Brand identities remain timeless. But organizations keep on turning a blind eye to their importance. They shouldn’t.

One word bounces around a lot in boardroom meetings, interactions with buyers and vendors, and internal communications.

Brand.

The reverence the word holds is immense. And why wouldn’t it be? Brands are giving people a sense of belonging, appeasing our tribal nature in all the right ways.

That’s why every great leader speaks of their brand with reverence, love, and care. They have to! Because that’s what people are buying for— they are buying from the brand. The saturated marketing is full of similar products, and the only thing standing between the buyer and the vendor is the perception.

The brand image, so to speak of. And brand images are formed only through an identity deeply rooted in the organizational mission.

As time passes and our computing powers evolve to create content with autonomy, this brand identity will become crucial to survive. Without it, companies will find themselves adrift, competition racing ahead of them.

But what can organizations do about it?

There are many options, and the short one, the tl;dr, is to embrace your process, your mission.

That is your identity.

Your brand.

However, for those who want the long answer. There are two vital ones that we’ve been able to find.

Before diving into the meaty parts of the discussion— let’s reintroduce the concept.

The identity of a brand is what it does.

What is brand identity?

Generally, brand identity is the visual and contextual cues your brand represents. However, brand identity is not limited to such a definition— this is just one side of it. Brand identity, as a more inclusive definition, should mean:

1. The unique activities a brand performs are its identity
2. The experience they deliver to their users
3. The mission they embody
4. How well they embody that mission
5. The impact of the actions of the user
6. Perception of the user

Many think that brand image and brand identity are two distinct concepts; they are not. The perception of the audience— is brand image, which is an intrinsic part of the identity.

Brands are never disconnected from what they do.

Average brands fail at this.

There is a reason so many organizations lose face value with their customers— they lack this authenticity. They show something they are not, and their buyers quickly grasp this fact.

Their identity isn’t forged in their mission. Fortunately, the modern buyer is more aware than ever. And they are actively looking for markers that foster trust. Their brand interactions, especially during consideration, are done with a fine pick comb.

Any sign of distrust will thrust brands to the bottom of the barrel.

First in, last out.

Brand identity is forged in the heart of the organization.

The question is, what can you do about it? A lot of organizations usually peddle inauthenticity— they simply cannot walk their talk because, well, they aren’t doing what they are saying.

It’s disingenuous. However, brands with strong identities may fail, and an inauthentic brand may not. That is the truth.

Yet, brands that drive revenue through inauthentic means begin failing sooner or later. And if the buyers decide enough is enough, the business will run dry. That’s why so many organizations pivot. They have lost the battle with the buyer and need to save face.

Time and again, brands with a powerful identity and reputation manage to survive even the harshest of critics— it’s because they align with their goal and deliver on it, even if sometimes the process might be messy.

The question is: Can you replicate it?

Possibly not. The answer to this is easy. Every brand has to discover itself through an arduous and creative process.

While no one can walk your hand through crafting your brand identity, there are frameworks you can use. Here’s one:

1. Why was the organization founded, and what is the vision driving it?
2. What roles do your employees play in your organization?
3. What do you do to make sure the vision is realized?
4. Deeply understand what you’re offering the buyer.
5. Why are you offering it?
6. What’s your opinion on the industry you’re serving— essentially, what are the holes you have noticed?
7. What are you doing to fill these gaps?
8. How are you doing it?

Reflection of such kind will help you gain clarity. As Ciente has echoed many times, strategy is about performing unique activities. And these unique activities are the ones that give identity and meaning to your brand.

It gives a non-living thing the properties of personality and charm.

The two answers and the importance of brand identity.

There is a lot of data that answers why brand identities are so vital. But there are two pieces of literature that we must draw our attention to.

The first is HubSpot’s 2024 Sales Trends Report, and the other is Barry Schwartz’s Paradox of Choice.

While they may seem disconnected, they discuss consumption and the role of choice in these habits. The report outlines what B2B marketers have known for a while— 96% of B2B prospects do their own research before speaking to SDRs.

They advise that organizations form a consultant-consultee relationship with their prospects by educating and delighting their buyers. Essentially, brands will have to add value to buyers’ lives.

