Protecting a Visual Identity

Two people planning their visual identity

Most business leaders understand the value of having a memorable business name and logo, but many don’t realize the importance of a visual identity, what it entails, and why protecting it is paramount.

Building a successful brand takes time, resources, and strategy. Typically, the brand’s foundation is in its mission statement, value proposition, and unique voice which are then expressed through the company name, logo mark, print and digital marketing materials and website. Those graphical components comprise the visual identity, or face of the business, at inception.

However, over time, a business’s actions and reputation become intertwined in the visual image establishing the business’s brand, which, done well, can become one of the business’s most valuable intellectual assets.

When starting a business, trademarking and copyrighting a logo helps to ensure a company will be the only one of its type selling a similar service or goods using the same business name. A visual identity that consists of an icon or wordmark can also be trademarked.

Purchasing a domain name that reflects the business name is another important avenue to stake claim to the business’s brand name online. Creating social profiles that secure the business name across all major social networks should be done as well, even if there is not an immediate plan to activate a social media program.

Brand Guidelines are a Must-Have for Your Visual Identity

A company’s visual messaging effectively expands as it grows if it is implemented with consistency and a long-term strategy in place. Consistency is needed in the color palette, fonts, graphical style and tone to make it recognizable at a glance thus building the brand’s equity. This consistency put into a formalized document with a set of rules to control proper logo usage, font hierarchy, iconography and tone in any public-facing visual communication is essentially the basics of a brand guide.

An example of a brand that has withstood the test of time by making intentional choices and following a brand guide in its implementation of the visual identity is Absolut Vodka. Their bottle has reached iconic status because it hasn’t changed and was used for 25 years in their marketing campaigns. The main star of the visual creative was their bottle and their product name in the same bold font with a simple headline and playful imagery. A brand guide is essential in ensuring deliberate decision making regarding graphic design.

With growth and increased engagement, a brand’s story and personality further develop. The brand personality is tied consciously and unconsciously to the consistent use of a branded visual identity and adherence to brand guidelines. Apple has mastered this practice. As a result, the company is now synonymous with simple design and innovation.

As a company successfully delivers on its value proposition as it matures, it builds trust and brand recognition in the public eye. Its visual identity is no longer simply recognized: it’s preferred. When a brand is trusted, it’s able to expand and raise prices because people are willing to pay more for products or services from a company they trust.

Protecting Your Creativity is Essential

Throughout a brand’s growth, if the visual identity isn’t protected by registering for a trademark, purchasing a website domain with the company’s name, securing branded social channels and possibly consulting with an attorney to protect intellectual property, the business risks eroding its brand equity. Worse, a copycat company with a lower quality product could use a similar logo design, social media strategy or online presence and not only dilute the work that has gone in to developing the brand but also tarnish the company’s reputation.

Another risk is that a new market entrant develops a strategic brand with a strong visual identity and is able to grow its reputation, build the customer’s trust and take market share. Even in commodity industries like insurance or consumer products like toilet paper, brands and visual identities help brands stand out and stand for something, like the GEICO gecko or the Charmin bear. One stands for 15 minutes that could save you 15% and the other stands for strength and softness.

Protecting a visual identity from the start is the best way to ensure a company’s resources aren’t wasted and safeguard its future success. The process is actually relatively simple compared with what’s at stake.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Felicia Watson is Director of Creative Services at (W)right On Communications. With a proven track record of success and more than 20 years of design and marketing experience, Felicia approaches each project with a commitment to create an impactful design that achieves results. Responsible for leading the agency’s creative services that integrate print and digital graphic design, online programming, videography, editing and photography, Felicia also oversees agency services including animation, motion graphics, and emerging technologies including augmented/virtual reality and holography as they may be integrated in strategic communication programs.

Crafting An Authentic Personal Brand

Turning an authentic personal brand to eleven!

Everyone has a personal brand, whether they work at cultivating it or not. It’s worth it to spend some time thinking about your own and how to be more intentional about crafting an authentic personal brand for your professional self. 

I recently joined Henry DeVries, Forbes columnist, author and founder of Indie Books International, on his podcast to talk about personal branding, especially for people sharing their expertise as authors. But the advice applies to everyone at every stage of their careers.

Why Work at an Authentic Personal Brand?

Crafting an authentic personal brand can help advance your career and professional goals, build your business and expand your network. Who doesn’t want that for themselves? There are a few key steps to success.

First is identifying your assets. Start with your product and service or its features and benefits. The point is to make sure your brand is marketable. Next, think about your most unique characteristics. What is it that your family, friends and coworkers say about you? What are your natural or standout characteristics?

