With the proliferation of media platforms to consider, the branding process is getting harder and ever more complex. We caught up with Dilys Maltby – co-founder of Circus – and explored how her firm works in the field of brand definition.
Before setting up Circus 15 years ago, Maltby was worldwide marketing director at the Body Shop – and has also had stints at Habitat, Terence Conran and Fitch.
Here are her four top tips to make sure your brand is the best is the very best it can be – in both its digital and analog forms.
"The thing that has really stayed constant for retailers is the need to really understand what they stand for, and what their competition is," Maltby says. "Initially it was hard enough to think about a physical space, but now we're talking about digital spaces as well."
The message is clear: focus on understanding yourself, your uniqueness and your proposition.
Maltby warns that it's tempting to think about digital and analog as two different spaces. "Those days are gone, " she asserts. "Clients are thinking in a much more cohesive and fluent way, and across all touchpoint.”
Rather than seeing this is a challenge, Maltby suggests its an opportunity. "You can get people from different agencies and different backgrounds working on the same brief," she says.
By using a multi-agency approach you can think about the customer journey through different touch-points and mind-states. And this can only be a good thing.
"There's only one way to work," Maltby says, "and that's collaboratively.”
Previously, she explains, brands used to belong to companies, and consumers were remote from both. Today, she asserts, consumers are part of a brand and part of its proposition.
"If the consumer and the client are being collaborative, agencies need to part of that world too," Maltby advises.
Collaboration, Maltby admits, isn't always to each to achieve – particularly between agencies. To work together successfully, she says, agencies must be generous. And to be generous, an agency must be confident.
"The work we have done with a range of clients... ones I can't really talk about... means working with a range of agencies and clients," she explains. "It involves creating a collaborative spirit inside and outside the client organisation. Design companies, I think, are good at that.”
If you've created some standout branding in the last 18 months, you're eligible to enter the 2015 Brand Impact Awards, which are designed to reward the best branding across over 20 different market sectors.
Projects are judged across two distinct streams: 'branding programmes' – which include completely new identity schemes or major rebrands – and 'branded campaigns', which cover any projects that are designed to extend or enhance an existing brand or sub-brand.
Beyond a stunning piece of design work, the judges will be looking for consistency of application across various touchpoints, and work will be judged according to the market sector for which it was designed.
The deadline for entries is 5:30pm 18th June. You can find out more about the Brand Impact Awards here, and enter your work today though the Brand Impact Awards website.
