A brand is a living entity- and it is enriched or undermined cumulatively over time, the product of a thousand small gestures.

-Michael Eisner

You’ve heard the advice a thousand times.

And it’s true- there are countless brands in the world today! There are thousands of successful brands and hundreds of dominant brands, there are only a few known as iconic brands. What distinguishes these iconic brands from just ‘brands’, and what we can learn from them?

A powerful brand holds a strong brand identity that includes various components such as name, logo, tagline, graphics, color, shape, and typography, shape, sound, smell, etc. And the best thing about the icons is you know them when you see them. These brands transcend their product/service and become a part of the popular culture.

Iconic brands are instantly recognizable such as Nike, Coca-Cola, Google, Apple, FedEx. These brands put consistent effort in their product and service, the environment it appears in, and their tone of voice. Sometimes it becomes difficult for many businesses to deliver it all, consistently. The following branding tips will help you in creating a brand strategy for establishing a unique and iconic brand identity.

A compelling name

First, you need a unique and compelling name for your business or brand. It gives a recognition to your business as it appears on everything from your website and social media channels, to your products, merchandise, and marketing materials.

So, if you create a unique and memorable business name, it will be easier for people to develop a connection with your brand. It will help people easily recognize your brand.

Keep the brand name simple and easy for people to remember and recall.

Unique logo or wordmark

A logo is the core of brand identity and therefore you need to create a unique yet memorable logo for your business. You can create a logo in a form of a graphic symbol, which is easy to remember and recall. However, sometimes it becomes difficult, time-consuming, and costly to create a symbolic logo. If you cannot design a memorable logo in traditional style (symbol graphic), then considering a wordmark or logotype is the best choice.

A well-crafted wordmark can be effective to represent your brand with a sense of professionalism. There are many brands with strong wordmark such as Coca-Cola, CNN, Mobil, and FedEx. Make sure your logo should always render consistently.

Clear and straightforward statement

Your brand tagline says a lot about your business. You need to be clear and specific while creating a tagline or statement for your brand. Basically, it captures the essence of the value that a brand provides to its customers in just one or two concise sentences. You need to start with Unique Advantage Point (UAP) of your business to start when developing a perfect tagline.

Just think- how your business or product can make the life of your customers better? If your tagline can answer the question, it will connect people with your brand.  Just focus on the message you want to pass on to the audience, if it gives a clear perspective and motivates them to try something extraordinary, then you really have a great tagline. The best example is Uber’s new mission statement. They changed the old statement “Make transportation as reliable as running water, everywhere, for everyone.” to the new statement “We ignite opportunity by setting the world in motion.” for a clear and better perspective.

Identify key colors

You need to identify colors for your brand logo, usually, businesses choose one or two key colors for their logo. You can also create a corporate color palette by including other secondary colors.

Following are the meaningful and emotional essence of different colors:

• Red is the color of passion, importance and attention.
• Orange color shows playfulness, friendliness, and vitality.
• Yellow is the color of happiness, optimism, and warning.
• Green symbolises nature, stability, prosperity and growth.
• Blue is the color of professionalism, security, and formality.
• Purple color gives you essence of royalty, creativity, and luxury.
• Pink shows femininity, youth, and innocence.
• White gives you a clean, virtuous, and healthy perspective.
• Black is a powerful, sophisticated, and edgy color.

Select the colors strategically as you want a fine balance between the values of the company and the effects you want on the people who interact with your brand.

Standard typography

You need to standardize the typography for your business. A brand’s typographic identity includes key text- brand name and punchline. You need to find and identify a font type for each of both. Also, you need to define a consistent way of writing headlines, which will give a distinct voice to your brand.

Make sure that the chosen fonts are easy to read and go well with all your printing material.

A compelling story

No matter what happens, you need to stay true to your brand story and brand values. That’s where iconic brands distinguish themselves. Iconic brands are always true to customers, and themselves. However, user-generated content is a great way to create a compelling story for your brand. That’s where people share their experiences and if you include it in your story, they will easily connect to it and engage themselves with your brand.

Consistent style

Finally, consistency in everything you do to promote and communicate about your brand holds the key to a successful iconic brand. However, building an iconic brand takes time. Consistency creates familiarity, which breeds trust and ultimately it leads to iconic brands.

Whether you are speaking with your customers, sending an email campaign, communicating on social media, hosting an event, and doing a press conference, you need to be consistent in everything and everywhere.

Make sure that your brand identities are consistent everywhere and everything you do to promote a business.

All the above tips will help you in creating a solid brand strategy and memorable brand identity for your business. However, you need to put consistent efforts over a period of time. Building an iconic brand takes time, patience, and careful crafting. That’s the way to create an iconic brand that people love and that’s how you will be able to measure the brand success.