Brand-ing — Digital Branding

How people perceive information has improved with the common usage of Internet under the rapid development in the digital age. People read and get information not merely in the newspaper and magazine, but our digital daily gadget-mobile. According to statistics in 2022, people time people spend on their screens is around 7 hours a day on average. For younger generation, they spend 9 hours, more than one-third of the day on socializing, shopping, and learning on digital devices. Internet has become the main channel for people to get information. And since the pandemic surge 2019, things have become more digitalized to be with the unpredictable situations and lockdowns. Life with digital tools has become inevitable.

In response to the change, we see brands around the world undergo the transformations. How brands stand out in the blue sea and live well in the digital age, doing digital branding and marketing has become trend for people to the fight against competitors and be succeed.

Branding itself is like people taking pride of the enterprises and showcasing its characteristics to the public. It conveys its core values, features and belief of a enterprise.

We see the evolution of branding first from physical outputs to the digital formats and networks in the past; that is to say, this is where the touch point lies in. It grows and improves from online platforms to social networks; nonetheless, we see the opposite development in current occasions.

Digital Branding is a brand management integrated with digital branding, digital marketing, online promotion on various digital domains and scenarios.

The concept of digital branding consists of three parts

Brand identity is the process on realizing the ideas and perspectives through digital media effectively. Digital branding builds the brand and its concept on elements of visual, identity, and the retention. It consist of logotype, mascot, color palette, typeface, website design, app user interface design, responsive web design, email layouts, interfaces on social networks, various illustrations and content.

Brand identity changes constantly with social networks and trends. We see lots of enterprises undergo the transformations, they do the marketing on digital platforms and adjust visual identity via digitalization.

However, if we see only the current trend and ignore the core and culture of the enterprises, we might lose the brand identity. Salvatore Ferragamo has recently redesigned its brand identity. We might find Salvatore Ferragamo did the rebranding just for being on the trends. However, we find it is the realization of the lineage if we scope into detail. Hence, we have to consider how to better articulate enterprises’ core value and culture during the iteration.

Brand visibility refers to the digital channel through which your target audience sees and recognizes your brand. You need to make your brand visible and recognizable to target audiences before you communicate company’s core value to them. Elements of brand visibility consist of: digital advertising, SEO, content marketing, and social networking.

Credibility is how users feel towards a brand, it builds the loyalty and fosters the lifelong relationship between enterprises and consumers. It increases the loyalty of a brand, attracts more users and enhances competitiveness.

Information has been transmitted among people rapidly in the digital era. In the past, people know a brand by the word of mouth or from the physical outputs. Now we reach a new brand by flipping through digital pages and search in Google, we see corresponding information and reviews; meanwhile, we see good and bad reviews and comments of a brand. The information could be addressed worldwide within seconds, whereas this could be seen as the challenge and might have potential impact on building the credibility.

You might think of and hear the word “digital marketing” in some occasions. So what is the relationship between digital branding and digital marketing?

Digital marketing is the process of promoting products and services on digital platforms mentioned above. It could be fulfilled through multiple channels like EMail, social media, SEO(Search Engine Optimization) and PPC (People Per Click) Ads. For more fruitful outcomes, digital marketing people have to know how the channels work and how to reach more target audience retrospectively. Furthermore, they have to know and evaluate the outcomes of the Ads and adjust based on the needs for the margins. With the appropriate skills and knowledge, it could be an effective way on reaching desired target audience and developing the business.

However, what occurs if we go only the digital marketing but ignore the digital branding? If we trace back to around a decade ago, when the time social networks’ ecosystem was booming. We see digital identities were actually transformed from the physical outputs. We see there was extra information on the image. This is not merely hard to identify a brand but limit the effectiveness on Ads.

In the past, customers were exposed to the physical scenarios when reaching a brand, like in a shop, store, Ads campaign and media. Now we reach our desired target audience through internet on various platforms like shorts on TikTok, interfaces on Apple Watch and in gaming. How we design interfaces that are compatible with various channels and fit into the scenarios is the thing we have to consider while designing brands for the enterprises.

Many brands like Starbucks, LG, KFC, etc. have established their own official island when the time Animal Crossing: New Horizons is on trend. KFC held an event on finding KFC’s mascot, if combo, people get the code in exchange for fried chickens. In addition,#KentuckyFriedCrossing invited people to the KFC stores and share their islands on the social networks for the chance to own an official KFC virtual store.

You might have the impression on below images. The images of eye examination should be easy for people to identify.Imagine if the images are added with shadows, people might consider themselves as astigmatism…

Visual images is like the thumbnail of a brand. In order to allow users to identify the brand in various scenarios clearly, logotypes have gradually changed into flat design while removing the emboss, shades, gradient and 3D. Color blocks are applied in the logotypes with texts to represent a simple and streamlined style to fit into different scenarios.

For example, we see the change in BMW’s logo design. The logo was released in 2020, we see the original light, shadow and 3D are removed with the simple color blocks.

Social media platforms are no longer for entertainment, they can also be used to promote the brand and build relationships. We see currently brands manage their own social networks platforms, this allows users to interact with the enterprises to gain a better understanding of the brand and build closer relationships through interactions. For example, Airbnb posts photos from users on their official Instagram (we call it User Generated Content (UGC)), they tag the owners of the photos and encourage users to upload the photos; they also generate discussions and interact with users on the posts (Probably you can see the post from McDonald commented by a Burger King fan).

Websites and mobile apps are also the important touch points in digital branding. The self-hosted platforms are the ideal places for enterprises to showcase their images. Here you see useful information on the enterprises and the products interacting with their desired target audiences. It is also the place where users get their experience.

For example, We see the icons and colors, they are easy to recognize and use on IKEA’s website. In addition to that, they enhance the experience on mobile devices. For example, recently they developed an AR-based application called IKEA Place, this virtual environment allows you to place real-scale furniture in your home through cameras. This approach has greatly increased engagement and enhanced the credibility.

Aside from virtual reality and extended reality, Metaverse is also the touch point for novice brand in the future. Last year Nike collaborated with gaming platform Roblox to launch the NIKELAND, where players can do sports games and have their digital avatars worn NIKE gadgets. This provide users with a new interactive experience and enhance brand identity.

Services has become more and more diverse, from restaurants to clothing stores (for example, a restaurant may use digital tools for reservation, ordering and checkout), a good UI/UX design is then needed.

Establishing a brand design system includes brand logo, color palette, fonts, typography, UI interface design, website, images, illustrations, content and tone of voice. The design system helps maintain brand consistency and ensures that touch points convey the consistent brand concept.

UI/UX designers need to constantly review and update the brand design system to ensure that it can adapt to the ever-changing digital world. In addition, designers need to proactively engage with users in order to understand their needs and feedback on improving and refining their brand design.

In order to make brand design more comprehensive, what we need to consider is more than modularity. Moreover, we need to think about the systematization, usability and aspects in many ways. Meanwhile, in order to adapt on diverse scenarios, we need to pay attention to the touch points; that is to say, designing for different touch points enables brands to have different usages in diverse scenarios and enhance user experience.

Brand design helps us more successful in the digital space and brings better experience to the users.