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Branding
The brand platform for your company

Helene Renaud

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Helene Renaud

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Have you always admired certain strong brands that assert their uniqueness and stand out in their market or in the minds of everyone? These brands, which are admired for their unique identity, their story to tell and their particular universe, all have in common that they have taken the time to think about their brand platform and have succeeded in positioning themselves strategically in relation to their competitors. So if you want to increase your brand awareness, maximise the impact of your marketing campaigns and reach your target audience, this article is for you.

 

But what exactly is a brand platform?

A brand platform is a set of communication tools designed to convey the essence of your brand or company.

More concretely, it is about asking yourself what values you convey through your image. The following questions must therefore be asked:

  • What value(s) are conveyed through my image and my communication?
  • What value(s) do I bring to society in general?
  • What will I solve with my product or service?

By answering these questions and bringing your team together for workshops, you can define the 5 strategic themes that are specific to your company: vision, mission, promise, value and style.  For completeness, and as the world is increasingly searching for meaning, we could also add the “raison d’être” of the company.

 

How to build a brand platform?

The suggestion, a few lines above, to “build collectively” is highly recommended!

Indeed, this is a time that you will take together and that will allow you to lay the pillars of your company by mixing the experiences, expertise and intuitions of each person.

It is also a very special moment in the life of a company that allows you to bring the team together and above all to give everyone a say by avoiding top-down communication or decisions (often criticised by management). But before going any further, take care to study your competition and situate yourself in relation to them. This is often very instructive and you could detect areas not yet covered where you could use your future communications to stand out. Also think about interviewing your customers: they are often the ones who have an objective view of your products and services and who can give you the keys to your future. Ask them about their perception of marketing identity to see if there is a gap between who you are and what you portray.

 

Implementing the brand platform

After spending a considerable amount of time doing these exercises internally and externally, it’s time to transcribe everything that has been gathered into something concrete. Materialising it is important and in our jargon we call it a ‘Brand Book’. This Brand Book will be the bible of your brand or company.

It will give you the main values, the main criteria to succeed in expressing everything we have seen above (vision, mission, promise, values, style and raison d’être) in the best possible way on a daily basis, through actions. This ‘Brand book’ can also be distributed externally in the form of a Brand Center.

This will save time for your communication teams, as it contains a number of tools.

This digital platform will allow you to find numerous sections such as

  • A guide to getting started, presenting the philosophy of the ‘Brand Center’.
  • The elements of positioning and language
  • The print and digital graphic charter
  • A download area 
  • A description of the workflows used to create materials
  • The possibility of contacting the brand team

One last piece of advice for the road, a brand platform is of course evolving and should never be set in stone! Reviewing it with colleagues on a regular basis allows it to evolve according to the company’s rhythm.