But will they trust any brand?

No. And that’s why brand identities are important.

They will trust the brand they feel familiar with and the one that has made them feel heard. Without this identity, organizations won’t be able to gain buyer mindshare.

HubSpot suggests adding more choice in the mix, giving power to the buyer— letting them self-buy and serve. However, a severe problem arises here: 60% of software buyers experience regret.

Why is that? It’s the paradox of choice— faced with many choices, people experience fatigue and enter analysis paralysis. And to escape from the discomfort, make choices that might not be aligned with the overall goal.

The paradox of choice outlines that facing an overwhelming number of options can lead to decision paralysis, increased effort, and dissatisfaction.

It’s a logical fallacy.

And here, in this messy fallacy, lies the ability of brands to survive by crafting an identity that helps buyers break away from this paralysis.

So, what can brands do here?

Their identity, the core, must speak to their intended buyer. But you may think that it might limit your impact. Not at all.

When you speak to one group of people or speak their language, you start creating value that is timeless. And people favor such timeless wisdom— they enjoy knowledge that helps them tackle multiple scenarios at once.

The importance of brand identity isn’t limited to knowledge. It’s also about reducing choice by giving people a sense of belonging and security.

In the always-on world, brand identity is a survival metric.

If you provide multiple options to the buyer, their fatigue will guide them towards a brand they know. However, some brands don’t get it.

They do everything yet forget to form an actual personality. Dull and uninspired messaging will not work. Look at AI and its replication quality and speed— nothing can match it.

But AI systems will not replace personality, charm, and voice— things that require originality.

Understand that your brand identity stands between you and the loss of your business. Explore Salestech.

It’s the driver of economic certainty.

With minimalistic branding becoming the trend of the hour, can understanding the narrative behind the design process help brands find their voice?

The traditional definition of graphic design focuses more on its practical functionalities, i.e., illustrating what needs to be communicated, only considering it as a practice of doing.

Today, the domain of graphic design inhibits much more than that.

It does not merely involve typography, illustration, printing, and photography, though these allude to its origin. However, there are nuances involved that highlight why it has become crucial for businesses worldwide for branding purposes.

It involves both – thinking (idea generation) and doing (action of illustrating). In graphic design, these two elements are combined to form a channel of communication and emotional expression for brands.

A channel that helps brands instill unique messages, and appeal to their targeted audience.

In simple words, there remains a huge misconception that collates graphic design and branding with visual content.

However, marketers who leverage graphic design and branding services understand how significant graphic designers are. They know that the process and the product hold similar weight in branding. Its significance is quite visible across the marketing landscape, where graphic design is the guiding framework of the overall branding process. 

It is an instrument of persuasion, instruction, and information while being an expression of a strong brand identity.

Graphic design is the instrument that instills a narrative into your brand.

Your brand cannot remain a hollow echo of products and services but instead something similar to a live strong identity. More than encompassing a corporate value, it should hold a narrative.

Just as different colors in nature add a specific pop to the world, graphic design contributes that flair to your branding projects. So, where does the connection between graphic design and branding begin?

Commercial imagery.

“They are eye-hungry. They pop”, said Andy Warhol on industrial painting, i.e., art consumed by the masses.

This form of imagery didn’t exhibit abstractness but the “literalness” in everything we use and perceive, like a Coca-Cola sticker we paste on our phone cases. Arguably, this is where the idea behind designing unique logos for brands stems from.

But that was the point. With commercialization and the rise of innovations that required a business to stand out, graphic design and branding took on a new meaning.

This new direction of graphic design and branding process was curating a channel of communication in the commercial arena that helped identify products meant to be bought and sold. And the form of illustration designed for identification was used in a unique way.

Repetition and uniformity became the two significant keys of commerce, graphic design and branding, as evident.

Source: Andy Warhol’s Campbell’s Soup Cans

So, this instituted a visual vocabulary of mass culture. This meant that specific visual identities represented certain commodities used broadly across the market.

