What is better branding, actually?
- Frank
- 4 hours ago
- 18 min read
I’ve been saying for a bit over a year now, ‘do better branding’ and realised in that time I’ve never properly articulated what I mean by that and what is better branding, actually? So let me show you what better branding can look like for businesses that recognise the value of developing a brand.
There’s no mistaking the brands that are always in our peripheral vision and if someone asks us to even name the first couple of brands that come to mind, we’ll probably say brands like McDonalds, Apple, Mercedes, Nike, or Coca Cola. They're usually the big successful brands, right? Ones that we all will know, rather than the smaller brands most wouldn’t know.
So I figure there’s gotta be something to that, surely? In that we share with others the brands that are most familiar to us, especially if they are easily conveyed and thus, understood. And that is, I think, the key to what makes one brand better than others. The ease of familiarity, but on top of that, to be present.
It's the ease with which a customer recognises, recalls and chooses the brand they are familiar with and if they are present when needed. The less customers know a brand, the less likely they are to buy, even more so if it’s a type of product or service they've not experienced or seen before and isn't easy to understand. While the less present the brand is, the less customers are likely to think about the brand and see the brand to buy.
What is better branding?
So when I say better branding, to you it might mean just the visual look. But to me after 15 years of branding businesses, working with brands from around the world and engaging with people that fall on the business side, the branding/marketing side and the customer side, better branding can mean a few things, depending on where your business is at:
1. Better branding can mean developing a more recognisable and memorable brand that captures attention, is easy to remember, quick to recall, and compelling to want to choose. It could mean it looks more professional, it has more character, it looks and sounds more engaging to an audience than the competition, or maybe it's just a really simple logo, void of intricate detail in favour of greater ease. In other words it looks like a business that has their shit together, rather than a rinky-dink operation, to give customers a confident first impression, even if it’s just a façade.
2. Better branding can mean showing up more in your market than your competitors are, so that you are more present and can be perceived as a bigger brand - the prerequisite is that when you do show up, that your efforts are also compelling to a customer for them to take notice. There’s an old saying that it takes up to 7 impressions before people buy. However it’s not just frequency of seeing or hearing your brand, it’s also showing up at the times and places your customers need you.
3. Better branding can mean developing and presenting an offer that is of greater value than the comparable offer. Could be based on a financial outcome, could be self-fulfillment, could be status, could be indulgence, could be nostalgia and/or loyalty. What I’m trying to say here, is that you’re considering the greater value the brand can become known for beyond comparable features and price. It’s defining for your brand the value that customers can buy into, like being happy to pay for a $50 Nike plain white t-shirt with their swoosh logo on it, instead of a $5 plain white t-shirt from Target? There’s a reason why you’re happy to pay 10x more in that example. This is what I’m talking about... find that reason.
4. Better branding can mean formulating greater clarity and confidence in what your brand is and who it’s for, from an internal perspective, to then be able to externalise that for customers to be captivated by, experience and connect with. Be it from developing your strategy, setting an internal identity and purpose that guides team culture, the guidelines for how you go about communicating your brand, and/or your marketing plan of how you’re going to develop a great offer, put your offer in the right place, price it, and promote it.
5. Better branding can also simply mean showing up in every way possible with consistency. In other words, putting in a better effort towards developing a brand by being in the market constantly. Showing up in the same way, if not better, each time. Many small businesses just tail off and in one situation they look one way, and then totally different in another. Sometimes it’s going wayward with the designed look, other times it’s coming up with a new message every time...we don't wanna be doing this. The point is that to create ease and familiarity with your customers, is to keep things consistent and maintain that over a LONG PERIOD OF TIME. Which can be difficult when we’re the ones who are amongst the brand 1000x more than our customers and we get brand fatigue of our own brand. The businesses that we all know and buy from are exceptionally good at maintaining their brands and they guard them with their lives.
The thing is that these are efforts any business can achieve at any level to develop a better brand and see success. But you might say, “Oh but bigger businesses have it way easier”. Yeah, of course they do. They’ve likely been in the market longer to develop familiarity and come easily to mind. They have bigger budgets and industry connections to be present in more places, with a greater capacity to offer more and selll at a higher frequency.