The idea here is to differentiate yourself from others by emphasizing the things that really make you who you are. Maybe you’re boisterous and irreverent or especially thoughtful and kind.

Whatever your unique identifiers are, they must connect with your target audience on an emotional level. If they don’t, it’s not really a brand. A brand has to evoke a feeling in others and that’s what you’re aspiring to do by cultivating yours.

Your Personal Brand is an Exaggerated Version of Who You Really Are

The secret behind the most powerful personal brands on the planet is the emotional connection the make. You can get there, but you need to be willing to take your special, authentic characteristics and turn them up to ‘11.’

Consider some of the best-known personal brands: Howard Stern, Elon Musk, and Oprah Winfrey. What do you think of when you hear these names? And, most important, what do you feel?

  • Stern is the totally outrageous yet neurotic shock jock. The outrageousness is his “it” factor. Combined with his vulnerability, he becomes relatable. It’s a magical combination, and totally authentic.
  • Musk is the eccentric technology mogul. He’s taken the idea of disruptor to the extreme in his professional and personal life. 
  • Winfrey is the media powerhouse who’s famous for her extreme generosity as well as her down- to-earth persona, which works despite her fame and fortune.

When your brand is based on who you really are, it’s sustainable. Personal brands that are based on a fiction fail. Many a PR scandal has broken when someone’s personal brand has proven false. 

An authentic personal brand can take a setback. Just look at style maven and homemaker extraordinaire Martha Stewart who came out of prison and teamed up with Snoop Dogg to resurrect her brand.

How Can You Make Your Personal Brand Stick?

So, you know what makes you stand out and how to maximize your personality capital. Now it’s time to come up with your origin story. Your parents might not have been gunned down in an alley and, to my knowledge, no one has ever been bitten by a radioactive spider but that doesn’t mean you don’t have a compelling story to tell. How did your core characteristic(s) evolve? What key events built the pillars of your personality? This is your opportunity to further develop your public persona into something that makes people want to turn the page.

Your origin story is something you need to tell again and again and on every media platform: earned, owned, shared and paid.

Earned media is when your story is told by others. This is the most credible source for your audience and the most valuable for building your brand. Owned media is when you tell the story. This includes your website, newsletter, webinars, video and other assets. This is where you have the most control over the narrative. Social media is how you engage people with your brand. It’s a great place to grow your audience and cultivate the vibe your story lends itself to. Paid media is the last, and least credible, platform but it has potential to reach the most people, depending on your budget, and the ability to target the audience that your message reaches with tremendous precision. 

Proper use of the right media channels is the secret sauce of a successful marketing strategy.

Your Brand is Built Upon Your Behaviors 

Lastly, think beyond marketing copy and brochures. Think about how people experience you. That’s a personal branding opportunity. Maybe it’s how you sign off your emails, how you greet people or what appears in your Zoom background. Simple things. Or it could be more lavish and require a financial investment like an annual fundraising event you host or the furniture and art in your lobby.

People’s beliefs are formed by their experiences. So, make sure that your behaviors are consistent with the brand you’re trying to cultivate. As a career public relations consultant, I assure you that walking the talk is the most important thing you can do to create and maintain your personal brand. As Warren Buffet famously said, it takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. 

Build your reputation faster through personal brand activations. If that sounds like jargon, here are some examples of what I mean by that.

One of my professional colleagues has a strong personal brand. I would describe hers as an otherworldly passion for public relations and developing excellence in the next generation of communicators (good thing she’s an educator!) with a healthy dose of aloha spirit. One of the ways she consistently brings her personal brand to life is in her thank you notes. She never misses an opportunity to pen one when she feels someone has helped our her or her students. She also instills that as a best practice in her students. As a result, when she calls on her colleagues for help, we’re all absolutely willing to jump in because we know she appreciates  anyone who takes a moment to share their passion with her, her program and her students or alumni.

Another example is a young student who graduated from her program, as a matter of fact. We met for an information interview, and I kept an eye on her career, noting that wherever she appeared online, she had a flower in her hair. It stuck with me and helped me to remember her. Now, when I describe the flower to anyone who has met this gal, they know exactly who I’m talking about! As someone just starting out, she didn’t necessarily have a calling card or a proven characteristic she knew was marketable, so she created one. Nice.

Crafting your authentic personal brand is a worthwhile exercise. While we can’t all take ours to the exaggerated extremes of the celebrity examples I mentioned, it does require dialing yourself up to 11 if you want to stand out from the pack.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Julie Wright is President of (W)right On Communications, Inc., the award-winning integrated strategic communications firm she founded in 1998. With offices in San Diego, Los Angeles, and Vancouver, B.C., her team handles complex communications challenges for B2B tech, cleantech and energy, healthcare, tourism and hospitality, not-for-profit and public sector organizations. Wright and her team elevate the agency experience through data-driven insights and measurable results for client partners.