This ideology of recognizable imagery is still borrowed from and ascribed to the realm where graphic design and branding intersect. For example, how the half-eaten apple of Apple is recognized by users and non-users everywhere – from MacBooks to t-shirts.

This can be connected to the brand logo, entailing replication and sensibly outlining the meaning behind the intangible idea.

Visualization of abstract concepts entails a profound creativity that corresponds to articulating an idea or communicating feelings by ascribing symbols to what is known.

Your brand’s message is an intangible concept, but you map it into reality through visual elements such as a logo, typography, color, mission statement, etc.

Logos are such channels or instruments of communication that should be provided more consideration.

It is short for logotype, combining the Greek words – logos (word or speech) and túpos (mark or imprint). The concept of a visual identity or making a logo by graphic designers is to give shape to an intangible concept and even to differentiate classes of objects from one another.

The principal reasons why this is necessary – differentiation and ownership.

Imagine there are four different businesses of jeans in the same building in front of each other.

In the modern market where competition is prevalent and persistent, there’s no escape. We know that one jeans seller has higher quality jeans than the other, while the other has lower prices.

We prefer and are loyal to one brand of jeans, so how do we differentiate it from the others?

Yes, word-of-mouth marketing can go a long way and exist before technological tools. What if we combine this with a form of visual identity?

This was also the idea behind Levi being previously known as the “Two Horse Brand” until 1928. The reason for taking on the two horses for their logo demarcated their product’s durability. This was the narrative behind the logo – it entailed a meaning that could make its brand stand out in the market and increase its share.

In simple terms – “thinking about images means being led into certain thoughts by images.”

So, they tapped into the primary step that can boost their brand recognition – the logo. And this was quite successful. For years, consumers attributed Levi Strauss & Co. as the “pants with two horses”.

How else could consumers understand the durability of their product?

Levi Strauss & Co. themselves offer an explanation. Their need to put two horses was to communicate in a language that all their consumers would grasp. There was a cultural barrier, and very few people were actually educated, but through visuals – the emotions one could grasp would remain the same.

If not, everyone could easily describe which brand of jeans they wanted they could always say “the one with two horses”. And this makes a lot of difference in elevating brand awareness. This means a brand is unique, distinct, and successful enough to be recognized through its logo rather than its name.

See, how much significance does a brand logo entail in entering a new market?

Not only did they hope to communicate what their brand is known for – durable denim – but they also understand their audience. So, those “pants with horses” did not merely become their logo but also their persona: a strong identity for their brand.

But this has undergone a transformation since.

With Levi’s growing popularity across the entire world, this logo was deemed unnecessary. To keep up with the changing market dynamics, minimalism has taken root.

While brand identity is significantly crucial to narrating the product that your business offers, graphic designing and logos keep pace with the changing rules of aestheticism. And the trendiness of how people perceive color schemes, typography, layouts, and the overall brand design.

A design does not comprise colors and lines, but it contains hidden meanings and an effective use of space.

As soon as Levi started to take off, minimalism impacted its old logo. Once the brand is built, recognition comprises a singularity, as we have noticed in several huge brands.

The ‘F’ for Facebook’s app, the bird for Twitter, the half-eaten apple for Apple, and the list goes on.

Brands have incorporated minimalism in their designs and layout.

This is also relevant for the B2B landscape.

Simulation has become an escape. Any aesthetic that catches our attention occupies less space and a convenience that affords comfort to our naked eyes.

Taken as a mode to demonstrate elegance and clarity, minimalism holds a bright future.

The use of pastel colors, alignment, negative space, and bold typography is the essence of minimalism today. With immense competition across the market between businesses that sell similar products, graphic design and branding processes can change everything.

Like the Pop Art movement, we might say that minimalism opposed abstract expressionism. This form of art did not ask its viewers to instill meaning into the work or extract metaphors. But instead, assess the space and body around the art piece.

It is paramount to understand why minimalism was established to further outline why it is much preferred in the designs and advertisements that we have today.

Frank Stella, a minimalist artist, said, “What you see is what you see.” And what they popularly meant is less is more, even from a design perspective.

But in graphic design and branding, a diagram might possess something more. It doesn’t merely start with a logo or end there. Either way, it constitutes a value. The brand’s value is communicated through this.

