Need a little branding inspiration? Then put the kettle on and find out what to read, watch, browse and follow to get your creative juices flowing…
We all need a little inspiration from time to time. Especially if you’ve got anything to do with branding. And it doesn’t matter where you sit on the spectrum – a new business owner looking to carve out a strong ID, a marketeer tasked with breathing new life into an existing brand, or a graphic designer crafting a fresh new look for a client – you’ll want to regularly tap into good resources to keep the ideas coming.
So we’ve saved you a few hours of trawling time by picking out some top sources of branding inspiration. Together, they’ll help you build your knowledge fast and keep your finger on the pulse of a fast-paced game…
Browse… Motto’s blog
Motto produces the kind of fresh, creative content that’ll send your screen time through the roof. What we like about the articles is they’ll teach you all sorts about branding almost without you realising it – you’re too caught up in the topic to notice.
Useful brand insights come in the likes of Is Your Brand The Rebel, Hero or Lover?, Boost Your Brand With 7 Easy Hacks and 5 Questions Every Start-up Should Answer. Meanwhile, there’s plenty of info-tainment to be found in articles like Why The Best Business Ideas Are Weird and What Madonna Teaches Leaders About Blazing A Path.
It’s getting on a few years now but this funny, four-minute clip still drives home the importance of customer care and sweating the small stuff when you’re building a strong brand. It looks specifically at the soulless 404 error message on websites, which ‘tells you you fell through the cracks’ and feels a bit like ‘a slap in the face’, according to Gleeson.
He goes on to talk about how companies began turning this bad brand experience into a good one, usually through a generous dose of humour. His dual conclusions that ‘little things done right, matter’ and ‘well-designed moments build brands’ still hit home nearly ten years later.
Follow… the best brands on social
For a daily fix of brand inspiration, load up your Facebook, Twitter and Insta feeds with the companies that soar on social media. Increasingly, consumers find out what others have to say on social before pressing the button on a purchase. And to really do well in this arena, you need to have a strategy – it’s not enough simply to set up an account and start dropping regular posts without a game plan.
Nike’s channels are a good place to start. The sporting legend has clocked up a jaw-dropping 177 million Instagram followers, 36 million on Facebook and 8.7 million on Twitter. Content focuses less on products and more on its brand heroes – the players, athletes, sports teams, and fitness fans who are devoted to Nike and working hard to achieve their goals. It also supports worthy social causes, weighing in on matters it’s passionate about, such as the BLM movement.
Elsewhere, GoPro is a good example of how to tailor your content depending on the channel. For example, Insta is spot on for showing off its camera quality and user-generated stuff, while Twitter is used mostly for new product info and customer interaction.
Other brands for your watch list are Starbucks, loved for its feel-good content and all-important customer connections, Patagonia, whose content is pitch-perfect for its outdoorsy, environment-loving audience, and ASOS, where diversity and inclusivity shine through on every one of its social channels.
Read… Building A StoryBrand: Clarify your message so customers will listen, by Donald Miller
Telling a compelling story is no longer a nice-to-have for brands, it’s a must-have. And this book explains the power of a good yarn in a really easy to understand way. It’s one of those books that’ll quickly become dog-eared if you go old-school and get the paper copy because you’ll constantly be folding the pages and flicking back and forth to re-read bits.
It kicks off telling you why so much marketing fails to hit the spot. Then it presents its solution to cutting through the noise, which comes in the form of a seven-part storytelling framework that’ll strike a chord with customers. The last part of the book is explaining how to put the science into practice. It not only helps you to create your story but explains how to implement it across multiple channels.
By the end of it, chances are you’ll want to completely overhaul the way you speak to customers and the messages you want to deliver. Powerful stuff.
Feast… your eyes on Behance’s online gallery
Loved by designers, Behance is the world’s biggest creative network for showcasing creative work and it’s a visual treat. It has a section devoted to branding that’s packed with projects from all over the world, and it’s a great place to dip in and out if your ideas are drying up or you just want to see what’s trending in the branding arena. Be warned, though – it’s one of those websites where minutes can quickly turn into hours.
If you need a little more branding inspiration and want some help with a brand project, get in touch. We’ve got a top team of experts living and breathing all things branding, and we inject passion into everything we do. Check out some of our latest work here.
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An award-winning strategic branding agency, Threerooms has spent over 15 years making brands stronger and businesses more successful. Whether modernising brands with meaning or crafting effective marketing campaigns, our amazing team is focused on delivering brand transformation while providing exceptional customer service.
