Having a great brand is a highly important way to make your business into a success and to ensure that any small modicum of success is magnified into a kind of global success story. By using printing presses as well as corporate gifts, and by utilizing your brand as a key part of your corporate strategy (by integrating it into everything from your site design to your shop layout to your products’ colors) it is possible to ensure that your business is far more than just the sum of its parts.
Virgin
Virgin is the king of branding in many ways. Created by the one and only Richard Branson (which apparently does come from ‘Brand’ originally), this is a business strategy built entirely around a brand. The company started life selling records in magazines, which was an easy and very simple start-up. The records were purchased directly from the producers themselves, meaning that the customers got them still in their cellophane wrapping which was then unusual (hence ‘Virgin’) while the costs were kept low because there were no stores or staff.
From there Branson went on to start producing his own music, starting with the one and only Mike Oldfield and then moving onto other unusual and exciting artists. This way he managed to create a very hip and popular brand that people associated with modernity and quality. That would prove to be Richard’s biggest asset, and it’s that which allowed him to enter countless other industries and b successful – from travel and transport to banking and broadband. Because the brand was well known, he could launch any new business and garner attention from the press and the industry experts, and the customers would recognize and be attracted to these new businesses too if they’d enjoyed other Virgin services.
At the same time this multi-pronged approached gave Virgin financial support in launching new businesses, but also ensured that their eggs were well spread meaning that no one failure would bring down the entire business. In many ways this is a fool-proof business strategy, and it’s more than stood the test of time.
Apple
You can’t really talk about brand these days without talking about Apple. Apple for a while had disappeared off the grid, but with the return of Steve Jobs and the birth of the iPod they managed to secure themselves a corner of the market that would provide an ideal starting point. The desirability of the iPod came not only from its function – as there were many alternative MP3 players around that had arguably better functionality. What made this so desirable then was the fact that it was white, that it had curved edges and that it had those exciting headphones. The branding and design of this item was genius and that ensured that people were willing to pay a premium device.
And for that reason the iPhone was a sure hit. Taking the same ‘I’ prefix and a similar design, the iPhone was a technical marvel when it was released yes, but it also benefited hugely from the clever marketing of the iPod and the associations created. And with the success of the iPhone, Apple once again became ‘cool’ and by using iTunes to create a closed system they were able to real customers into their other products and share the popularity across all of them. Suddenly MacBooks and Apple Mac computers were popular again, and the iPad has since created a whole new industry of its own.
Would any of this have been possible, in either case, without genius branding? The short answer is no – so make sure you know your brand and that you stamp it on everything you do.
Jordan Siron is a brand promoter for smartpress and has been using various strategies to promote his brand online.
Featured image courtesy of Urban Woodswalker
