task 1A: Case Study (amended version), 12th Sept 2022
Task 1B: Campaign Proposal
Part 1: Understanding Wanda
After researching about personal branding and doing the case study, I have a clearer idea on how it works. I started to communicate with Wanda (my branding client) to understand about her background, personality and goals. I also did some research on her social media, to understand how she portray herself in the public. I also requested Wanda to share some of her artwork and past experiences in her graphic design journey know her style.
Figure 3.3 Her graphic design work for client, 31st Aug 2022
Figure 3.4 Her artwork inspiration, 31st Aug 2022
Figure 3.7 Important notes from interview answers, 2nd Sept 2022
Figure 4.2 Competitors study, 12th Sept 2022
Final Submission
FEEDBACK:
Week 2
Overall Feedback
Task 1A, Ms Lilian commented we did quite well on studying how the brand is built. Key activities -how we see the brand (okay). Key visual- potential in graphic design (lack of examples).
Task 1B: More solid case study, can start thinking task 2 (ideate), design direction. Lock the big idea before proceeding design, it is okay to do something manageable. Think of the potential in terms of graphic design.
Specific feedback
Task 1A: overall excellent, missing brand value slides.
Task 1B: Introduction, issue, objectives are okay. The concept of was okay but Disney character will restrict the potential or branding the person. Might think of other concept, agony aunt is suggested by Ms.Lilian (where people can write to her, tell their issues either anonymous or with names). Can think of this direction but brand it modern. Touch points: can be more detail and include the others like merchandise.
Week 3
Overall Feedback:
Task 1A, Ms Lilian commented we did quite well on studying how the brand is built. Key activities -how we see the brand (okay). Key visual- potential in graphic design (lack of examples). Task 1B: More solid case study, can start thinking task 2 (ideate), design direction. Lock the big idea before get into design (something manageable), think of its potential in terms of graphic design.
Specific feedback
Task 1A: overall excellent, missing brand value slides.
Task 1B: Introduction, issue, objectives are okay. The concept of was okay but Disney character will restrict the potential or branding the person. Might think of other concept, agony aunt is suggested by Ms.Lilian (where people can write to her, tell their issues either anonymous or with names). Can think of this direction but brand it modern. Vision is okay, Mission might want to amend, too long and not direct.
Touch points: can be more detail and include the others like merchandise. May add competitor for the same career.
Week 4
The campaign name looks interesting; the logo and art direction look fine. Brand touchpoints need to think more in-depth about how these touchpoints work and how it looks. I may need more references and justify the choice. Other components and key ideas need to be narrowed. Tone down photography, think about how to fit with style, explain the content planning (why is it a mixture of photographs and illustration), and work on the other brand visual references such as typography.
REFLECTION:
FURTHER READING:
Figure 6.0 The elements of company branding, 1st September 2022 Brand strategy is built on a platform of differentiation, where a company can use its value to create competitive advantages and become memorable in the eyes of the consumer. A well-defined and executed brand strategy affects all aspects of a business and is directly connected to consumer needs, emotions, and competitive environments. Elements of a company brand strategy are purpose, consistency, emotion, flexibility, employee involvement, loyalty, and competitive awareness.
Figure 6.1 Five steps to getting brand touchpoints right, 15th September 2022To improve the brand experience, a firm needs to identify priority touchpoints and implement a program to enhance the brand: First, we need to identify all existing touchpoints and the others that should exist. Then, go through an internal evaluation of all the touchpoints to determine which are managed well and deficient. After that, we need to determine which touchpoint positively impacts customers' decisions and experiences by looking at the past, current and future situations. Lastly, choose and prioritize the main ones and develop an action plan.
Figure 3.0 Wanda's social media and stats, 31st Aug 2022
Figure 3.2 Wanda's illustration, 31st Aug 2022
Figure 3.5 interview session (zoom), 31st Aug 2022
Figure 3.6 interview questions, 2nd Sept 2022
After the interview session, I organised the information and break the information into smaller pieces. This step helps me to better understand Wanda in a big picture and highlight.
