Building a brand is a bit like building a house. You have to lay the foundations, the pillars, the floors... My construction knowledge stops there 😅 On the other hand, I know the pretty little name of the foundations of the brand: the brand platform! Quite simply. It is on this base that the brand is based.
I suggest you go deeper into this subject and discover how you can create your own by using an agency (and not just any one 😉).
La brand platform represents the identity of a brand. It is a very powerful marketing tool that synthesizes and formalizes its identity. It will allow you to have simple, clear and impactful words to talk about your business as a brand.
The brand platform brings together elements such as the mission of the brand, differentiation, the description of the activity... But above all, it is an opportunity to ask yourself about the raison d'être of your brand (we will come back to this very quickly 😉).
Concretely, this platform can take the form you want. Generally, it is a document that lists these elements (mission, values, values, vision, manifesto, messages, differentiation...)
The objective? Know how to talk about the brand in one sentence, whether internally or with partners and customers.
Why is it necessary? The brand platform allows you to start on solid foundations! The positioning of the brand and its raison d'être (the famous Why by Simon Sinek) are your base... because if you don't know who you are, you don't know where you are going 😅
So, before starting your business, you need to know who you are first. It is then that you can work around your ideal customer and your personas.
Do you think you are making rational decisions?
Well no!
The emotional part of our brain is responsible for 80% of our decision-making ! 😅 Not bad for the supposed rational beings that we are...
In fact, you may have noticed it but when you are seduced, you don't explain it. It sucks at our guts.
For Simon Sinek, it is this same process that starts when we are convinced to buy a product.
You are touched in the heart ❤️
You confirm with rational information.
So it is not your rational brain that is in control, but the emotional part, the limbic part. Simon Sinek says that successful businesses first communicate about their reason for being. Then on their competitive advantage. And finally on their product.
He formalizes this in a code that he names The golden circle. Here it is:
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What - corresponds to what the company does
How - corresponds to how the company does it, it is its competitive advantage
Why - corresponds to why the company does it, it is its reason for being, its values and its beliefs.
From there, Simon Sinek shows that most companies make the mistake of communicating about what they do, that is, their product. Some emphasize their competitive advantage when they know it. Few communicate about their values and beliefs. When that happens, it's in the last position, and very often it's just words.
However, The why is the most important, it should be the core of your communication. You need to do business with people who believe in what you believe in. This way you can dominate your market because your product is bought for what it says about the person who buys it ✨
So, if you want to improve your communication, touch the emotional part of the brain instead of giving it rational information. It will be much more effective.
You make sure you always have customers, fans who buy your products. As is the case with Apple...
Hi it's us! 👋 Elias Studio is a branding agency that takes care of your brand image from A to Z. We work on the strategic thinking of your brand, its visual identity, the launch of your website and the creation of mailings.
We have 3 divisions dedicated to your brand image:
Now that the presentations are done, I'm going to show you how we work! 🚀
We create your branding in 3 steps 👇
First step, we are starting a strategic thinking around our client's brand. Indeed, to carry out our mission successfully, we need to understand our client, his business, his ambitions and his goals. Then we go deeper! What is the raison d'être of this brand? What is its differentiation from its competitors? What is its market? What does it offer?
These questions are fundamental to the success of your brand strategy!
Second step, if creating a visual identity is part of the project, our designers offer 3 graphic guidelines. You choose.
Once the graphic charter is finalized, we tackle the foundations of the site: we create your wireframes that allow you to gather and organize all the content of your future site.
Our web designers then move on to UI/UX prototyping by drawing the model of your website.
Third step, your model is integrated directly into your Webflow account. And we support you until your website is online !
But let's get back to our sheep... or rather to our brand platform! 🐑 How do we build it for our customers? 🤔
In general, we intervene in the form of Workshops And ofco-design workshops with our customer. Several exchanges are necessary with the founders and collaborators to fully understand the environment and propose creative ways that will have an impact.
We have to Know everything about your brand ! Understanding the birth of the brand will allow us to understand its raison d'être and your values. Understanding the current brand will allow us to put your goals into perspective. Understanding the brand of tomorrow will tell us about your ambition and vision.
Of course, we need to look at your business, market, industry, and the environment in which your brand operates. In this way we will have a global view on the codes of your sector, your competitors and the needs of your customers. Essential for the future!
In the end, all this work will allow us to detect the personality of your brand. Note that brand personality is part of brand identity, the very identity that we define through the brand platform!
Now that you know everything about Simon Sinek's Golden Circle, let's see how we can apply this principle to your brand.
The Why therefore corresponds to the raison d'être of your brand. We approach it by personifying your brand and asking ourselves, “What is she thinking about?”
Now is the time to write about:
We move on to the “How” question, which corresponds to how your brand does what it does. As a reminder, this is about competitive advantages and differentiation.
Let's continue with the exercise! We write about:
Remember, the “What” is on the periphery of the circle. It represents what the brand does. What is the product (what 😁).
In this part, you need to write about:
Finally, you can add one last question to properly build your brand platform. This question is about the raw identity of the brand: “Who”? - who in French 😄
Let's go back to our brand persona. Imagine she's knocking on your door:
“- Knock knock,
- Who is it?
-...”
We complete these points! It's time to write about 👇:
And that's it! With that, your foundations will be solid 🤩
What is the initial idea, how was the project created?
What is the history of the brand name?
What are your beliefs about the sector?
What is the DNA of your brand? List your main values and personality traits.
What are the problems in the sector?
How does this differ from what exists? What is the added value of your brand?
List your target profiles and their needs + expectations
What are you doing in concrete terms?
List your offers (with details: timing, cost, resources, etc.)
How do your customers perceive you? What feedback do you have?
What customer (s) do you want to have?
What are your processes? Before a project, during onboarding and during a project.
What image do you want to have? What should users coming to your site think?
...
If you want to know all the questions, we will be happy to ask them during your Workshop! You know what you have to do hehe 😉 If not, you can also dig deeper into the subject by clicking here, to understand “how to boost your branding with a brand platform”.
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