Every company has a brand identity that sits somewhere on the spectrum between bold and diluted. In this episode, Wendy Simmons and Rachel West untangle and define the five major components of brand identity including brand values, brand message/promise, brand personality, brand voice, and visual brand identity. No matter if you're working with a hundred-year-old brand or launching a startup, what are the best ways to develop and hone these elements? And who should participate in that process? Plus, get a quick download on Middle of Six's brand identity and how it has evolved since day one.
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Podcast Transcript
Welcome to The Shortlist.
We are exploring all things AEC marketing to help your firm win The Shortlist.
I'm your host, Wendy Simmons, and each episode, I'll be joined by one of my team members from Middle of Six to answer your questions.
Today, we have Rachel West back in the podcast hot seat to talk about creating a brand identity.
Hey, Rachel.
Hey, Wendy.
Thank you for joining us on this topic, and you have outlined so much for us to go over.
To start off with creating a brand identity, or maybe in some cases, evaluating your existing brand identity is where you wanted to start.
What are you thinking?
This is a topic that I really enjoy doing a deep dive in, and I think today we're going to start with just the very high level elements of what brand identity entails, why it's useful, how we can get started, and just some different elements that will inform us as we cover this topic.
So let's start with what is brand identity?
So simply put, brand identity is how you want to portray your business to your clients.
It's a combination of how your audience perceives you, which some people call the brand image, and it's influenced by your customer's interactions with your brand.
And so why is this kind of an important thing for the marketing people to be thinking about, evaluating or deciding how to refine that brand identity?
I'm a pursuit strategist, and a lot of my job involves working with proposals and working through the lifetime of a pursuit.
And in our business and in the AEC industry, proposals are typically synonymous with marketing.
But there is, of course, another really important facet of creating a strong brand and attracting new business, and that is in shaping and cultivating and maintaining a really strong brand identity.
So a really strong brand identity can increase awareness of your brand, can help you gain a competitive edge in the market.
You know, proposals do play a very crucial role in securing new business, but this is another important piece that I think all marketers should consider, whether in-house in AEC or outside of it.
It's just a really important facet of marketing and business development.
Does the brand identity, is it something that exists without input or influence from marketing?
Like it is what it is.
It's the client's perception of what your company does.
It's the reflection of your team's work out in the marketplace, those things.
Or like how much does a marketing team have influence over brand identity?
Oh, man, we have so much influence over brand identity.
I would say that if you have a company and you have touch points, you most likely do have some form of brand identity, whether it's strong or whether it could use an update, is really where I think marketing can come in.
But the best part is, of course, if you strategize prior to launching that brand, that is an even better way of shaping a brand identity before you interact with your customers.
Do you want to share with us the five major components of brand identity?
Absolutely, Wendy.
So you have brand values as the first component.
Seems like a really important place to start.
Is this really similar or is this exactly the same as your company values?
Are these one for one?
Is there a little bit of a nuanced difference there?
Tell me what you define as brand values.
When I think about brand values, I think about the heart and the soul of your company.
These are the beliefs that your people get excited about and the reason that they show up for work every day.
These can really help bring your team together.
They can also help connect you with like-minded clients and partners who share similar values.
It's a really wonderful way of just giving life to your brand and giving your people something to champion.
The why of what you do.
You're driven by those values and that you're working with a team with shared values in that way.
So it trickles into the other parts that we're going to talk about next.
So then the brand message or brand promise, what's the definition, how do you develop that piece?
So this piece is what you're going to be delivering to your clients.
This is the promise that you make that your work strives to achieve.
You have a brand promise or a message is, it's an external message most of the time, and we've been tasked with creating them or helping our clients work on developing that.
It is what you want to say outwardly in the marketplace to say, this is what you're going to experience when you interact with our people and our company.
This is what we deliver.
So there is a level of polished-ness to the brand message that might feel a little different than the brand values because the values are so much at your heart, and then the message or promise is just a little bit more outward facing.
So what about brand personality?
Now we're bringing together the message, brand message and brand values into something that is very human.
Tell me a little bit about brand personality.
I love this one.
So the brand personality refers to the set of traits and characteristics that we assign to the brand.
Similar to people love to connect with others who share their values.
It's the same with personality of the brand.
We want to be able to resonate with our audience in a way that feels authentic and aligned with who they are.
We want to alleviate their pain points in any way that we can.
And our personality is definitely a step in that direction.
If you've ever done one of those exercises that are, we are this and we are not that, this is goes to brand personality.
Oh, so fun.
We did one of those lists this last summer.
Right?
Yeah.
It's really great to do as a team, even within your own marketing team or maybe a larger group if you're interested, but getting some alignment on we are professional and respectful and playful, and then we are not silly and delinquent or whatever the other words you might want to have there.
