Stories have always remained the primal force of existence. Just like a child remembers a good story and loses interest in a bad one, we adults too react in the same way. Not just as mediums of entertainment, but stories have the power to motivate, change, and help us understand a new view. The same principle applies when you are trying to establish a brand. Today, when consumers are going through an age of information overload, and flooded with choices, differentiating a good story from a poor one has only a small margin of difference. That’s the reason why successful brands have been able to get through the competition and make an emotional connection with the end user.

Stories, as in branding, help potential consumers to believe in your products and services and power socially conscious consumerism. For a company like Nike, the branding is centered on their tagline – “Just Do It”. All their campaigns are consequently centered on an emotion that fuels motivation, excitement, determination, persistence and courage. They have created a story, a branding, that has been able to strike an emotional chord. The same theory applies to the branding strategies of every successful product, brand and organization today. It’s the uniqueness that makes them different and they invest huge amounts of resources in reaching out to the audience.

Well, if you have a product, service or an organization that can do better with unique branding, here are some important branding ideas and cues to consider in 2017:

6 Excellent Branding Ideas & Tips to Consider in 2017:

1. Leveraging Social Media:

When you are trying to turn strangers into followers and them into customer, the best way to reach out today is social media. According to CNN and Global Web Index, an average user spends up to 9 hours every day on social media platforms and this correlates to 30% of their online activity. On top of this, social platforms like Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Twitter are constantly evolving features to attract and engage audiences. For brands, social media platforms can thus be the perfect platform to get the desired exposure. While the social landscape for branding is getting highly competitive, some brands have been able to come out with campaigns that have fuelled global popularity.

An amazing example of such social campaign in the recent past has been by Honey Bunch of Oats. Their ‘50 Million Smiles and Counting’ Campaign asked fans to share images, videos and quotes that had made someone smile and the winner to get a all-expenses paid trip. The user submitted content across Facebook and Instagram helped the company add 162,000 new fans and increase their web engagement by 721%!

In today’s era if customer’s have any query, complaint or suggestion to the brand than they use social media channels. A small tweet to the brand can also beneficial in terms of popularity and word of mouth. Check out below tweet which will break most retweet records anytime soon and because of it Wendys got huge popularity.

HELP ME PLEASE. A MAN NEEDS HIS NUGGS pic.twitter.com/4SrfHmEMo3

— Carter Wilkerson (@carterjwm) April 6, 2017

Other brands have run contests, DIY art ideas, real time videos, sponsorships and more to gain not just audience but boost their conversions exponentially.

2. Founder Represents The Brand Strongly”

In the die-hard competition of today, it’s not surprising to see CEOs of top companies taking an active part in the branding of their business. In several cases, they have been able to shape the brand perception in a way that wouldn’t have been possible with the regular branding strategies. Take the example of Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook. Zuckerberg has always been in the news for his innovations – investments in technology which in the recent past also includes a super computer that will communicate like Jarvis does with Iron Man! Fascinating! But that’s how Zuckerberg has been able to uphold the idea of Facebook’s innovation and move towards supremacy. Another top example from the tech industry is the founder of SpaceX, Elon Musk. He spent a fortune to come up with an electric car concept that no one believed would work. He talks about science fiction and dives into the theory of humanity. He, as a speaker has motivated many and at the same time fuelled the growth of his businesses.

3. Create Brand Videos And Infographic:

A company called Dollar Shave Club from California, USA was able to gain 12,000 followers in the first 48 hours of their video. In the first three months, the then startup was able to gain 330,000 customers and 5 million views! That’s the power of quality video content. Statistics prove that your audiences are 10 times more likely to engage if you have a powerful video to represent your product. It doesn’t have to be a movie! Even short 2-minute videos, with a compelling storyboard can propel your brand to fame and glory. Just make sure that your concept in easily understood and related by the target audience.

4. Creativity Everywhere:

The only way to stand out in this highly competitive work is being creative in what you do. From brand logo to product packaging to social campaign, you need to be different from your competitors. A good example for this would be the packaging design of Heinz Ketchup. A household product today, Heinz was the first company to introduce clear bottle packaging such that customers knew the authenticity of the product. But that initial stardom was to be short lived. There has been constant innovation in Heinz product packaging that still makes it a leader in its industry, ranging from the first squeezable ketchup bottle to 100% recyclable packaging. Heinz Ketchup very well knows the important of product packaging design for branding.

Even small festival banners can get viral if you have been able to put in real creativity into it.

5. Take Care Of Your Customers:

In the marketing world, “Customer is God” and brands need to stand up to their expectations. A brand that takes extra steps in maintaining its relationship with a customer is automatically a leader in the market. Oreo does it in a beautiful way. Its representatives don’t just take out time to reply to every customer tweet but also make the engagement playful and fun!

6. Keep It Unique And Original:

Lastly, success comes from the authenticity of your products and services. Authenticity earns loyalty, following and consequently the desired conversions. Today, 94% customers believe that transparency affects their buying decisions. Consequently, brands like McDonalds have been able to succeed with campaigns like “Our Food, Your Questions”.

It needs a lot of research and creative thinking to be unique. Today, when new brands don’t just have to fight for branding but mere recognition, going offbeat and surprising the audience is a good way to start. If you need more unique advertising and branding ideas for your business then Contact us here!