Who Are You?

Dan Antonelli

Ponder, for a minute, the biggest brands in the retail game: Apple, Starbucks, Nike, Macy’s and some of the other Fortune 500 mega brands. Just the sight of their logo is enough to make you feel a certain way, have a particular perception and make a future decision. All within the span of a few seconds, the logo communicates all of this and more to the consumer. But how?

A logo is not simply another nice graphic to align with your business. It has the power to move mountains, gain your business credibility and set a new standard for how your conduct business.

Make it Meaningful
If a picture is worth a thousand words, then it’s up to you to make the majority of those words work for you when it comes to your logo. As the central component to your brand, the logo needs to clearly communicate your business in a positive way.

It needs to be original, legible and simplistic, and it needs to work well in color and black and white. The appropriate color palette and name should come together to create a smile-provoking brand that lets customers know you mean business.

When establishing your brand—and more specifically, creating your logo—it’s important to find a balance and use discretion. You want your logo to stand apart from other similar companies. At the same time, it must resonate with your target customer.

When working with a professional designer—a prerequisite for top-level design—it’s important to set aside predispositions. The most important thing is that it resonates with the target market segment, not you, the business owner.

Choosing a Design Firm
To get your branding to reflect your business’ greatness, you’ll want to enlist some professional help. When choosing a design firm to create your brand, think about the big picture and plan for the future.

The Proof is in the Portfolio: Make sure the firm you choose has spent a lot of time working with small businesses, and specifically retail garden center clients, if possible. This helps guarantee that they have a better understanding of the marketing challenges specific to you. They can better create and integrate your brand across all of your right customer touch points.

Is the Web Designer Up to the Task? He or she might be graphically inclined and effective at designing websites, but that might not translate over to business cards, uniforms, truck wraps, etc. Look for an all-in-one agency when possible or a place where they have experience with integrating brands through both print and digital.

Who Designed This? Be wary of crowdsourcing your logo or designs rather than having them created by a marketing agency. With crowdsourcing, you won't know who’s tasked with developing your branding and you won't be able to talk with them. Often the person is in another country. What would he or she know about branding a garden center in the U.S.?

Demand Original Work: Ask to see your branding as it’s developed. From conceptual sketches to various iterations with different colors, the brand development process is a multi-step journey. It would be very unfortunate to find out one day after three months of development that the direction is completely off the mark, or worse, that the idea had been stolen from another company.

Working Across Channels
Once you have a winning logo, you want to leverage it appropriately across all media. This doesn’t have to be an overnight changing of the guard. However, you should assess within your budget the quickest possible path to switch out your old branding for the new brand identity.

Vehicle Wrap: A big problem many companies face when they get to this step is that their logo wasn’t designed with this vehicle medium in mind. Your logo should be designed in such a way that it blends seamlessly into a clutter-free truck wrap or vehicle design. Getting the logo onto this medium shouldn’t involve reinventing the wheel, but instead should focus on clarity and communicating the full value in a two to four second span.

A Fully Branded Website: Your brand must be consistently integrated into each page on your site—from the home page right on through to the Contact Us page. Components of your logo and branding should carry throughout the site. Finally, strategically selected fonts are consistent across all pages.

Stationery, Business Cards & Collateral: Anytime your customer can experience your brand in a tactile manner, you need to impress. Getting these designs up to par is what will separate your brand’s message from the competition.

The Key is Consistency
Solid, consistent branding can help you stand out and build awareness in your market. But at the end of the day, what you really want to do is increase sales and, with time, profitability. Maintaining a high standard with your marketing materials and making sure your brand is properly executed will help further develop this heightened perception.

Right off the bat, your business may come across as commodity-based. To break free from that perception, it’s necessary to act professional in every way, but also to make an effort to have every touchpoint properly branded as well. Professional, consistent branding opens the door for you to make the case of being a true value.

The higher of a standard your branding sets, the greater the chance of you delivering on that promise—at least in the eyes of the consumer. Customers will be willing to pay more of a premium for the assurance that comes with excellent branding. GP

Dan Antonelli is the president & creative director at Graphic D-Signs, Inc., an award-winning advertising agency specializing in marketing strategy, design and development.