And you can see some patterns, I think, when we did it with our team, we saw fun and playful, which I mean, that wouldn't come to my mind immediately, but we saw those words in every category.
And we're like, oh, well, that must be true.
It's really showing up in everything we're doing.
And we also saw some other words about commitment and that kind of thing.
But that's a good exercise to do.
And then you can pull those brand personality words into the next two things that we're going to go through, which are brand voice and then the visual identity too.
Absolutely.
So talking about brand voice, how do you get from all of the things that we just talked about and building out what the brand voice is?
How does that show up in your marketing plan?
You know, how are you using those components?
Brand voice is the way that we're communicating the values, the personality, the tone, the message of our company outwardly across brand touch points.
It's the voice that we have on Instagram and LinkedIn and through our blog and our website and our email marketing initiatives.
And it should be very consistent and very distinctive.
Right.
As a marketing team, you're probably thinking about how to make sure you have a unified voice across all of your different platforms, even when you have folks contributing from across the company.
And to lots of different audiences, whether it's you're recruiting or you're putting content on your website or putting something in a proposal that might have a different tone to it because of the subject matter, you still need some consistency there with your brand voice.
It supports that you are the brand identity that you're starting with is all aligned.
I think that's such a good point.
You want to ensure that you have a unified voice across all of your brand touch points.
But with that said, recognizing that, for example, LinkedIn caters to a more professional audience, whereas I think, you know, on Instagram, it's more visual, it's more fun and playful.
And while we want to ensure that our personality and our voice is consistent and shines through, we do tailor across these different channels because our audience is somewhat diverse.
Right.
You don't want it to feel really limited, you know.
You want to have some variety.
You want people to be discovering and learning something new.
And there's going to be a little variation in how stories are told.
But there's going to be commonality also running through all those platforms.
And that brings us to the visual brand identity, which often people, especially not in marketing, might think is what branding is.
We leave it to the very last part.
Oh my gosh.
Absolutely.
So many people conflate these two.
I've worked with a variety of different clients who would come to me wanting a new logo and a new color palette.
And that would be kind of their idea of what branding comprises when actually there are such an expansive set of elements that all contribute to shaping your holistic brand identity.
Yeah.
I think a great pressure test for your visual brand identity is to make sure that when you look at any element, whether it's your logo, your word mark, your photography, the color palette, that when you look at those and you consider the voice, the personality, the promise, the values, does your visual asset reflect?
And is it totally in alignment with those other items?
Because if it's not, if it feels a little off, that deserves some closer look, a little more fine tuning and pushing yourself as the marketing team to make sure that that's dialed in.
We don't want things that are really off brand.
And you want to catch those before they have a mind of their own and take off and all of a sudden you're like, wait a second, how'd that get out there?
That's not us.
That's so true.
That was a good overview of the five major components of brand identity.
And if you're thinking about either creating a new brand and starting from scratch or evaluating your company's existing brand, Rachel, who would you suggest be part of that process?
This is such a tricky topic, I would say.
It really depends, I think, on your particular situation.
Leadership always should be involved.
As key decision makers in your firm, you want to ensure that you gain their buy-in before embarking on this process at all.
With that said, I would say your stakeholder group should involve diverse perspectives from folks throughout your company, whether that is an HR director and a project designer and someone from your marketing team, someone from your operations team.
You just want to develop this core group of stakeholders who will be collaborating and making decisions throughout the process.
Yeah, and there can be tiers as well, because I think I agree with you, Rachel, having participation from a broad group across the firm is great.
You're getting buy-in and they're feeling valued as part of the process and being heard.
Right.
But you don't want to have such a large group that it's really cumbersome to make decisions or design by committee and things get watered down.
It doesn't feel as good as if there was just conciseness and freshness to what you're developing.
So surveys to your employees, maybe you've got many, many offices and people can't physically be there to participate, but you can get their input and ideas in a way that's low impact, but you can hear from everyone.
Maybe there's some good takeaways in that way.
And then key leadership, maybe emerging leaders who you really want their voice as part of that.
And ultimately, I would agree, your leadership team are signing off on that, and marketing can help communicate to them and make sure that they're getting what they want out of that too.
You're kind of coaching and guiding them through that process, but having them ultimately sign off on it as well.
I also find that it's so helpful to have, if you have the resources and the opportunity to engage a third party in the process.
And this might be someone who is facilitating the branding exercise externally, so doesn't have any bias and can really be objective in the process.
This is someone that you can work with as the in-house marketer closely to keep things on track and ensure that deliverables and milestones are being met so that you arrive at a really successful, really strong brand identity that reflects the values and ethos of your firm.
Yeah, when you're working with a third party, they can really help marketing accomplish even more because they don't have the emotional, I'm going to just say baggage, for lack of a better term, of knowing, you know, I don't know, the founder that created that logo or, you know, I mean, just there's things that are internal to a company that can be a little bit hard to get away from or just think beyond when you're in house, but having someone else to ask those hard questions and challenge and share new ideas can be really refreshing.
