Why Strategy is the Secret to a Brand That Looks as Good as it Feels

To design a brand that looks just as good as it feels, there’s one simple answer, and that is strategy. A great number of brands have fallen victim to this mistake – jumping straight into the design of their brand, the logo, colours, textures, icons, and all of the other creative, fun stuff that comes with brand design.

The problem with this approach is that when you have finalised your brand’s design, it falls flat and you have no idea why. The reason is that there was no strategy behind the design. Instead of leading on instinct, feelings and assumptions, you’ll find it far easier to come up with the look of your brand when it is backed by research, data and facts.

By leading with strategy, you can create a brand that truly resonates with your audience. In this blog, we will explain why strategy is the key to creating a brand that delivers visual appeal and encourages emotional connection. Following this, we’ll walk you through the same strategic process Coral uses to create unforgettable brands that are as visually striking as they are resonant. 

The Indispensable Role of Strategy in Branding

It’s easy to forget about strategy when discussing branding. At the mere mention of the word “brand” our minds think of the most well-known logos, the red and yellow of McDonald’s, the swooshing tick of Nike, or the slick, minimalist packaging of Apple.

Strategy is invisible, but it’s something all of the most successful brands have in common. From large-scale enterprises to small businesses that seem to have the secret blueprint to success. It all leads back to strategy. A brand can be the best-looking on the planet but if there’s no emotional connection from brand to audience, it will fail.

That’s not to say that design isn’t important – it absolutely is. And strategy is how you align how your brand looks with how it feels. Every decision you make in the design phase of your brand creation should come from a deeper understanding of what your brand is and what it can be for your target audience. So it’s because of this that the creation of your brand happens long before the design phase. 

A Strategy-First Branding Process

At Coral, we utilise a strategy-first process for all of our branding projects. Consider the mission – to create a brand that resonates with customers. This means we have to understand a decent collection of factors before we approach our sketchpads. We substitute that sketchpad for a notepad and follow a strategic process that ensures a brand identity that is crafted with intention and purpose, allowing it to flourish as a true reflection of its deeper meaning.

Follow this process:

1. Brand Workshops: Define What Your Brand Is and Needs to Be

To create a visually appealing brand that also achieves an emotional connection with customers, we must understand the core identity of the brand. Through workshops, teams can work collaboratively to uncover the essential truths of the brand, to enable them to create a framework that guides every branding decision that follows. Answer such questions as how your brand exists in the minds of consumers, what emotions should it evoke, and how it is different.

2. Consumer Research: Data-Driven Branding

There’s no denying the connection and understanding you have of your own brand, but feelings, instincts, impulses and assumptions can only get you so far, and what if you’re wrong? By engaging in consumer research, you adopt a data-driven approach over an instinct-driven one. This is a golden opportunity to understand your brand on a new level, identify real pain points, hear the true desires of your customers, and learn what expectations you face. 

3. Market Segments: Find the Right People in the Right Way

By identifying and defining your key market segments, you’re setting yourself up for a smooth delivery of your brand to the intended audiences. Through the analysis of demographics, behaviours, and needs, you will be able to create a brand that resonates with all key segments of the market, enabling you to connect with all types of customers when they need you most. 

4. Brand Positioning: Your Entry Point

The last stage of this strategic process is to consider your brand positioning – how you fit in and stand out in an ever-crowding marketplace. This is your chance to take all that you know about your brand and what your audience desires, merging them together to find the correct positioning for your brand. Think about how you’re going to be there for your audience, whether that’s through customer experience, innovation, or something else. 

Design Comes Last and Follows Suit

We now understand that without a strategy, design is just something pretty, a new shiny thing to attract attention but will eventually fade out of memory. If you were to start here, at the design phase, look at all that would have been missed – the workshops, consumer research, market segments, and positioning.

By putting in all of this groundwork and laying this foundation, you are armed with all that you need to create a strong, unwavering visual identity that is sure to succeed because now, you have the answers to all of the questions you can think of.

“What should my logo be?” You know the true meaning behind your brand, start there. You know what your audience expects and their perception, which will help you choose the right logo.

“What colours should we use?” You understand the core values of your business and the demographics you’re hoping to reach, find a palette to reflect all of this.

“What style of imagery could we try?” You know who your target audience is and what they look like, you also know what they expect and what they can relate to. Use imagery that matches this.

You see, now that you’ve arrived at this stage, everything is aligned. Your strategy provides a clear route ahead as you get to the exciting tasks of logo creation, colour schemes, photography, and even non-design elements, such as tone of voice, and messaging – all the pieces are there, ready to be carefully put together.  

A Brand That Gets It Right: Path Retreats by Coral Digital

Path Retreats is the perfect example of this methodology being used to create a brand that connects with its audience on a deeper, emotional level. As a business that provides global self-development and wellness retreats to its customers, it needed the support of a strong brand to translate all that was on offer, why they do what they do, and who for.

Looking at this brand, you can see its beauty – the colours and imagery that are just right. We didn’t come up with this visual style off the top of our heads. By leading with strategy, we put in the hard work weeks before any design work took place. Through collaborative workshops and by engaging in deep research, we knew we were giving ourselves the best chance possible to create an impactful visual identity that was spot-on.  

For example, to aid us in understanding existing brand perceptions, research was conducted on 400 customers, staff members, and volunteers. By using qualitative and quantitative methods, we were able to gather unique insights into this brand and highlight market segments, which, later on, helped to inform our design assets.

To convey the real impact strategy has on a brand’s design, look at what we finalised for Path Retreats’ positioning.

Now, let’s talk about how the above helped to shape Path Retreat’s visual style.

Awakens Human Potential – This trait is reflected in the brand’s design, specifically within its imagery, where we utilised large-scale, high-quality images. Often, these are of other people, human beings, looking face-on with arresting eye contact – it’s active, not passive.

Safe and Supportive – This message is best portrayed by our use of colours. We moved away from the industry norm of whites, blues and oranges (which Path Retreats also used before), and instead opted for softer pinks, forest greens, and navy blues. All colours convey a very protective, gentle and spiritual feeling.

The fact is, with strategy out of the equation, the new Path Retreats brand would likely have looked totally different, and be nowhere near as impactful and appropriate. 

Closing Thoughts

Creating a brand is an exciting project, whether it’s your own or someone else’s. What matters most is that you are not leapfrogging to the fun, creative parts, but leading with a defined, clear strategy. For creatives, the workshops and research methods should not make you feel restrained but empowered to create a brand that looks as good as it feels.

Coral Digital has helped to develop many brands. Whether it has been creating a brand from scratch or rebranding an existing brand, we have always led our projects with a strategy in place. This way, we help to create brands that instantly connect with the intended audience – through emotional feeling and visual design. Reach out to our team and tell us all about your vision for your brand.