A brand is made up of many different aspects, contrary to popular belief a brand goes beyond a logo and some colour schemes. Sure these are elements of a brand but it’s not the full picture. 

To quote Marty Neumeier a brand is a person’s gut feeling, it’s how they subconsciously view a brand based on its actions, be it how it visually represents itself, what it says, how it says it, or what they do.

75% of buying experiences are based on emotion, so it’s important that people at least like your brand to be in with a chance of being successful. 

It starts at curiosity. Getting an interest that engages people to want to know more about what the brand is doing. There are many ways to get people curious about a brand to intrigue them to want to learn more about them and ultimately lead to a sale. This could be someone liking how your social media profile looks, hearing about something you did or something you made or any number of things.

People can also feel a sense of pride to be associated with a brand. Often because the brand shares the same values of what they do. Charity work can often fall into this category, if a brand does a lot of work for a certain charity that you also support you may admire what they are doing and the cause they are supporting and want to buy into it to almost be a part of it.

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Many good brands empower people. Everyone has goals, a good brand can latch onto your pre-existing goals and make you feel as though they can help you achieve them giving you confidence and self-assurance as a result of buying. Nike does this really well encouraging people to ‘Just do it’ when it comes to sports or fitness related goals.

A good brand should also be relevant to its audience. It should speak to its audience and play a meaningful role in their lives. A brand can talk to its audience like a friend and offer products or services based on what they are already doing. 

Leading on from relevance customers should be able to identify with a brand. A good brand will share its customer’s values and often their personality, their goals, and who they want to be. Think of your choosing a brand like choosing a friend, maybe they dress similar to your style (brand identity) maybe they speak using the same register, vocabulary, and slag (brand voice) they support the same issues or teams as you (brand values). 

People like to have a sense of belonging and feel as though their personalities align with brands they are interacting with. An important thing to remember is that, much like a friend, just because one person loves it not everyone will, different things will appeal to different people but its always better to have a few ‘true fans’ who love what you do than many people who feel neutral about your brand.