It takes it off of the plate of your in house marketing team to like develop all that and push that instead they can be part of the process.
I think that's actually kind of the benefit of anytime having a facilitator is that your your marketing team gets to participate and be involved instead of having to always be the guide and the leader when it comes to that topic.
So yeah, good point that that can be an option and definitely worth considering depending on like what you're trying to accomplish in kind of refreshing your brand or taking a critical look at what you've got.
So Rachel, do you want to share with us any tools or resources that you might consider helpful in defining or promoting your brand identity out in the world?
So one of those things that I think is really helpful for every organization, regardless of size or industry, quite frankly, to have is a brand book.
And this is something that the marketing department or marketer of one, whatever your situation is, can be really closely involved with developing.
You know, this is going to be a centralized, structured tool, digital or printed, most likely both, that can really help distill down the core values of your firm, can help with identifying, having a place to record your purpose, you know, why your brand, and this is the MVP, Mission, Vision, Purpose piece.
It can also be a guide to communicate your style, your voice.
It's a guide to communicate both to internal employees and to perspective employees.
It's also a really wonderful way to get to know your people and the values that unite you.
We've used the Mission, Vision, Purpose as part of our recruiting, as we're interviewing candidates and then moving them through the process, spending some time with them talking about our values and who we are and how we work.
And we find it pretty important to communicate that because new team members are choosing us just as much as we are choosing them.
And we want to try to be really transparent about who we are and why we do what we do and what drives us.
So the brand book can be this one-stop place to really clearly and accurately communicate the values of the company.
And it can be fun for a new team member to really see with their own eyes, like, oh, this is how we're presented.
This makes me proud to come and join this team and be part of it and carry those forward.
So if it isn't part of HR's kind of onboarding component, that's a great tip, incorporate that.
And if you haven't developed a brand book, certainly worth considering that as a major marketing project.
You know, spending some time, it could be a retreat activity, you outline, decide to develop, it could be taking what you have and adding more to it.
There's some written components, some visual components, maybe some things that you need to actually formally define that have just been out there.
So, yeah, it's a good thing to spend some time on, and it's not just going to be a document that lives only in marketing for reference.
It goes beyond that department and can really touch everyone in the company.
It absolutely does.
You're always thinking about the why you do the work and the how you do the work, and that is really what makes each company unique and how they interact with their clients.
It's a good idea to outline that there.
What about related to other external communications, digital marketing, social media, how does that plug in to either the brand book or a separate tool kit so that your brand identity is effectively and consistently rolled out?
So your brand book should absolutely include a guide to your visual identity, to your voice, and can be used as a guide for whether it's marketers or members of your team who are posting to Instagram or LinkedIn or another social media platform.
It's just a way of maintaining consistency and adherence to your brand kind of across different channels.
And it's a good reference guide for your team.
Well, Wendy, let's talk a little bit about a real life brand identity example and one very close to home.
I would love to hear a little bit more about your process and approach to developing the Middle of Six brand identity.
Oh, yeah, I could talk about this all day.
I think I do talk about this all day anyway.
But well, to start off, I feel like it's worth mentioning that a big piece of our brand identity had to do with what we decided to name the company.
So it wasn't named Wendy Simmons Consulting.
That was super intentional.
Other people have heard me tell that story in different places.
But we were building a team, a team that could plug in with our client's teams and we wanted a different tone to how the company was going to be perceived.
So that was even from day one before we started thinking about logos or colors, that was a foundational piece of our brand.
And our personality was really based on maybe my persona, who I was, my relationships out there, what kind of company I wanted to have, what I wanted the workload and demand to be for my team.
You know, having been in-house, I knew what it was like to work on proposals till 2 a.m.
And I thought, hey, we could make that a little bit better for marketers, right?
If I'm running the company, I might be able to bring in all of my tricks and best practices to not have the marketing team go through that level of suffering.
So these are all components of like that created the brand personality that Middle of Six does have.
And ultimately, our core values are hustle and heart.
That speaks to those pieces of, you know, we're really good at hustling.
We're not afraid of hard work.
I mean, just like all AEC marketers I've ever met, they are just dedicated team members.
So giving of themselves, they bring that hustle every day and a lot of heart.
You know, you care so much.
And although we try not to cry over pursuit losses, they do get to our heart a little bit.
And we bring that to our clients.
And I think the team all brought that to their past lives and past jobs too.
So those are the elements of the brand identity that then we needed to show visually in the middle of six brand.
Our logo is just a word mark.
Very simple at this point.
It was designed that way to be something we could build upon as we actually grew and had a little more personality and a little more, I don't know, experience that we wanted to demonstrate.
And by experience, I mean more time in the seat of consultant.
