You have an idea for a product or service so you create a brand. The brand means very little, so what do you need to do to give it substance and credibility?
Credibility comes down to 3 major components:
Name
Make it strong or memorable.
Get the .com domain name.
Aim for consistency across all of your social media accounts. It should be the determining factor if you are deciding between two names.
Design
Keep your design clean and legible at a very small size. Think in terms of a logo being placed on a 5-cent piece.
Your design should be able to function as a single-color design.
If needed, your design should work in square form for social media profiles or avatars.
Story
Ensure your value proposition be easily communicated. Think about the greatest distribution channel – word of mouth. Could somebody be able to tell someone else what you do in one sentence? Here’s a good example:
LawAdvisor
The Why: To bring Justice to Everyone
The What: A marketplace for lawyers
What is my experience in interacting with your brand?
Who is involved? What have they done? What brands have aligned themselves with yours?
Your story is the summation of these factors
Developing your brand’s name and design primarily involves the checklist above - brand acceleration, on the other hand, heavily revolves around story. Therefore, to accelerate your brand, you must focus on developing your story.
Focus on aligning other brands with your brand or ‘partnerships’.
Partnerships are done from a transmedia perspective of incorporating existing narratives to improve your overall story and branded proposition.
It is the reason teams and advisors are so important to your story. If I have an accounting startup (let’s call it Xero) and I add the founder of the established MYOB to Zero’s advisory as an investor, I have instant credibility in this industry.
For instance, if I have a nootropics company but know very little about smart drugs, adding a prolific and outspoken neuropharmacologist to the team would give me credibility.
You need partnerships that give you domain expertise or appeal to your target market.
If I now manage to bring on Bradley Cooper, the star of the movie Limitless which made nootropics famous, my brand now has depth and reach beyond the clinical appeal brought by the neuropharmacologist.
The fact that Bradley Cooper may know very little about the substances required to improve your focus or memory is inconsequential to the endorsement. The consumer perception of his association with nootropics as a result of a movie has now weaved his brand and story into own own in a powerful way, leaving the impression that our product will achieve similar results.
Simply put, look for brands that help you steer your story towards your vision or purpose.
Hope this helps.
Do not think I left ‘product’ out of this picture at all. In fact, if you managed to convince a leading pharmacologist and a Hollywood A-lister to endorse you, then you probably have a great product.