Introduction
You know you have a good product in hand, but has your target audience seen it? And even if they have, do they appreciate it? Do they have enough confidence in your product to invest their hard-earned money into it? If not, perhaps you need to focus on your brand-building activity. After all, a good product needs good branding.
However, building a brand is not a simple task, and it is not easily accomplished either. It requires a tremendous amount of planning and consistent work. The two key areas where companies need to work the most are designing and marketing. Design creates the visual identity of the brand while marketing establishes its messaging and strategies to reach the customer. However, the two cannot work individually. It is of vital importance that they work in collaboration to create a consistent and trustworthy brand identity. Customers should easily recognise the brand, wherever they might see it and trust it enough to make a purchase.
In this blog, we will discuss the individual roles of both design and marketing in brand building. Moving forward, we will highlight the key areas where they collaborate, including rebranding. Ultimately, we will elaborate on how a specialised marketing and design company, like DN Designs, can help create an unforgettable brand. In the end, you can read detailed information about our branding work for two of our clients to get a better understanding of the work we do.
Before you go, do check out our FAQs. We have answered some of the most common questions related to designing and marketing, as well as their relevance in branding.
The Role of Design in Brand Building
First visuals are important.
When you look at anything, be it an object or a person, you instantly feel something. This feeling may be of like or dislike, or perhaps, an emotional connection or disinterest. How you perceive things or people at first glance sets the tone for future interactions.
The same is true for brands. The first impression – the visual appearance of the product – matters, and design is what creates it.
If product design is visually captivating, it will attract and engage customers. If not, brands stand to loose customers, even before they have started. Visual appearance is what customers remember for a long time, even after their interaction is over. It is how they recognise and connect with the brand. Lastly, visuals create a sense of trust in customers. This sense of awareness, trust and connection plays a major role in driving the eventual sale of the product.
When we talk about visual appearance, we don’t just mean one thing. Instead, we mean every single design that together completes a brand. This includes your
- Brand Logo
- Packaging Design
- Website
- App Interface
- Landing Page
- Social Media Creatives
Diving deeper into designing reveals elements that are crucial in building an overall brand identity. These are
- Colour Palette
- Typography
- Images
The Role of Marketing in Brand Building
While design forms the visual identity of a brand, marketing helps convey its story, values and messaging to the target audience. Marketing also helps promote the brand in different ways so as to build awareness and drive engagement. This ultimately leads to sales, conversion and loyalty. Marketing includes
- Content creation
- SEO
- Paid Ad campaigns
- Content Marketing
- Social Media Marketing
- E-Mail Marketing
- Influencer Marketing
- Video Marketing
Where Design and Marketing Meet - Key Areas of Collaboration
Designing and marketing function in association to build a brand. The key areas where they collaborate are:
- Creating Brand Identity
When developing a brand identity, design takes care of the visual aspects, including the logo, the packaging design, and the website/app UI design. Marketing, on the other hand, decides the target audience and clarifies its messaging and positioning in the market.
- Crafting Digital Experience
Websites, apps and landing pages are important to establish the online presence of a brand. Designing makes sure that these are beautiful, convey the brand identity, engage visitors and help them convert without problems. Marketing, on the other hand, works to bring traffic and conversions to these platforms. It also helps track and understand user behaviour and any changes in it.
- Content & Campaign Creation
Content is significant in building brands, and marketers ensure that the content strategy, call-to-action and social media strategy are on point. Designers, on their part, create the visuals to accompany and enhance the content. These include website content, social media posts, and landing pages.
Rebranding
It is not always the new products that benefit from brand design and marketing. Established products may sometimes need to rework their brand – either partially or completely. This rebranding can breathe a new lease of life into products. Rebranding could include:
- Making strategic changes like brand name change, target audience change, adopting new brand positioning and creating a new product packaging.
- Refining and updating the brand’s story, messaging and voice.
- Enhancing the overall visual identity – logos, colours, typography and images.
- Redesigning and redeveloping the website.
- Updating marketing collaterals as per the new brand identity.
Design and marketing once again have to collaborate to carry out the rebranding activities of a company.
How a Marketing and Design Company Can Help Build a Lasting Brand
Several big and small companies have their own in-house designing and marketing teams that, together, manage the entire branding work. However, there are several companies – from start-ups to big brands – that do not have specialised design and marketing teams for the purpose. Sometimes, due to their workload, they do not have the required time to devote to marketing and design endeavours. Also, sometimes they may decide to work with branding experts for better results.
In these scenarios, companies seek the services of a specialised marketing and design company. These branding and advertising agencies have a comprehensive skill set in both their design (graphic design, UI/UX design, illustrations) and marketing (strategy planning, product marketing and digital marketing) teams. The two teams work in collaboration to understand the vision and goal of a company and thereafter, create a lasting brand that resonates with customers and enhances ROI.
At DN Designs, a specialised design and marketing agency, we excel in creating successful brands that connect with customers and yield a return on investment. Our range of services includes:
- Brand strategy design
- Brand identity creation
- Packaging design
- Logo design
- UI/UX design
- Website development
- SEO
- Social Media Marketing
- Search Engine Marketing
- Influencer Marketing
- Other Digital Marketing services
- Photography
- Animation
In short, we offer a comprehensive set of services that can uplift any product/company from a merely simple name to a brand that customers trust and purchase from. You can call us at +91 9416011100 or drop us an email at info@dndesigns.co.in for the services.
