If only branding today worked as simply as it did in the past. If only you could just take a hot branding iron and sear your name and messaging into the leathery hides of your customers … problem solved. 
But today you’re looking at tons of online and offline branding options that cover advertising, internal and external communication, packaging ... the whole package.
All those options, of course, translate into tons of potential marketing gaffes and misfires. Because your brand represents a promise to your customers, it needs constant oversight and even revision to ensure that you’re getting the point across correctly and memorably.
What branding mistakes should you avoid at all costs?
Not Having a Brand
Is it really possible to have a business with no brand? Well, yes – if all your efforts are focused on making sales and not creating a true identity for your company. James Heaton of the Tronvig Group gives us the existential overview: “Branding is the expression of the essential truth or value of an organization, product, or service. It is communication of characteristics, values, and attributes that clarify what this particular brand is and is not.”
Inbound marketing is today’s best expression of branding – it’s all about establishing credibility and building trust via high-value content that dispenses with the hard sell and actually gives customers information they can use.
Choosing a Bad Name or Positioning
Would you trust your child to a caregiver named Larry Kidkill? The way you name and describe your company can entrance or confound, depending on your target audience. Gourmets may not blink at a restaurant branded by a tongue-twisting foreign word, but take mercy on the everyday consumer who might be embarrassed to admit he cannot pronounce your company’s name.
And speaking of foreign, remember that anything you put out there can now be seen by a worldwide audience. So do your homework before touching on cultural and historic references in your branding. Take a lesson from Volkswagen, whose “Das Auto” campaign was meant to celebrate its German roots, but which bombed big-time in Brazil.
Slavish Devotion to Your Logo
Yes, it’s true that a good logo is a powerful branding tool. It’s your visual ID – after all, where would Nike be without the swoosh? But just as you might be reluctant to toss that beloved, beat-up pair of shoes because they’re so gosh-darn familiar and comfortable, you may not recognize that your logo is due for an upgrade. More than 20 of some of the biggest names in business changed their logos in 2013 alone. Should you?
Take an objective look at your logo and ask yourself: Is it web friendly? A dense, complicated logo, shrunk down to smartphone size, can look more like a confusing blotch than a symbol of your excellence. Does it look dated? Even fonts age and die, so if your branding is a crotchety old Helvetica nightmare (or worse, cast in the reviled Comic Sans), you might benefit from a refresh. Is your company expanding or changing? Starbucks stores evolved from a simple coffee bar to your all-purpose food/drink/WiFi-using hangout, so the company updated its logo to remove the limiting word “coffee.”
An Inconsistent Look and Feel
Of course, your brand doesn’t start and end with the logo. It is expressed in every encounter, from the signage on your building, to the tagline on your Twitter page, to your website layout and the greeting your customers get when they call in. There’s no place for mixed marketing messages – if your email doesn’t match your website visually, what’s to prevent people from concluding they went to the wrong place?
People have notoriously short attention spans. And in a marketplace where Dumb Starbucks can get as much press as real Starbucks, you’d better make sure your name gets out there correctly and consistently.
Giving the “Wrong Guy” Access to Your Social Sites
With all you have on your plate, do you really need to spend time on damage control? Companies often appoint a person or a company to post social media updates on their behalf. The right guys (or gals) at the helm engage customers and enhance your brand. The wrong guy? Well, we hear the tone-deaf Tweeter for the Gap is available … and so is the ad agency whose little f-bomb drove Chrysler to big public apologies.