So here’s the truth:
1. The bigger the business and the more market share it has, the more likely they are to grow their brand. Because they have more buyers (higher market penetration - sounds like a dirty word but if you’ve been in business long enough, you’ll know that term just means a higher percentage of people in your market who’ve bought from you at least once), and those buyers tend to be more loyal (higher purchase frequency). This is known as the 'double jeopardy law' in marketing, coined by the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute for marketing science.
But also…
2. You don’t need to be a big business to have a better brand.
We all have the same opportunities to show up in our market the same way a big brand does. The only difference is our lower capacity as smaller brands based on scale and frequency to get our brand out there as widely and as often as a big brand can and often does. But there are underdog ways of reaching that scale and frequency that the bigger dogs typically do, to be perceived as a big brand by doing better branding. The encouraging part of this truth is that every big brand started small at one point.
So both truths can and do exist in every market possible.
What better branding can look like
To demonstrate this, I’m now gonna give you two in-depth examples of two different fictional businesses I've come up with. One is a service business with similar competition, and one is a product business coming to market with a differentiated offer but in a crowded market. Setting the scene with a situation where each could go from an underdog business, to having strong familiarity (also known in marketing as mental availability or salience - by which you come to mind in a buying situation) and are present when needed (also known as physical availability in marketing, where you are easy to buy from because you are present when needed). In doing so it shows how you can develop a clear concept that transforms each into a brand and position each of them for growth over time.
Service business - Real Estate Agency
Context: They start as an independent real estate agency in a regional Australian town. They are already amongst a small handful of other agencies, most notably 3 that are nationally recognised franchise brands.
1. More recognisable and memorable identity
This agency invests in a distinctive visual and verbal identity that stands out from the franchise brands... and to be frank, most franchisees barely lean into and understand how to properly use anyway, as they often rely on the corporate head office’s supplied branding and marketing plans - it's what they're realistically paying for in their franchise fees on top of some sales systems. So instead of generic navy suits and stock photos, they develop a bold colour palette that catches your eye, has clean typography, a simple logo and visual style that is designed by a professional rather than AI or cheap online platforms that make you a logo for $5 with no taste or concept behind it whatsoever.
They also get a professional photoshoot of real local homes, their team and them interacting with sellers. They develop a confident tone of voice that sounds like a real person wrote it and connect with the type of buyer they can help best, rather than the same-same “we sell your house fast, for the best price and lowest commission”. Their signage, boards, social posts and window displays all look polished and cohesive, giving the impression of “these people know what they’re doing” even before someone needs an agent. Extra points are added when their team becomes the faces and personalities of the brand in front of the logo, rather than behind it.
2. Showing up more, and in the right places
Rather than only relying on listing portals, like in Australia we have Domain.com.au and RealEstate.com.au, their agency shows up where locals actually spend their time and divert their attention. So they run hyper-local social ads on repeat with a free-value offer upfront, like a property report of the area as a way of lead capturing an email and phone number. Because for real estate agents in certain suburbs and regions, this is now far easier than the old letter drops in letterboxes (but they still do that too as it's just another touchpoint that gets them in front of potential sellers or investors). They sponsor the local sports teams and clubs, appear in community newsletters and local Facebook groups for events, and even appear regularly on their local regional radio station with what properties are open for inspection on the weekend.
They post weekly suburb market updates on Instagram and Facebook, and consistently deliver useful content like “what your house is worth this month” videos. But these videos don’t need to be shot with drones and high production value, as a simple iPhone-shot, hand-held selfie videos feel less like an ad and more like understated free value connection point with their customers, to put faces to the name of the business. The agency also has regular spots on billboards and buses around the region, including the cars they drive around in. They also make a point of frequenting all the cafe’s, supermarkets and local stores in clothing that has a branded touch of colour and logo lapel pin.
The goal is that a homeowner sees them multiple times in everyday life, not just when they are ready to sell, so the brand feels larger than its actual size of 3-4 staff, more present, and a part of their community. Rather than just another business existing in the the community with an office frontage and For Sale signs dotted around town...that stuff is table stakes.