Let’s Introduce You To Some of Our Brand Design & Marketing Work
We understand that listing our services may not be convincing enough. You might need something concrete to trust us. So, here in this section, we will elaborate on two of the brands we have extensively worked for. While the former was a fresh new brand aspiring to build its identity and presence in the market, the latter already had products in the market and sought to rebrand itself for better performance.
Nature’s Balance
3Nature’s Balance aimed to establish itself as a high-end cafe offering fresh, healthy, and tasty food and beverage options. Based in Noida, it aspired to attract premium customers from Delhi/NCR who prioritised fresh and healthy food. Once our design and marketing teams understood the goals, they seamlessly worked together to bring the vision to life.
We began by creating their brand identity design, including their logo and label design. We created label designs for 4 categories of their juices and shakes, comprising a total of over 30 products. These four categories include
- Zen Presse
- The Pure Medley
- Happy Presse
- Refreshify
We ensured that the core values of the brand – freshness and health – were amply reflected in all these label designs. Take a look at the packaging design we created for them.
To keep the brand identity consistent across platforms, we created brand guidelines for them which established the rules regarding fonts, colours, images, messaging, voice, tone and other design and marketing elements.
To boost their brand awareness and identity, we provided them with the environmental design service for their cafe. In this, we incorporated their brand identity and messaging at strategic points in their cafe to attract customers’ attention and enhance their entire experience. The aim was to evoke a feeling of enjoying clean, fresh food in a clean, fresh environment.
For the cafe again, we designed 3 categories of their menu as well.
- Restaurant Menu
- Hoarding Menu
- Standee Menu
Moving forward with our efforts, we carried out a photoshoot of their restaurant and their food for use on various platforms. including their own website, social media channels and food delivery apps like Zomato.
To market the brand further, we created a 3D animation video introducing its signature products – organic juice range and fresh salads. We ensured every frame of the video highlights the core values of the brand – healthy, natural and fresh food, minus any preservatives and chemicals. Watch the 3D animation video we created for them.
Digital marketing is an important aspect of brand building. With this in mind, we established their social media presence and ran ad campaigns to boost their brand visibility through both organic and paid means.
Thames Food
NECTARPURE
NECTARPURE
NECTARPURE, providing Whey protein and wellness products, wanted to establish itself as a premium lifestyle brand in the protein market. As a brand marketing agency, we created their identity, label design and 3D Ad to give a premium feel. In addition, we also designed and developed their UI/UX and complete website.
Thames Food is in the business of providing healthy and tasty snacking options to its customers. They already had their products in the market; however, they aspired to strengthen their brand presence and boost sales. Our creative designers and marketers discussed their brand vision and created a rebranding strategy to reach out to a wider customer base. We, then, got down to the actual work and redesigned the packaging of more than 70 of their SKUs. These included their
- Protein Bars
- Dry Fruit Range
- Dried Berries Range
- Trail Mixes
- Seeds (Sunflower seeds, Sesame seeds)
- Oats Range
- Muesli Range
In addition, we designed their UI/UX and developed an e-commerce website to boost their online presence and sales. Together with their website, we also designed and developed the website for their parent company, LD Foods. Catalogue design was another service that we carried out for both Thames Foods and LD Foods (targeting the B2B market for the latter).
Moving forward with our design and marketing services for Thames, we designed their POSMs (Point of Sale Materials) for better marketing. These included their product display boxes, tabletop display units, danglers, coasters and stickers. These were designed specifically keeping in mind the Gujarat and Mumbai markets.
To boost their brand promotion activity during the key festive season, we designed their kappa boxes as well as their carry bags too. These were meant for Diwali gifting purposes.
All these, meant to enhance their visual appearance, establish brand identity and support marketing endeavours, proved extremely beneficial for Thames Foods.
Conclusion
Creative designing and strategic marketing are both crucial building blocks of a successful brand. While design decides the visual appearance of the brand, marketing takes the brand to the target customers. Both designing and marketing must work together from the very beginning to achieve the business goals. If, as a business, you need assistance from an advertising company in building your brand, you can contact us at DN Designs. A specialised marketing and design company, we have both marketing and design experts who can work in collaboration to promote your brand.
FAQs
What is the effect on business if the design and marketing do not work together?
When marketing and design work on their own without a shared vision and goal, the result is often an inconsistent and poor brand identity, confusion & lack of customer trust and failed marketing campaigns. The end result is a decline in sales and profit.
What do you mean by brand consistency and why is it important?
Brand consistency means that a brand’s visual identity and messaging stay the same everywhere, be it packaging design, website, app or social media. Customers can easily recognise a consistent brand, even from a distance. This consistency creates a feeling of trust and loyalty in customers and eventually encourages them to make a purchase. The marketing and design team of a company must work in collaboration for this consistency to be achieved.
What are brand guidelines and how do they help in designing and marketing work?
As the name suggests, these are guidelines that elaborate on how a brand should be represented in the market. These guidelines ensure that the brand has a consistent identity all over, be it its visual appearance or messaging. Visual appearance can include guidelines regarding logo usage, colour palette, typography and image style. The guidelines also specify the core attributes, values, vision, mission and brand positioning as well as the brand tone and voice.
Are designing and marketing agencies different? What does DN Designs provide?
Some agencies simply offer design services for brand building, while others focus solely on the marketing aspects. However, some companies offer both design and marketing (mostly online marketing) services for complete brand-building. DN Designs falls into the latter category and offers both design and online marketing services. So if you wish to build a brand, you can contact us at DN Designs.