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Written by
Scott Bair
In 2022, a graphic designer from Delaware secured a $700 million valuation for his three-year-old startup. The product? Water.
Liquid Death has raised hundreds of millions in venture capital since debuting in 2019, but those investors aren’t buying in because CEO Mike Cessario has better water than everyone else.
They want a piece of his brand.
They want a piece of the lifestyle that Liquid Death represents. The heavy metal clothing and punk rock attitude. They want to capitalize on what people think and feel about the product and company.
The reason Cessario is successful in investor pitches? Strategic branding.
But branding is often misunderstood. So, let’s jump into a crash course in strategic branding so you can apply winning principles to build a wildly successful company.
This might break a lot of design influencer’s hearts:
Branding is not your logo.
Sorry, someone had to say it.
Branding isn’t what your product looks like. It’s the gut feeling a customer gets when they see it, hear about it, or interact with it. It’s influenced by thousands of touchpoints over time, and it’s more than just the advertising you show them.
Think about Yeti coolers. Why can they charge six times as much as their competitors? It’s just a cooler, right?
Nope. It’s a lifestyle. It’s a quiet lake at the cabin. It’s the back of a work truck after a long day of roofing in the hot sun. It’s “a Yeti 110 iced down with some silver bullets.”
Ever heard them actually use those words? Probably not. But that’s how they made you feel about their product through every interaction, from navigating the website to unboxing a new beer koozie.
Branding is the essence of a business. But how do you create one? Start at step one.
Before you can decide how your brand looks, you need to decide who you are. Cessario thought up Liquid Death when he was watching kids drink water out of energy drink cans at a music festival. That image was the whole brand. He just needed to figure out how to market it.
When you’re trying to define a brand, ask yourself (and your team) these questions:
In fact, it’s more than just asking yourself these questions. You need to be able to answer them in an instant. You shouldn’t need to consider anything or wonder how your response will sound. Specific details are key.
Does your brand sound more like Siri or Joe Rogan? What kind of music plays when your brand walks into a room? Does your brand get straight-As or skip class?
Once you know who you are, you will learn how to talk to your customers. You’ll be able to write your brand story.
This is the question you need to answer for your customer. A million different ways, over and over, until you die (or exit).
Why are you the best choice to help me?
To be able to answer that, you need to know what the context is for their problem and which kind of solution will be most valuable.
Do they need the cheapest option? The most convenient? Impressive? Fun?
Here’s the secret:
Position the problem (aka the pain point) as the enemy to be conquered. The dragon to slay.
For example, if your customer wants to lose weight, being out of shape (and everything that goes with it) is the enemy. But here’s where most people get it wrong. If your customer’s problem is the enemy, then your customer—not your brand—is the hero.
Say it again for the ones in the back: The customer is the hero of every story.
Your brand is the supporting character, whose mission is to help the customer slay the dragon. You’re the one that makes them feel seen and supported. You’re the old man who gives Link a sword. Han Solo, not Luke Skywalker.
Every piece of brand messaging is from this point of view. It’s supposed to make the customer say “Wow, you know me. You care about me.” When a customer feels like the protagonist, the story resonates.
Is Tesla fixing climate change? No, you are fixing climate change by buying a Tesla. They are selling a vision of the future with you in the middle of it.
Is Nike winning the championship? No, you are scoring the touchdown in a pair of Nikes. They are selling perseverance, ambition, and excellence.
A strong brand evokes emotion, fosters loyalty, and—guess what? Commands a premium price. Take a look at this chart:
Which of these brands would you trust the most, based only on price? Probably the highest one, right? That’s step three.
Again, just the feeling someone has when they see your prices will influence how they'll interact with every part of your company.
Positioning is how the market perceives you in relation to your competitors. Sometimes it’s best to position yourself as a premium brand with premium prices. Sometimes a an “everyman” brand can work just as well.
But the number one way to win in business? Be the only option.
You can be the only one who does it, or the only one who does it a certain way. If you’re the only option, it makes the customer’s choice easy. Everyone bottles water? Let’s try it in cans.
This is the part everyone gets excited about. Once you have a strategy, story and position, it’s time to make it look good. You’re ready to come up with an awesome name, design your logo, and pick some fonts and colors that speak your language.
Here’s a simple trick to see if your company name works. We call it the Loud Party Test.
When you meet someone at a party and say “I’m the founder of _____ and we _____,” can they understand you? Do they know how to spell your name just by hearing it?
You don’t want to have to say “Oh yeah, that’s with a Q.”
That second blank is just as important. Can you describe what you do in one sentence? They should need to ask 10 follow-ups.
Let’s look at some other tips:
For the love of God, make sure you don’t pick an annoying name. Say it out loud. Say it to people you trust. Say it again and again.
Once you’ve settled on your top five choices, follow these steps:
If it fails any of those checks, it might not be worth the fight.
Okay, we already told you that branding isn’t your logo. And we stand behind that. But still, your logo is pretty darn important.
It identifies your business, but it doesn’t need to represent every single aspect of your company. It’s better to keep it simple.
What do you notice about the two sets of logos below?
The logos on the left are too busy to be descriptive. They don’t scale up and down well.
The logos on the right are clean, with one or two colors, and easy to read. They have some visual icon that can be communicated at a small scale while still looking good on a billboard.
When you’re picking fonts, aim for simple and legible. Our two suggestions are Inter or Tenor, which you can acquire from Adobe or Google.
It might sound crazy, but start with just one color and use shades of it. Branch out once you’ve started to define a unique style. If you enlist a branding team to help, be sure to ask them for a style guide that outlines all of the fonts, colors, and tones that they used for your visual identity.
Slate’s Decoder Ring podcast released an episode called “Why Do So Many Coffee Shops Look the Same?” (Spoiler alert, it’s largely because of the algorithmic nature of online content.)
But it’s also because our brain values consistency. More than 80% of consumers will choose a brand they recognize over an unfamiliar one. A consistent brand experience builds trust and comfort, which then impact revenue.
Guess what? We have another gift for you. This is a checklist you can use to see how consistent your branding is.
The old iMacs from 1998 will always have a special place in my heart. But we all have to grow up sometime.
Your vision for the future and your mission need to evolve alongside culture and technology. Microsoft’s mission was to put a computer on every desk. Well, they accomplished that one, so what’s next?
Now their mission statement reads:
“Empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more.”
The essence of your brand should never change. The core purpose and values that have guided you from day one. The “why.” But the “how” and “when” should be constantly reevaluated.
Sometimes you will even need to pull off a rebrand. It can be a strategic move that generates a huge boost in revenue and brand recognition.
After Airbnb’s strategic shift in 2014 to focus on “Belonging Anywhere,” their valuation skyrocketed to $31 billion by 2017. Rebranding is a delicate dance between preserving the soul of your company while evolving its techniques.
Here’s the last little bit of advice. If you’re going to rebrand, warm up the audience a little bit. If your favorite restaurant was going vegan overnight, wouldn’t you feel a little better (maybe even excited) if you got an email ahead of time?
Revealing your rebrand plans can build buzz and create a two-way conversation with your customers to get a gut check on your new idea. It might even save you from disaster.
Well, there you have it. You’re ready to develop your very own brand.
If you need outside help for more than a few logo files and a style guide, find a branding studio that will lay the foundation with you. They can help you develop your story, your essence, and your—brand strategy!
