American entrepreneur, Lisa Gansky, says: “Your brand is your public identity, what you’re trusted for. And for your brand to endure, it has to be tested, redefined, managed, and expanded as markets evolve. Brands either learn or disappear.”
There is a lot of confusion about brands, what they are and what they aren’t – even in 2018. Think of your brand as your firm’s personality. Your brand is the sum-total of everything you do, publish, print, speak, work on – and yes, don’t do. It’s how people who know you feel about you. As a professional services firm, you don’t own your brand equity; your employees, clients and referral sources hold that power.
How to give birth to a new brand
It starts with positioning strategy research and, in a perfect world, research that includes interviews with clients and prospects. Distilling and analyzing the results of this research gives us the opportunity to create a unique and differentiating position. A theme or tagline often emerges, which is the tiny, little shortcut to your more complete strategy.
What elements and initiatives make the most sense in terms of paying off or demonstrating your strategy? At this point you must choose your time and budget priorities for your brand launch. Most often it includes a new logo and website, plus writing new content that highlights your updated messaging.
The visual tools are the easiest to create, but a new logo, website and advertising campaign is not enough to launch, grow and sustain a new brand. Memorability is a fleeting resource, and attaining it is hard. Your professionals must learn to embrace and personalize the new strategy and brand – it starts at the firm level and it should be agile enough to fully support signature practices and industries, and the business development efforts of each professional. This is called “living the brand,” and this boosts memorability so that it can grow and be sustained.
Brilliant, elevating, problem-solving design
Content Pilot is highly successful at designing brands that are enduring – our strategy and design execution are proven over 30+ years. As we do our jobs well, our clients’ firms are becoming more memorable every day and they are achieving their business goals.
We love designing the logo that elevates a firm and serves as the cornerstone of its new brand. Logo and branding clients have included:
- (the former) Andrews Kurth
- Baker Hostetler
- (the former) Cox Smith Matthews
- Doerner Saunders Daniel Anderson
- Downey Brand
- Fross Zelnick Lehrman & Zissu
- (the former) Godwin Gruber
- Gruber Hail Johansen Shank
- Johnston Allison & Hord
- Kaplan Kirsch & Rockwell
- Keogh Cox
- Marshall Melhorn
- Merchant & Gould
- McNair
- Minor & Brown (MB Law)
- MWA Advisors
- Rogers & Hardin
- Skarzynski Black
- Weber Gallagher