5 Ways Travel Brands Can Connect with Consumers

5 Ways Travel Brands Can Connect with Consumers

By Licia Walsworth — Communications Strategist travel 

What may have started as a year full of excitement about cruises to tropical islands, getaways to the mountains, or first trips to magical theme parks has deflated into canceled plans, disappointment, and postponed dreams for travelers. travel

But that doesn’t mean all hope is lost for travel brands.

The spirit of travel is ingrained in us. Being confined for too long takes its mental and physical toll. 

According to a recent Destination Analysts survey, almost half of American travelers are open to receiving news and updates about exciting travel destinations. People crave the mental break of reminiscing about places they have visited or dreaming of places they still want to go.

By adopting what is working in today’s unfamiliar travel PR and marketing territory, your brand could still find its voice and have it stand out over the crowd.  

1. Silence Is Not Golden travel

The knee-jerk reaction of most brands was to halt all advertising and social media posts immediately. These companies perceived it as the only way to survive. But silence is not always golden. Skift.com recently highlighted how Booking Holdings and their sub-brands (like Booking.com and Agoda) successfully increased their market share over other travel companies, simply by staying the course. Consumers continued to see their advertising — and reacted with their wallets. In the grand scheme of things, Booking Holdings’ overall revenue was down, as it was for most travel brands during this time, but they grew their market share on Trivago from 39% to 54% year over year.

What’s the lesson? You may not be able to grow your market but you can take market share from your competitors and be better positioned as the market recovers. Wouldn’t we all like to see our share of the proverbial pie grow in those kinds of increments? As the age-old saying goes, out of sight, out of mind.

2. The Open Road Is Calling travel

In the same Destination Analysts survey, over 50% of respondents stated they would take a road trip over air travel in the next six months. That means it’s time for destinations to start investing in their own backyards. The drive market is calling. Even the New York Times is drawing attention to the nostalgia of road trip travel from decades ago when packing everyone in the family car and hitting the open road was the norm for summer vacations. Summers at the shore, camping in the mountains, and hiking in the forests have become welcome visuals overcrowded theme parks, city centers, and cruise ships.

The lesson is to let the drive market know you are there, what you offer (family drive-in movies in your parking lot? Drive through grab and go breakfasts?), and how you can help them save that much-needed family vacation— all to help boost your current business with the potential to create lasting loyalty and travel traditions for years to come.

3. Teamwork Makes the Dream Work

PerformanceIN suggests that now is the time to leverage your relationships, affiliates, and partners across the industry to find mutually beneficial outcomes. Travel bloggers, media influencers, and attractions need to work together to reach their target audiences, maintain consistent messaging, and make the consumer feel confident about the travel experiences they are considering. Find ways to work with the media to promote how safe, comfortable, and enjoyable your destination is.

While many destinations and resorts have been afraid to host media or influencers given they can’t deliver the full experience or support their site visit with the normal level of service, these writers and personalities are hungry to travel and engage with your brand and share positive socially distanced experiences with their readers and followers. You can also partner with attractions or restaurants to become a sort of one-stop-shop offering value-based add-ons to your clients’ stay. As households plan their travel, they’re looking for space and safety, not for discounts, so don’t chase this market down: add value instead through partnerships. It’s an opportunity to create a win-win situation, and spreading the wealth could be mutually beneficial not only now, but as the basis for long-lasting collaborations into the future.

The lesson here is while we can’t get together physically, we can partner virtually to get messages out and create the best possible travel experience for guests and visitors.

4. Visual Shopping – It’s a Buyers’ Market

The booking window for travel is shrinking — dramatically. Leisure travel used to have an average lead time of 28 to 90 days. According to Phocuswire, that window has whittled down to seven days. And in this period of stress, uncertainty, and distraction, time is of the essence. Consumers want to know that your destination is safe. They want to reassurance that safety protocols are being followed. They want to know that you know what you are doing. And they want to know that as soon as they get to your website.

Making it hard for them to find what they are looking for can mean one of two things: They will simply move on to your competitor’s site, or, they’ll call your hotel for this information, taking up the time of an already busy front-office worker. Don’t make the consumer do the work. Be proud of your message of safety — get it front and center. A video is the best way to show the consumer you mean business. Check out these videos we produced for Welk Resorts and the San Diego Tourism Authority for some great ways to let consumers know you mean business.

