While the word has evolved and taken on newconnotations in business, its essence remains the same: a brand is an identitymark burned (hopefully) into the mind of the consumer, thereby giving thecompany it represents ownership of a corner of people’s headspace.’Brandertising’ is the new buzz word inbranding. Recently a new word has emerged in the branding and design space.Coined by the design, architecture and branding gurus at The DesignPartnership, ‘brandertising’ encapsulates everything about a brand under oneumbrella. It’s about decoding the DNA of the brand and then translating thatinto a single-minded message.
Branddilution results in brand demise.
John Gordon, director of the BrandertisingDivision at The Design Partnership explains some of the typical mistakescompanies make in relation to their brands, “Too often, companies get oneperson to come up with a brand concept, another to design a logo and another todo their signage. Someone else will design the interior space of the business.What all of this does, slowly but surely over time, is dilute the message ofthe brand. The brand starts to talk a different language to what was originallyintended.” If brand dilution ultimately brings about brand demise, brandertisingcombats this by taking the essence of a brand offering as its starting pointand developing everything about the brand from that point. This includes brandpositioning and launch, logos and straplines, packaging, interior design andvehicle branding. As Callie van der Merwe, co-founder at The DesignPartnership, explains, “Good solid branding lies at the heart of the success ofmodern business. Everything hangs on that brand, that message. Everything aboutthe brand, from the design of the exterior building to the design of itsinterior, should hang on that message too.”
Single-mindedroll-out.
A large part of getting brandertising rightis taking a single-minded approach to the roll-out and maintenance ofeverything the brand touches in the business. The starting point isunderstanding what the brand offering is all about and, as Van der Merwe pointsout, this is frequently where people go wrong. A single-minded message startswith a single-minded offering, not one that tries to be all things to all people.Essentially it’s about choosing one thing and working towards ownership of thatthing in consumers’ minds. “Where you want to get to is that if people think ofyour offering, they immediately think of your brand, or when they think of yourbrand, they immediately think of your offering,” says Van der Merwe.
For more information contact The DesignPartnership on +27 12 460 2016 or visit