Brand Architecture: The blueprint to your brand

Building a strong and memorable brand that truly resonates with your audience all starts with a strong brand architecture. It defines everything, from your products and services to your communications and messaging, ensuring consistency and alignment across all touchpoints.

In this blog, we're going to dive into the key elements of brand architecture and why they're so important. From your brand's vision, mission and proposition to your personality, tone of voice, and values. We'll also talk about how a strong brand architecture can help differentiate your brand, build trust with your audience, and even expand your brand's offerings.

What’s a brand?

First off, let's talk about what a brand is. A brand is more than just a logo or a catchy tagline. It's how your customers or consumers perceive you and what sets you apart from your competitors. It's a combination of your company's values, personality, and your tone of voice (all of which we will define later).

It's how your customers perceive you and what sets you apart from your competitors. It’s what distinguishes your product or service apart from the rest – essentially, it’s what makes you, distinctly you.

Brand Architecture

So, how do we define your brand’s architecture and where do we begin? Well, it’s all about taking it back to basics and starting with the reason behind your brand. What are you trying to achieve and how will you get there? Or to put it simply, what is your vision and mission?

Vision and Mission

Your brand's vision and mission define the purpose and goals of your brand. The vision statement is a long-term aspirational goal that sets the direction for your brand, while the mission statement defines the specific actions and objectives to achieve that vision. Both statements should inspire and motivate both internal and external stakeholders.

Proposition

Next comes your brand’s proposition. This proposition is a promise to your customers about what they can expect from your brand. It is the unique selling proposition that sets your brand apart from competitors. It should clearly communicate the benefits of your products or services and address your customer's needs and desires in 3-5 sentences. Sounds easy, right?

HOW DO I CREATE MY PROPOSITION?

If you are familiar with marketing, you’ve probably heard about the Golden Circle. If not, we’ll walk you through it. A concept originally termed by Simon Sinek in his 2006 TED Talk, The Golden Circle is a popular framework for creating a compelling brand story. It consists of three layers: Why, How, and What.

The Why is your brand's purpose, the How is your brand's unique selling proposition, and the What is the product or service you offer. Most companies start with the What and let that shape their brand identity, but by starting with the Why, you create an emotional connection with your audience and build a loyal following.

Breaking your brand down into these three different layers can make it easier for you to write your proposition. Take your Why, How and What and write 2-3 sentences for each, starting with the why. Then condense this information down even further and you have a good starting point for your proposition.

BRAND PERSONALITY

Your brand personality defines the emotional and human characteristics of your brand. It is the way your brand is perceived by your customers and is often conveyed through the use of archetypes. You can define your personality by using the brand archetype wheel.

The wheel consists of 12 archetypes, each with its own unique characteristics. For example, the Innocent archetype is optimistic and wholesome, while the Rebel archetype is edgy and non-conformist. Once you have this figured out, it should be much easier to ensure your brand's personality is consistent across all touchpoints, including visual elements, messaging, and customer interactions.

VALUES

Your brand values are the principles and beliefs that your brand stands for. They should be at the core of everything your brand does and should guide your brand's actions and decisions. Your values should be communicated to your audience in a clear and consistent way, and they should be reflected in your brand's messaging and behaviour. Uncovering the Why behind your brand should help to define the values.

TONE OF VOICE

Once you have defined your personality and values, you can begin to create your tone of voice. Your brand's tone of voice is the way in which your brand communicates its personality through language. It's the style and manner you use to communicate with your audience. Your tone of voice should be consistent across all of your brand's communications, from your website to your social media channels and it should be aligned with your brand's personality, target audience and values.

Defining your tone of voice can be challenging, however a skilled copywriter can help you define your distinctive tone based on your brand’s personality and market position. They will have a deep understanding of language and how to use it to achieve specific goals. And they can guarantee consistency across all brand communications.

SO, WHERE DO YOU START?

Whether you're embarking on a new brand venture, rebranding your existing business, or simply seeking to gain a deeper understanding of your brand, taking a compressive view is a good place to start. And sometimes, you can be so close to your brand that you can’t see the wood through the trees. That’s why it might be a good idea to consider using an external agency.

Our all-inclusive workshops are designed to delve deep into the essence of your brand. With a team of seasoned experts specialising in brand strategy, copywriting, and creativity, our collaborative workshops offer valuable insights that can help uncover the underlying reasons behind what you do and how you do it, but most importantly, why you do it.

Our approach starts by identifying your brand attributes and exploring the motivations behind your brand. Identifying your attributes, such as the functional and emotional benefits, is the first step to creating your brand architecture. Think of this as your house blueprint – it’s essential to building the house, but once it’s built, you don’t need it anymore.

From there, we work collaboratively to gain a much clearer understanding of your brand and its optimal position in the marketplace. Armed with this knowledge, we can provide you with an inspiring vision and mission, a unique proposition, and a distinctive personality complete with a tone of voice that truly sets your brand apart from the competition.

Just take a look at the work we’ve done for Busy Bees, Sciensus and N-Kind.

To learn more about our branding services, contact us here.