And the very exercise of expressing oneself or recording a message began with visual art.

Surely, tech advancements have transformed our way of expression or communicating but the underlying elements remain loyal to the traditional forms of storytelling – the crux of visual art. It’s the significance of art encompassing a narrative. In graphic design and branding, logos, color palettes, typography, and use of space – the elements that construe modern design – entail a narrative.

And in branding, the entire vision and statement that the brand is built on holds meaning.

A brand doesn’t exist in a vacuum.

With the figures etched onto the walls, doors, collaterals, business merch, etc., how does this not contain any similarities to cave paintings?

Yes, the art of storytelling is not limited to stick figures, monochromatic colors, or just filling in random colors. But, at the core of marketing, creativity aligning with the business objectives is in the driver’s seat. The businesses and the audiences, in a dynamic and constantly spiraling market, demand much more.

So, the combination of graphic design and branding changes how we utilize and engage with visuals, according to how they take root in a highly commercial and mechanical world.

However, design is not merely art. It enrolls a meticulous use of colors, space, lines, font, and alignment for successful branding.

For example, the use of red and yellow in the McDonald’s logo is not random. It holds psychological significance, according to Karen Haller, a UK psychologist expert in color and design psychology, i.e., to trigger hunger:

“Looking at the positive psychological qualities of red and yellow concerning the fast-food industry, red triggers stimulation, appetite, and hunger, it attracts attention. Yellow triggers the feelings of happiness and friendliness,” Haller said. “When you combine red and yellow, it’s about speed, quickness. In, eat, and out again.”

A simple Google search tells us that red and yellow are common colors for fast food restaurants, and due to the reason stated above by Haller. Visual perception, human behavior, and emotions result in specific reactions and triggers.

Red offers that excitement because often it is associated with a ripe strawberry, sweetened candy, or tender meat. On the contrary, its association with intense emotions such as anger and rage works in favor of these brands. It calls for an urgent response, proactively influencing mood and behavior. This is why it’s used to illustrate danger.

Color holds a crucial space in graphic design and branding.

The whole element of branding is to induce consumer loyalty, boost purchasing intent, and expand market share. And in this case, its identity matters tenfold. In the examples above, from Warhol’s soup cans to Levi’s logo, color aids have been the steering wheel to propel your brand.

Colors in graphic design and branding leverage their significant influence as different forms of signals in nature and culture.

Why?

Because they help in scene segmentation, object recognition, and stimulus discrimination. The sense of specific colors leads to attraction or repulsion, depending on how they rattle our emotional stimuli.

But just as the use of red and yellow in fast food chains exhibits a sense of hunger and satisfaction, the use of colors and the reaction it harnesses depends on the context, which is not uniform.

This is why blue is often used for corporate and more conservative brands such as Facebook, LinkedIn, PayPal, Intel, Phillips, and Visa, among 43% of other Fortune 500 companies. Blue is trustworthy and calming, and all graphic designers are aware of this.

And if you ask any brand with a blue logo, why blue? The answer always constitutes two terms – innovation and reliability.

What is the narrative hidden beyond the graphic design and branding of Facebook?

On 31^st August, Facebook underwent a technical glitch. This put a halt to users’ engagement with the platform because our inbuilt habit of doom scrolling brought attention to this change.

The blue ‘F’ logo turned black. Surprising? Yes. Unusual? No. Applications undergo technical issues all the time and are resolved within a few minutes or hours.

But why was this newsworthy? The brand that Facebook has built has blue at its core graphic design and branding tactics. We have a simple understanding that Facebook’s blue entails a marketing association. Due to its market share, it isn’t required to stand out and have an eye-catching and impressionable logo.

We all know what Facebook’s logo looks like.

When the glitch changed the color of this F into black, consumers assumed that maybe this was a rebranding effort by the organization. This is how intertwined the color blue is with Facebook across the market.

But you know what the most fascinating aspect of this is? The actual narrative behind the color and the logo – Mark Zuckerberg’s red and green color blindness, alluding to which he said:

“Blue is the richest color for me; I can see all of blue.”