Figure 3.7 Important notes from interview answers, 2nd Sept 2022
Figure 3.7 Important notes from interview answers, 2nd Sept 2022
Draft proposal
After mapping out her personality and understanding Wanda, I have the idea of branding her as a motivator. Then, Ms Lilian inspired me that she could be a broadcaster that shares her experience and give positive advice. After that, the mental health campaign idea popped into my mind, and I decided to go in this direction.Figure 4.1 Draft proposal "Thinkerbell", 12th Sept 2022
Figure 4.2 Competitors study, 12th Sept 2022
Figure 4.3 New campaign name brainstorm, 15th Sept 2022
Figure 4.5 Progress.pdf, 15th Sept 2022
Figure 4.5 Progress.pdf, 15th Sept 2022
Final Submission
Figure 5.0 Task 1B Final Proposal, 19 Sept 2022
FEEDBACK:
Week 2
Overall Feedback
Task 1A, Ms Lilian commented we did quite well on studying how the brand is built. Key activities -how we see the brand (okay). Key visual- potential in graphic design (lack of examples).
Task 1B: More solid case study, can start thinking task 2 (ideate), design direction. Lock the big idea before proceeding design, it is okay to do something manageable. Think of the potential in terms of graphic design.
Specific feedback
Task 1A: overall excellent, missing brand value slides.
Task 1B: Introduction, issue, objectives are okay. The concept of was okay but Disney character will restrict the potential or branding the person. Might think of other concept, agony aunt is suggested by Ms.Lilian (where people can write to her, tell their issues either anonymous or with names). Can think of this direction but brand it modern. Touch points: can be more detail and include the others like merchandise.
Week 3
Overall Feedback:
Task 1A, Ms Lilian commented we did quite well on studying how the brand is built. Key activities -how we see the brand (okay). Key visual- potential in graphic design (lack of examples). Task 1B: More solid case study, can start thinking task 2 (ideate), design direction. Lock the big idea before get into design (something manageable), think of its potential in terms of graphic design.
Specific feedback
Task 1A: overall excellent, missing brand value slides.
Task 1B: Introduction, issue, objectives are okay. The concept of was okay but Disney character will restrict the potential or branding the person. Might think of other concept, agony aunt is suggested by Ms.Lilian (where people can write to her, tell their issues either anonymous or with names). Can think of this direction but brand it modern. Vision is okay, Mission might want to amend, too long and not direct.
Touch points: can be more detail and include the others like merchandise. May add competitor for the same career.
Week 4
The campaign name looks interesting; the logo and art direction look fine. Brand touchpoints need to think more in-depth about how these touchpoints work and how it looks. I may need more references and justify the choice. Other components and key ideas need to be narrowed. Tone down photography, think about how to fit with style, explain the content planning (why is it a mixture of photographs and illustration), and work on the other brand visual references such as typography.
REFLECTION:
Experience
Through this project, I have learned how to look at a brand in-depth and from a different perspective. There are so many aspects that need to consider while building a personal brand, such as the core values and brand purpose. It is not something that can come out immediately, but it went through the process of understanding, identifying, and finalizing the big idea. The task got more interesting when we were assigned to brand our friends as if we were branding a real-life client.
Observation
I observed that a strong brand must always be consistent and have a clear vision and mission. It is something the branding designer has to work on studying the client's needs and the goals they want to achieve. In addition, we have to research the market and competitors to develop unique selling points that could help the brand to stand out.
Findings
I realized there are different approaches and styles for the campaigns, depending on their purpose. Besides, a brand touchpoint is essential in marketing so that customers will get to know the inside of the brand. Reading articles, I understand that new customers may prefer the touchpoint experience to be simple, easy to use, navigate and understand. Therefore, the designer needs to plan brand touchpoints well before execution to save time, money, and energy.
FURTHER READING:
Figure 6.0 The elements of company branding, 1st September 2022
Figure 6.1 Five steps to getting brand touchpoints right, 15th September 2022
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