3. A brand concept that gives the agency emotional and symbolic value beyond the transaction
Those first two steps are what every real estate brand can do to do better branding in this kind of context. But in reality, it all started at this point for this real estate agency to develop a better brand. Instead of positioning themselves like every other real estate on the same street (because after working with more than 100 real estate agencies in the last 5-6 years most think they do it differently, but it reality they pretty much all do the same things), this team builds an identity to emotionally connect with.
Seriously, right now, think about any of the big franchise real estate brands you can recall. Do you even know what they stand for, or why you think you'd choose one over another other than price or a loose promise of a potentially higher sale price?
So to go beyond better price, or a higher yield and all those table stakes touchpoints and services every real estate agency offers. The agency centres the brand they want to develop around deeper human meaning such as legacy, memories, next chapters, or life milestones. So they set out to own the idea of “Your Chapter”. Their visuals, language and campaigns revolve around family stories, personal journeys, community pride and life transitions rather than number of bedrooms, bathrooms and square metres. After all, people are selling a home, not just a house or unit and for the sellers this agency wants to work with most, these sellers want their memories to also be captured in the value of that property. But also supporting that seller’s journey in taking the next big step of their life to move onto a new chapter after closing one. While also congratulating those who buy the property, welcoming them to their new chapter in that home.
The perceived value shifts away from “they sell houses” and creates emotional gravity and status that the big franchise brands often lack because they have to default to their generic corporate messaging that needs to cater to all buyers and all markets nationally. So the name Chapter Realty™ is born, having recognised that people are only going to choose the agency with the highest number of sales and how fast they sell them on average, UNLESS they give them something deeper to understand what their brand stands for when they see the logo. Which is especially necessary as a point of differentiation when starting out as the underdog, you need a gamechanger to lean into and that can be your brand. So that customer see greater value in Chapter Realty™ as the better brand to choose from when they need an agency that aligns with them.
4. Clarity of their brand, their team, and their customers
For a brand like Chapter Realty™, this is not just knowing scripts or marketing plans, it is understanding that they are guiding people through major life chapters, not simply selling property. That clarity shapes hiring, training, customer interactions, tone of voice, visual presentation and decision-making, so the experience customers have feels intentional, human and emotionally aligned rather than transactional or improvised. It starts from the inside and when their team has confidence in who they are as a brand, they can deliver that brand experience with consistency so that it is on-brand every time and this builds over time to become a brand that is remembered. But more importantly remembered for what their brand represents, positioning them in the minds of their target customers.
5. Ruthless consistency over time
Chapter Realty™ has identified the strength of their brand and maintains it like a fire always kept burning, because it’s their value over others, rather than being another agency that says they have lowest commission rate. They keep the same colours, fonts, tone of voice, photography style and message year after year. Their listing boards, website, social media, dress code, email signatures and property brochures all look unmistakably like Chapter Realty™. They resist the urge to rebrand every couple of years or chase trends like many do to stay fresh. While competitors drift visually and tonally, Chapter Realty™ becomes familiar and trustworthy simply through repetition and stability that shows up over time through testimonials, word-of-mouth and community presence. Over time, that consistency has built mental and physical availability that rivals the big franchises, often at a far lesser cost than paying franchise fees. But over time it has created the foundations to build a bigger business, attracting the right team and the desired clients to be able to start branching out further into mediums that were once out of their budget (like TV advertising) or even expanding this brand as a concept that could be replicated in other regions to expand the business.
Side Note: If you like this concept I’ve come up with, please reach out for the rights to use.
Product business - Popcorn snack
Context: Popits™ start as a healthier popcorn snack brand in Australia with their backs against the wall, up against a leading popcorn brand and a plethora of snack brands, both domestic and internationally renowned that have their own snack offering. Popits™ offer a new product type to the market, based on a homemade household recipe, that is a flavoured ball of popcorn, sized between a golf ball and a tennis ball, lending itself to lean into being a youthful, sports focused product and brand.