This is a story behind the use of the color blue. It’s out there but hidden behind the marketing understanding of why brands use the color.

Visual accessibility was a huge reason if not one of the only significant ones. The brand’s association with blue color is emotive behind the curtains of the marketing landscape, along with its bold sans serif typography.

In graphic design and branding, every executed design is intentional.

Graphic designers do need to align with client requirements, but the first thing on their minds should potentially be the experience.

Is minimalistic art the future of B2B graphic design and branding?

Where do the pros of minimalism end and the dangers of losing the details begin?

Even though there is a need for a new direction in art and design, where do we lose sight of our vision – art as expression? Isn’t expressing oneself hidden in the details, or is less the new more?

In the tech landscape, a lot has changed. Twitter became X, and we have built-in AI assistants like ChatGPT. But some things have remained the same. And one of them is the homepage design for the Google search engine.

Google’s search engine homepage grabbed my attention not because of its exceptional use of colors but its simplicity. We can say it embodies absolute neutrality, stripped away of distraction and popping colors. Not much regarding the graphic design and branding of Google’s search engine homepage has transformed.

We have come a long way. While brands have caught up, most users still gravitate towards minimalism, and AI-generated images are widely criticized. And Google retaining its UX design, even in today’s atmosphere, is commendable, to say the least.

The graphic designers know what they are doing with the appropriate spacing and proper alignment of the CTAs spread across the page. It’s minimalistic, making it increasingly user-centric.

It’s minimal with carefully chosen attention-grabbing vibrant colors, such as blue used for their CTAs that provide a clean and formal look, against the white background.

It grabs the reader or scroller’s attention quite instantly.

Every logo, color palette, typeface, or use of whitespace amidst other intricacies of graphic design and branding is an existing proof. Especially in the immensely complex and expansive space of digital marketing.

Visibility, readability, and direct communication.

Expression is an integral component of these platforms, especially Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. The platform itself allows space for creativity and innovation in the form of content curation. With a plethora of creative content within the apps, quite evidently, the external graphic design and branding of these platforms are quite minimalistic.

But with minimalistic brand design becoming a trend, are we, as creatives, losing our touch or making the brands lose their personality? Or is minimalism making us rethink whether we need a balance between functionality and creativity to finally stand out in the market?

But one thing is for sure. While minimalism may be the trend right now, it does not project the direction that graphic and branding design might take, especially in the B2B landscape.

Uniqueness and creativity have to remain.

To strip away a brand of any one of these is to take away the trust ideal customers have instilled in it. Art and design have always been the common ground of experimentation, and their future is as fluid as ever.

Brands are no longer just symbols, names, or designs. They have become an identity. A cohesive message delivered in unison.

Products have become abundant in the market. There is a technology that can solve every business problem. And, with the technology comes the buyers and competitors.

An organization or individual must compete for the attention of the buyer.

With social media, individuals can position themselves as solutions to problems, too. This could be a marketing problem, as the rise of influencer marketing would suggest. Or they could sell their product, like Neil Patel’s Ubersuggest. Have no doubt, he is an SEO influencer and the face of his organization. People buy his product because his name is attached to it.

But why is this? Some organizations and individuals present themselves in a manner that we find refreshing.

Their charisma is infectious and investing our attention is entertaining and enlightening. Once an organization or individual is perceived to be charismatic, they begin to hold the attention of a relevant audience.

These organizations and individuals are called brands.

For all the vagueness of the term, we must ask: What is a brand?

Why is brand identity important?

Let us talk about a famous story: Michael Jordan and Nike. In 1984, Nike and Michael Jordan created a historic moment in sports and fashion: the Air Jordan.

The legendary red and black Jordan pair were on full display during a pre-season game when Michael Jordan wore it for the first time.

The NBA was furious. They sent a letter to Nike stating the shoes violated policy and would levy a fine of $5000 per game. Nike agreed and paid the fine for each of his games, revolutionizing marketing.

The Air Jordan became an anti-establishment and a rebel-figure sneaker in the market, becoming the most popular individual-led brand ever. The legendary sneakers sold enough copies in May to reach $70 million in sales.

