Capturing Brand Essence

By Heather Rast, Interactive Experience Manager

What is the axiom about impressions?  Something like “the first one is typically the right one.”

Let’s assume that’s true.  So try this on - what kind of impression does your brand make?  What does it leave people feeling?    What does your brand stand for?  There may be, ahem, a difference between what you think the public believes about you, and what it truly believes.  Shocking, I know.

If you answer “Superior Technology” or “Quality Service” or some other chunk of rhetoric, I challenge you to re-think.  What does your brand really stand for to those that matter - your clients, your patients, your customers or consumers.  How is your brand truly perceived?

Enter a handy tool called a brand personality board.

Because the scope of Brand has no boundaries, the touchpoints are numerous.  Logo, yes.  Signage, yes, stationary, collateral, Web site - clearly they all help make up your brand. 

Stripping away those vehicles, though, at the crux should be a persona.  Because the public will develop one for you whether you like it or not, it’s best to control and direct it than be at its mercy.  “Muddled & Fuzzy” and “Unrelatable” are two very bad places to be, competitively speaking.

Creating a brand personality board (aka spirit board, mood board, ad nauseum) can help accomplish two critical things:  1) establish a highly developed, precisely articulated, and rigorously documented brand image and 2) establish an accurate truth defining your organization in the eyes of your consumers.

A brand personality board is a visual representation of your brand.  The board draws from symbolisms that will borrow ideas, feelings, status, relationships, etc. to create a picture of what you are trying to say.  It should be your guiding light, the stick by which all campaigns or executions are measured.

What goes on a board?  Color palette, descriptive words or phrases, typography, imagery of foods, locations, architecture.  Textures, bits of design elements.  Anything and everything that when collected, portrays the very essence of what your brand represents.  Every exchange or contact, every message written or displayed should hold fast to that essence