Who are we really going to be in 10 years?
I knew from the start we couldn't assume to communicate that on day one.
So we wanted something we could grow into.
And the visuals came from building out sort of that lovely balance of we work in AEC, there's design, there's the grittiness of construction, there's the polish and brightness and optimism of marketing.
So we have those all come together.
And that's what you see as the Middle of Six brand.
I hope that other people would embrace this approach too.
But for Middle of Six, at least, I mean, we're a new brand, but we see every day or every year as an opportunity to build and add depth to our brand identity.
It's not a one and done, this is it.
As we grow and bring new team members and build the personalities and really hone what we're great at and our experiences with clients, it's really just adding to our brand.
And so we embrace that.
Our website, for example, is continually being looked at and updated and evolving so that we can communicate everything that we want to share with our clients.
And the same is true with our visual identity and how we work on social media.
So I invite other firms, especially if you've got a good solid marketing team, to think about your brand in that way, and that there's always opportunity to have it deepen in the character and the quality that you're showing out there.
Doesn't have to be one branding exercise and wipe your hands, you're clean, you're good, you're done.
No, there's more to show.
Absolutely.
It's such an evolving and fluid process.
Of course, one that does involve stakeholder engagement and buy-in and a lot of strategy, but there is always room to grow and evolve.
And I think that's one thing that makes it such a fun process.
Okay, Rachel, here's a question for you.
I mean, and we sort of touched on it briefly, but I'd like to just dig a little bit more is, what's the impact brand identity can have on the culture of your firm?
What do you see are some ways that you can like maintain a really strong brand and culture, even given the fact that we're working remote, you don't see your people all the time?
It's just kind of been a couple of crazy years here.
Do you have anything on that that you want to share?
It really has been a few crazy years.
I think, you know, culture and brand identity are so inextricably tied into one another.
And when you have a really strong brand identity, and your employees, your people, are really clear on the intention and the purpose, I think it just brings you together.
And something we talk about all the time, whether it's talent acquisition, or when speaking about marketing teams, is that your people are your most invaluable asset.
And when you have a strong brand identity, you have strong brand ambassadors, people who are championing your brand out in the world, whether at a networking event or spending time with friends who are also maybe in the industry.
It's just such a powerful, powerful way of communicating the values and the personality of who your company is and doing that through your people.
Right, and it's something you can't really fake.
Your brand personality, which ends up, you know, informing your brand identity out there in the world, is really who you are and how you act, how you behave, what you choose to do, all of those things, how it's pushed out there.
And as you said, your people can either be your brand ambassadors or they could be brand detractors if they maybe don't have those same values.
Or maybe the company is saying one thing and doing something else as people leave your circle of your firm.
You want that experience to have been really positive and genuine and hopefully they'll bring that with them wherever they travel over time.
And I think that's a good point is make sure that you're being honest as a firm and maybe pushing yourself, your company to do better.
And when it comes to things like diversity and equity and just how we're working in the workplace, like pushing to do better than we did before is going to help improve you as a company and your brand overall in time.
And all of that, you know, we've talked about so many things that would be woven into Azure recruiting and hiring and onboarding people and weaving them into being part of the brand from day one.
I can see that culture and the brand just being, like you said, entwined with each other.
You know, we hear all the time across industries that our goal is, we want people to live the brand.
And it's true.
It's really true.
If people select a company that is aligned, there's alignment in their values.
It's not just all about money, salary, title, but actually the whole picture of the balance of what they're called to do and feeling like they're, you know, making improvements and adding to a team and adding to their communities.
All of those things are going to create a really positive reflection of your brand out there in the world.
So, definitely a topic we will.
We're going to continue this conversation, dig into other elements of the brand.
But I would just encourage the marketers out there and the firm leaders to take a close look at your brand identity.
Look at those things like the values, your personality, what you're promising on your website, how things are communicated through your proposals and social media and across the board and the visuals.
And I hope you feel really good about it and if there's things that need improvement, there's always ways to fine-tune and tweak and take a look at your brand too, to make it the best reflection of your company as possible.
So Rachel, thank you so much for the conversation and I'm looking forward to more of these on the topic of branding since it's something you're so passionate about and that we touch on all the time here at Middle of Six.
So thank you for being here.
It's great to talk with you.
Thank you so much for having me, Wendy.
The Shortlist is presented by Middle of Six and hosted by me, Wendy Simmons, principal marketing strategist.
Our producer is Kyle Davis, with digital marketing and graphic design by the team at Middle of Six.
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The Shortlist is a podcast that explores all things AEC marketing. Hosted by Middle of Six Principal, Wendy Simmons, each episode features members of the MOS team, where we take a deep dive on a wide range of topics related to AEC marketing including: proposal development, strategy, team building, business development, branding, digital marketing, and more. You can listen to our full archive of episodes here.