You may think that Nike here is the brand in question, but let us pivot and understand that while Nike defined itself as a disruptor and risk taker, it was Michael Jordan, the conqueror, who would take the limelight. And not just for his exceptional skills on the court but his presence and sense of marketing.

From his iconic ‘Be Like Mikeʼ marketing campaign to Space Jam, he became a phenomenon. A brand.

Defining a brand.

A brand is any distinctive feature like a name, term, design, or symbol that identifies goods or services. That is what it says on the American Marketing Association.

But looking at Jordan, doesn’t it feel more than that? He had no term or design. All Michael Jordan had to offer was him.

In the influencer market of personal branding, where thought leadership has become vital to stand out—a brand should be defined as the ability of an organization or an individual to craft a recognizable voice that creates an emotional response within an audience.

The need for a brand voice or identity

Have you heard about CEPs? These are Category Entry Points. These cues inside the buyer’s head help them retrieve a brand from their memory banks.

In any category, certain brands will come to your mind. Think about smartphones. Which brand comes to your mind? Apple or Samsung?

Think about AI. It’s OpenAI’s ChatGPT, is it not? Whatever the category, you have associated certain products with a brand. For a brand you trust, you don’t buy only for the product but rather the experience the brand provides through them. You want to be identified with it.

A brand voice helps organizations and individuals develop a unique voice that can be thought of easily in buying situations. This voice can generate an emotional response. Or generate trust from B2B buyers in the market for risk-mitigating solutions. A brand voice helps buyers understand what you/your organization stand for.

Crafting a brand identity takes creativity, patience, and experimentation.

Why do you connect with certain brands? It is because something resonates with you. Something that the brand does or conveys speaks to you on a personal level.

That is the brand identity. A way of saying and expressing their ideas. Crafting this voice or identity takes patience, a readiness to experiment, and creative risk-taking.

Let us break the brand voice down into two parts.

1. Crafting an identity from the organization/individual perspective.
2. The importance of the voice for the buyers/consumers.

Brand Identity: The creator’s perspective

To find the brand identity, the creator— organization or the individual—must understand the why. This is the noble mission of the brand. For businesses like Apple, it is to bring the best user experience through their services, products, and software.

For SEMrush, it is to make marketing competition fair and transparent. For individuals, take the de facto productivity brand, Ali Abbdal. For him and his team, it is helping people build a life they love.

Knowing the why helps brands craft a clear and concise message. The why provides the core of a brand identity.

Once a brand identifies its core, it can move towards the next layer, the how.

The how details the process of you bringing your mission into reality. If Apple wants to create the best user experience, how are they doing it? It is by using the best available specs in the market and designing their products to have a premium feel.

Or Ali Abbdal? How does he help people lead a life they love? Through free productivity resources online and actionable steps for successful and time-efficient people.

The how brings your why into existence and provides a platform for people to believe in you.

The next layer of this equation is the what. What are the methods by which you deliver your why and how? For Apple, the iPhone, iPad, and Mac are the what.

For individual-led brands, the recent trend is that of the content. Individual brands deliver the what by showing themselves to the world. It is their personality and their life that draws audiences in.

Many platforms enable this, from the GenZ culture of TikTok to thought leadership on LinkedIn. Social media empowers anyone to rise, organizations included and become a cultural phenomenon.

And brand identity is all about it: Becoming a cultural icon.

Keen readers must have noticed that a brand voice follows Simon Sinek’s Golden Circle. But it is not that he discovered the formula. He observed that successful leaders and brands followed this type of identity exploration. A differentiating brand builds from the inside.

Brand Identity: For the buyer

Why would the buyer decide to go for your brand? For B2B buying scenarios, they want to mitigate risk without disturbing the status quo.

While purchasing, they think along these verticals:

1. Will our purchase integrate well within our existing systems?
2. Does the purchase solve a problem we are facing?
3. Will it solve any potential risks we will face in the future?

There is a reason why SEMrush, Salesforce, and HubSpot are so easy to integrate with existing software and data collectors. And vice-versa.