1. More recognisable and memorable identity
Popits™ develops a bold, playful identity that of course has to instantly stand out on a shelf full of other snack packaging rather than just looking healthy with muted health-food colours, etc. So that they can compete alongside everything from a chocolate bar to bags of loose popcorn. The brand leans into vibrant sport-inspired palettes, chunky rounded typography that mirrors the ball shape, and a logo that feels like a bouncing dot or popping motion. The packs are small, tactile and fun to hold, with clear natural ingredient call-outs for parents and energetic visuals for kids. The tone of voice is cheeky, sporty and positive rather than preachy or “health food serious,” so the brand feels like a treat that just happens to be better for you. What they also do very early on is also consider a mascot that adds further character in the form of a distinct character that broadens the depth of touchpoints the brand can be remembered and recognised for in more versatile ways. The aim is that a kid can spot Popits™ from 20 metres away and a parent instantly recognises it as the better choice snack at the counter or on the shelf.
2. Showing up more, and in the right places
Popits™ shows up wherever kids are active and parents are making quick snack decisions. That means school canteens, weekend sports games, vending machines, convenience counters, swimming centres and after-school activities, not just supermarket aisles. The brand partners with local sports clubs, junior leagues and school events so Popits™ becomes associated with energy and play rather than sitting on the couch, with the ambition of one day being in the massive sporting arenas, and of course, the national supermarkets. Social media content leans into short playful clips, trick shots with popcorn balls and kids sharing their favourite flavours. The idea is constant micro-visibility in everyday life so the brand feels bigger than it actually is, and kids start recognising it before they even know what it tastes like. Bonus points here if they can get it into the hands of a well-known sports star to both adults and kids, especially if the sports star has kids themselves. It’s an ambitious long-shot goal, but giving it early credibility is key to that early growth and even enter the national supermarket space. It might require a bit of try-before-you-buy handouts to get the 'ball' rolling, but high exposure where kids and parents are going to be is key...rather than on social media where kids are no longer able to access here in Australia.
3. A brand concept that gives emotional and symbolic value beyond the snack
Popits is not positioned as “low sugar popcorn”, even though it is. It becomes “The snack that plays back”™. The brand owns the idea of movement, play and small moments of fun when associated with sporting activities. Every pack represents a mini-break, a burst of energy, a tiny celebration between activities. The rounded ball shape is tied to sport, games and motion, reinforcing the connection to sports played in Australia by kids, adults and professionals alike, such as cricket, tennis, soccer (football) and other round ball sports. Campaigns revolve around playground challenges, halftime snacks, and “Pop a Popit when you play”™ messaging that reinforces a category entry point (a time to buy/consume).
The emotional value shifts from “a healthier snack” to “the snack that belongs to active kids and energetic moments”, encouraging play. Parents will be more willing to buy it because it is natural and better for them. While kids want it because it feels fun, social and part of something they already identify a liking towards, being sport.
You know, people buy products for many different reasons, even if they fit the same demographic and psychographic profiles. For some it's price, for others it's benefits. For some it's seeing photos of actual real ingredients on the pack, for others it's being drawn in by eye catching branding. While for others they hear about the story first before even trying it and are allured to the brand because of it. So yeah, every product can lean into each of these things, but out of those things, which one is the thing you can do differently than every other brand? The story, or the emotional and symbolic value that connects people to a brand to buy irrationally or even rationally. So when you have the opportunity to sell based on all these reasons people buy, why not tick every box possible rather than overlook them? Because story, or purpose, or mission, or personality...whatever it is, it the thing that can be the inherent differentiator for your brand, especially if you have a comparable product or service.
4. Clarity of the brand, the team and the customer
Internally, everyone behind Popits™ understands the brand is about active fun with better ingredients, not dieting or restriction. Product decisions, flavour development, packaging, sponsorships and messaging all align with this purpose. The team knows their primary audience is energetic kids and busy parents who want quick better-for-you snacks without sacrificing fun. This clarity shapes everything from flavour names to social captions to retail displays, ensuring the brand always feels upbeat, sporty and inclusive rather than clinical or overly “health conscious.” The experience stays consistent whether someone encounters Popits online, in a vending machine or at a weekend sports field. With this clarity of a simple core idea and product promise there is opportunity to grow their product range and even expand their market to other demographics and use cases, or even new regions around the world.