 The lesson here is to show consumers your health and safety practices to build their confidence and secure their business. Let them see firsthand the steps your company is taking to ease any stress they may be feeling about their trip. Reach out if we can help you create your visual selling tool.

5. Personalization Fulfills Expectations

During a crisis, people want to know they are being heard. They want to be shown compassion. And they want to be able to let their guard down. It all starts with trust. Letting your consumer know that you hear and understand them and that you will cater to their needs speaks volumes. As Salesforce’s leading hospitality and tourism executive told Skift.com, lost are the days where frequent stays will increase a traveler’s loyalty status level. To win them over now, it’s time to get personal and customize their experience. Their information is at your fingertips — from their booking preferences to their age, hometown, and contact information. Building custom- experiences based on the knowledge you already possess will continue to make that customer brand-loyal for life.

According to Skift, more than 80% of customers said they experience a company provides is as important as its products and services. When you are thinking of your next mass e-blast or social media campaign, ask yourself how it speaks to your end consumer, specific personas, or the actual individuals receiving or engaging with your content. Does it get to them on an emotional level?

This lesson is that actively building connections will always yield higher returns than simply hoping for the best. One of my favorite mentors always said: “Hope is not a strategy.” Know your audience and what makes them tick. Then offer it to them. They will thank you in return.

Remember that this too shall pass. While we can’t know how quickly, we can continue to be present, be mindful of our message, and make the most of your assets to sell your story. The only direction to look is forward. Use thoughtful resources to guide your communications. Make every interaction intentional and meaningful. Consumers will remember — and will thank you for it.  

Three Essential Marketing Tactics for Hospitality Brands

3 Marketing Trends for Hospitality Brands

1. Integrate the influencers

In this era of diminishing trust, the public craves authenticity. This is reflected in the massive growth of a hospitality marketing tactic that recently established itself and is expected to experience five times more growth by 2021– influencer marketing. Rather than sticking to the basic ad placement that’s blatantly meant to sell, influencer marketing creates a sense of sincerity. The influencer isn’t seen as some big corporation looking to make money, but rather as an admired friend that’s looking to inform their followers about a great product or destination that they think they’ll enjoy.

Influencers are now widely used in campaigns, but there are a few important steps you need to take prior to introducing an influencer into your hospitality brand’s campaign.

  • Assess the campaign goals as well as the overall goal of the brand
  • Analyze the influencer’s audience
  • Evaluate the type of content the influencer posts to see if it will actually aid in achieving your brand’s goals (i.e. geotagging, hashtags, tagging, shots of the hotel/destination)
  • Most importantly, track the levels of engagement between the influencer and followers

After assessing your goals and properly vetting the influencer, communicate your goals to the influencer. Don’t simply offer money or free product to the influencer in exchange for specific content. Instead, collaborate with the influencer to ensure they understand the mission of your brand and empower them to create the content that will resonate with their followers the best. This process results in content that feels more genuine and is more appropriate for the target audience.

2. Freshen up your storytelling

With the plethora of channels used by consumers to share and exchange information, it’s getting harder and harder for a hospitality brand’s content to stand out. Yes, being an outstanding writer is important, but what communicators now have to consider is how to best present their message to the audience in a fun, creative and visual way. Luckily for us, there’s a variety of exciting new storytelling tools at our disposal. From virtual reality to drones to infographics to 360 ° cameras, take advantage of these tools to create unique stories that immerse the viewer and hint at the kind of experience they will have if they choose your hospitality brand.

The point of using these technologies is to help spark a feeling about your brand through content. The ultimate at doing this is Disney. Instead of focusing on specifications and features – X number of beds, X amenities, $X per night, etc. – you should be focusing on the experience they deliver and the emotions surrounding it.

Sidenote, if you’re interested in hearing more about how to use 360° cameras in your campaign, read this post by WOC President and Founder Julie Wright.

3. Listen and engage

Two-way communication has never been more important than it is today. Users are not only consuming content, but they’re also creating it. Not only does user-generated content remove some of the hassle of creating original content, but it also creates a feeling of authenticity. Plus, an unpaid consumer sharing their experience with your brand is third party validation just like great media coverage.

Take advantage of this user-generated content and find ways to include it in your communications strategies. To find this content,  deploy social listening campaigns. Through social listening, hospitality brands are able to spot content where they’re featured and identify what’s being said about them. An excellent social listening tool is Hootsuite, which enables you to link and create dashboards for multiple social platforms that show streams of mentions, comments or shares so you can quickly and easily share or respond.

 

Natalia Xibille —Communications Coordinator