The things big brands get right that a little brand can do too

Jul 6
7 min read

Here’s how to tip the scales in your favour to help your small brand come to mind with better branding.

Big brands have many advantages that smaller brands don’t, that’s not lost on anyone. As brand size is the biggest determining factor of marketing effectiveness and brand growth. However, there is that saying “Success leaves clues” and there are a host of things that most small businesses aren’t learning from or doing like the big guys, even though each one of the following tips is easily achievable by any brand of any size and give their brand a shot at growing.

Because a brand is not the business and a brand can appear far bigger than what it or the business actually is. So when all things are considered, be it on the shelf, or on a social media ad, for the most part, you have many of the same opportunities to help your brand become recognisable, memorable and thought of when needed and that starts with better branding to tip the scales in your favour.

YOUR BRAND NAME

Most businesses come up with a name before they design a logo. And yet if they developed a name with the process of designing a logo in mind, we’d have far fewer small businesses with names that consist of 3, 4 or 5 words.

The short answer is to pick one word. If you have to use more than one word, make your life easier and pick no more than two words.

Most big brands have found success with one word brand names. Mercedes to McDonalds. Cadbury to Costco. Apple to Adidas. Lego to Lacoste. Gatorade to Google. Why? It’s less to remember. It’s like a full stop at the end of a sentence, rather than 2-3 full stops.

In addition to this, if you create a name that is not only unique, but has either some meaning or word play, it can become an anchor for your brand messaging, so that every part of your brand’s identity aligns. Because if you think of your branding like a picture puzzle, less pieces are not only easier to complete but you see the picture on the puzzle far quicker. But when you have these odd shaped puzzle pieces that you need to join together, like a long name, messaging that has no tie in to the name, and a logo that is overly complicated, you end up needing more pieces to make the puzzle pieces fit together. It takes longer to fit them together and then recognise the bigger picture. It’s a bit of a laboured metaphor but it’s all to say that as long as you have a creative brand that does indeed stand out, giving your team and your customers a more limited number of pieces to work with, remember and recognise, becomes a more effective proposition to buy into.

YOUR LOGO

There’s a clear trend in branding for logos to be refined over time. It’s not one of those short-lived, come-and-go trends either as brands that have existed for over 100 years continue to do this with their logos. To refine them to their most basic form possible. Why? To make them easier to remember and recognise when needed. They started with something complex and over many years have seen that the less information their customers have to remember about their brand, the easier their brand comes to mind and is recognised unmistakably.

I said before, success leaves clues. And this is one of the biggest dead-giveaways of what to do, and what not to do from the beginning. Which is to create a minimal designed logo. Now it’s not to say you can’t have an intricate version of your logo that has all the flourishes and what not. But have your main logo something that is refined down to its most minimal form. The caveats are that it’d still need to be distinct, especially if you don’t have an overly distinct name. But the point is to minimise the amount of information, meaning the details in the actual form of the logo, so that it is far easier to recognise and remember. Additionally, you’ll also find it far easier to use as well if you consider all the specific touchpoints the logo will potentially ever be on, or need to fit and still be legible and/or recognisable.

YOUR BRAND COLOURS

If I sound like a broken record here, it’s because you’ll no doubt see a pattern emerging of less is more. So here goes, pick no more than 1-3 brand colours. The less the better, especially if you can have one hero colour that stands out in your market.

Choosing colours isn’t about selecting one because of what a colour means. We choose them because they aren’t used by the competition and potentially because of what they mean in relation to the personality your brand represents. Additionally, the easier it is for your team to use for them to then be effective.

But the big point here is that a trait the big brands have is to be known for a signature colour in their category. Coca-Cola red, Cadbury purple, Tiffany blue, Hermes orange, Starbucks green.

Or at most, a combination of 2 colours. IKEA yellow and blue. Fedex purple and orange. McDonalds yellow and red.

So choose one or two (black, white and grey or shades of your main colour(s) can be additional) and splash them everywhere to be seen.

YOUR BRAND MESSAGING

Messaging can be context specific, but you also have the opportunity to create and deliver a consistent message that becomes synonymous with your brand.

The problem many small businesses make is to use either a raft of different messaging every time they show up, or their communication only focuses on the direct sale rather than something to remember and recognise the brand for it to come to mind. This happens often in advertising but the thing is if you advertise your brand and not just the product, that advertising doesn’t only just sell the offer, it also has brand growth effects.

So the tip here is to develop a key message that you stick with in each bit of your communication. Used as much as you would your logo and keep it for as long as you can. It can tie in with your brand name, or be reflective of your brand personality. But keep it minimal, like ‘Just Do It’ that Nike used for a marketing campaign slogan, and later became their brand’s overarching brand tagline message that is now used as much as their logo in their brand communications.

YOUR BRAND POSITIONING

It’s simple, difficult to identify and often overlooked. It’s a brand’s positioning. What is something you want your brand to be thought of when needed?

Because most businesses and their offerings aren’t overly different from their competitors. What often sets them apart is their branding to distinguish one from the other. But the best brands give customers something to remember and think of them instead of the competition.

The reason why it’s simple is that it only needs to be a fundamentally simple concept your brand represents. The reason it’s difficult is that it requires choosing one clear idea to own in the customer’s mind, while resisting that niggling temptation to be everything to everyone. And this is why many strategists say the brand strategy process is as much choosing what not to do as much as what to do. And the reason why it’s overlooked is because most small businesses don’t set out to (or aren’t aware they should) develop a brand with any kind of strategy for success. I’ve written many other articles about strategy and positioning and it’s the one thing most small brands don’t have when all they come to market with is a logo, some brand colours and a product/service with nothing clearly guiding those decisions and keeping efforts on track.

I stress the importance for brand success because it can be such an effective guiding principle for every branding and marketing effort to reflect the positioning as one central idea. The shining example is KitKat’s “We believe breaks are good” positioning. Distilled down to one word, ‘Breaks’ and they have their guiding principle for what their product is, in addition to what their message is, as well as a reason and time to need their product. And we all know what each are without me even needing to write them.

So give your team a clear direction with positioning like the big brands do. Because I near guarantee your competitors aren’t doing this.

SOUNDS & MASCOTS

I’m adding this one in here because very few brands, even the big ones, use distinctive sounds and mascots to really stand out in more ways. Especially when every brand has the opportunity to do so. In addition to mascots and sounds respectively being 7x and 8x more effective than logos and brand colours are.

These can be sounds or music you use in video content on your website, social media, presentations, or ads. And it can be a character that personifies the personality of the brand, particularly if there isn’t already a face to the name of your brand that customers can identify with as an association to remember and recognise your brand.

Of course these kinds of brand assets aren’t always required for every brand, but I believe every brand can become creative to find ways and reasons for introducing these into everyday interactions that customers have with your brand. Be it music in your shopfront when customers enter. Or a mascot that is made into little figurines or dolls that are given out as part of your offer. But what they can do is set you apart from the competition and make your brand stand out in more scenarios where a logo or your brand name might not be present or recognised. They are simply more opportunities to build associations for customers to remember, recognise and think of your brand when needed.

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These are the things that get me fired up about branding and the impact it can have on brand growth and business success as a result. They are really simple tips to create simple and effective branding. Most get this stuff wrong, overlook it or aren’t taking the opportunities to utilise the effectiveness of what developing, managing and growing a brand can do if you give your brand a shot at better branding for better business success.