5. Ruthless consistency over time
Popits™ maintains the same visual language, tone and playful energy across packaging, merch, social media, sports sponsorships and in-store displays year after year, if not expanding the touchpoints the brand 'pops' onto. The bouncing ball motif, bright colours and rounded typography become unmistakable. Rather than rebranding or chasing every food packaging trend, the brand evolves flavours and collaborations while keeping its core identity stable. Over time, this repetition builds strong mental availability so Popits™ becomes the default “better snack ball” in their consumers minds. What starts with simple physical availability as a school-canteen snack has the potential to grow into a new, nationally recognised cult snack simply because it never stops ‘popping’ up in the same confident, fun and recognisable way. So it's not just about creating a different product that the market hasn't got, it's creating a concept that people can connect with that amplifies the inherent differentiation of the product to go from an underdog with a stand out on the shelf that will likely be copied.
Side Note: If you like this concept I’ve come up with, and want to develop it with me, please reach out.
In summary these two examples demonstrate a vision for how I see businesses developing a better brand with better branding and marketing efforts than amplifies their product or service, creating value in the brand even if you took the product or service away. It's not to say everything in those examples is what you need to do, but they lean into each of the points below that level up layers needed to build a successful brand and see business success from it. They are efforts that most of the familiar brands we know of and buy from work on every day in an effort that accumulates and compounds over time to grow a brand, not just a product or service.
So if you can tick off these 5 points that these examples have covered, I reckon you're giving your brand a real shot at actually doing better branding - better than most, because it's often a pretty low bar and most don't go further than the first 2 points:
Point 1 = Aim to feel credible and familiar in how you present your brand
Point 2 = Be seen, heard, and found easily as much as possible
Point 3 = Mean something that goes beyond features and price
Point 4 = Live it internally, communicate it externally
Point 5 = Repeat for as long as possible with consistency
This effort creates captivating moments of connection between your company and customer that makes a brand, and amounts to an ease of familiarity for a customer to want to choose one brand (hopefully yours) over others when the brand is present.
Now of course, none of this is a guarantee of success. It's especially not even close to a guarantee in the short-term. As brand building takes time. Like, several years at least and over decades in many cases, to gain proper traction in your market for you brand to become a valuable conduit between your company and customer. But shutting off the brand valve after 6-12 months if you don't see the needle shifting immediately, or putting in only short spurts periodically when you have the time, will end up being a complete waste of that upfront effort and becomes the pitfall of so many businesses that get a bad taste in their mouth towards this stuff.
As I see and hear of so many small businesses that end up getting the shits (angry/upset/resentful) when instant success isn't experienced after initial branding and marketing efforts are made and paid.
When we strategise and plan a way to see brand success, it's a hypothesis of what we believe will help us succeed. It's like an educated guess based on data, creativitity and sometimes gut feeling to choose what not to do, as much as what to do based on our capacity and what we believe the market will respond to.
We need to keep at it to give it the opportunity to play out and see results - to give it a shot! It requires analysis, measurement, adjustment, redirection, evolution and creative solutions over time to find the right course and sustain growth over time. So these efforts are for the most part, not just one-and-done, nor does it reason to constantly change everything about our brand every financial year in a rash decision because the previous year didn't see much benefit of those efforts, or because we're bored of seeing and saying the same things.
And I get that this is a really hard pill to swallow, especially in the early stages of starting a business where the money is our own and sales need to happen quickly to get things going, and the fight or flight instincts kick in if stuff isn't happening. But I've had several people approach me eventually after like, 2 years of following my online content, because now is the time they need my help. As have many others I know in my circle of people in service-based businesses that I chat to and work with.
But if we're not present, and there when needed, we become forgotten and someone else will be there in that place to fill the gap when a customer goes looking and we miss out on getting the legs needed to see a compounding effect like that graph shows above. However, if it does grow legs then our brand is off and running, meaning we can then do more than the limited capacity we have been able to invest. So that we can be more present and available. To have more people be familiar with our brand. For it be easily thought of and accessible when needed. And for it to mean something of value to a customer, that they understand and can be confident in choosing our brand over others. This is what success looks like. This is what a better brand is.
So if you believe in building a brand, if you see that value in branding and marketing efforts being significantly more effective over long periods of time. If you are realistic when it comes to spending a fair chunk of your time and revenue to put back into your business, rather than 20 minutes a week and pocket change if I can be so 'frank', then I don't think I need to convince you at all to give your brand a shot!
Create better business success with this new brand of branding in mind, if you need it.
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