Marketing and Branding

At the centre of any marketing plan stands the product or service which your company wants to sell. A good product, which delights the customer at the right price and at a time when the purchasing decision is imminent, stands a chance of generating a sale. However, unless your product or service is totally unique and unobtainable from anywhere else AND essential, you will face competition and have to work harder than them to make the sale.

The foundation stone for this effort is your brand. Whether you are a corner shop or a global multinational, is essential that your brand, a constant in the eyes of your customer, works as hard as possible on your behalf.

A great brand can communicate an entire product line and company ethos and generate enough customer loyalty to be worn as a fashion accessory, whilst a poor brand might not even generate a flicker of a memory (Think Apple and Nike). It doesn’t stop there, as your great brand then has to be implemented properly to ensure that it communicates clearly across every interaction with your audience - be that TV advertising, brochure, web or packaging and point of sale material.

At the beginning of the journey to build a great brand is the creation of the brand itself. The name and brand design needs to communicate your company, service or product identity and be relevant in your market sector today - this is why many companies update their brand periodically to avoid it becoming dated or outmoded. Creating a new brand isn’t simple and even the choice of name can be a complex task, especially given the need to register a domain name to represent or partner the brand name in today’s web connected world.

A number of disciplines need to be brought to bear when creating a successful brand:

• Choosing a name - getting this right can make the difference between product life and death as can the slogans and strap lines which are used to invoke desire and loyalty in the audience and differentiate you from the competition
• Designing your brand - an image or logo which communicates effectively can be worth a thousand words as it is often seen before the product itself. It should be fit for purpose across all media types
• Implementing your brand - a great identity becomes worthless if it is not well implemented. Poor brochure, packaging or web design can destroy a great brand.
• Communicating your brand - a clear and consistent strategy needs to be at the heart of all brand communication. It has to bring together the needs of the audience, the media being used and even the time of year to ensure maximum impact whilst still maintaining the integrity and message of the central brand
• Updating your brand - A great brand needs to keep pace with the times and the marketplace. Nothing is worse than a tired and faded brand even if the product is still solid.

Atommedia’s approach to branding and marketing, either for a new concept or for a strategic makeover, looks across all media touchpoints - web, print, POS, audio visual, to design brands which work well wherever your company, product or service touches your customer. Equally, we challenge ourselves to create true impact and loyalty rather than just relying on pretty graphics. Looking across the marketplace, we ensure that your brand remains current and relevant either through tuning and adjustment or a complete corporate brand and image makeover. After all, your brand needs to communicate an awful lot by itself, with no support from you or your sale force, as the marketplace encounters it in a variety of situations.