Usually, the conversations are around avoiding market failures and adding organization-elevating solutions. For B2B buyers, disruption of their organization is not a safe option. This rings true for most traditional organizations.

According to Gartner’s survey, the B2B buying committee has 6 to 10 individuals. Each individual has concerns and options they would prefer. Yet this group of opinionated individuals manage to reach a conclusion.

ABM is to be greatly appreciated for this. The core of ABM campaigns is a cohesive, consistent, and seamless brand identity.

If the majority in the buying committee: –

1. Can identify with your brand
2. Find it relatable
3. Believe the solutions align with their mission and values.
4. Accepting the promise to deliver a positive outcome is tangible and achievable.

They will accept your solution as the best in the market for them. With an over-flooded market of goods, services, and personalities, buyers will purchase from you because of trust and perception.

Your brand identity will do the selling. Now, it is your product team’s job to deliver on the promises the voice has made.

Marketing and Storytelling.

Human beings are wired for stories. We derive meaning from understanding a person’s or organization’s story.

Microsoft as the underdog, Or Metaʼs electric rise to stardom. We love a good story. Here is where brand identity is found, in the story of your brand.

Marketing messages can do a lot of things. But it cannot replace a good story. All good stories are marketing, but not all marketing is a good story.

Some messages seem underhanded, while some feel shallow and full of empty promises. A brand’s story relies on resonance and the ability to deliver. A brand that cannot make good on its promise will not find its identity because it is based on false promises. But truth without a distinct voice will fall flat on the audience’s ear.

Marketing teams must deliver the message with creativity, passion, and a deep understanding of their “productˮ and audience.

To understand what works, use a growth marketing approach. Experiment, analyze, create, and reiterate.

As David Ogilvy says, tell the truth, but make the truth fascinating.

Brand voice and identities are an organization and individual way of showing their personality and explicit truth. It is a platform to attract and engage with the right buyer.

However, the line of cultural relevance and customer sensitivities must be considered. What kind of cultural impact does your brand want to make?

Believe it or not, every organization and individual has the power and accessibility to become an icon. The trick is to find the correct audience and the right voice.

Create an identity with your brand positioned to say something unique to you.

Gen Z is influencing trends and shaping how people relate to brands. How can marketers capitalize on this shift?

Generation Z is changing the consumer landscape, and its impact isn’t limited to its own generation but expanding to the entire population pyramid. It’s time marketers rethink how they connect to customers and address the new market demands.

With this generation evaluating everything in-depth and prioritizing access over possession, creating campaigns that resonate with them could be a huge game-changer.

How Gen Z is different

Gen Z is radically different from the previous generations. With an aversion to labels and expression being an innate need, this generation is all about seeking truth. Gen Z is way more open to diverse viewpoints and opinions. Stereotyping is not their thing.

A broader belief system allows this generation to be more respectful of diversity and connect to causes different from their own. Zoomers are a generation that’s more tolerant and accommodating.

Marketing Strategies for digital natives

With GenZ preferring learning things online over traditional education and marketing methods, it makes insane sense for brands to create an engaging digital experience that allows Gen Z to self-learn and self-serve.

Self-service allows modern customers to save the time they spend waiting on agents. Brands must optimize the experience for customer satisfaction, giving them what they want with minimal effort.

Gen Z likes brands with a voice- brands that know when to take a stand. It’s not about being politically correct or having diverse topics to cover but more about knowing what matters to a brand and how they decide to show up. If you want to strike a chord with the Gen X workforce, transparency is the key.

Zoomers are well-educated, and the matters they need to learn about-they know how to look for information and form a solid viewpoint. Inconsistency is on their radar screen, so brands must walk their talk. If businesses say something matters to them, and their actions prove otherwise, Gen Z wouldn’t blink twice before taking their business elsewhere.

But in contrast, if brands make mistakes and correct those slip-ups, Gen Z would be more tolerant than any previous generation.

In the End

The buying behavior has evolved tremendously in the last few years, and there’s no going back. The hyperconnectivity of the digital age makes the influence of GenZ stronger than brands previously conceived.

The sensible move is to understand the psychology of this generation and cater to those needs. More isn’t always better, but personalization certainly is.