Can you fill in this blank with the name of a company?: ___________ brings teams together with cloud-based video communications.

If you answered Zoom, then the company has done a phenomenal job at branding itself. That’s pretty much the point of a brand. I know what you’re thinking – then, what’s this brouhaha about branding and rebranding? 

Everyone wants something snazzy, something that stands out on social media, and something that really strikes a chord. So much so that many companies, which may already have established their marketing strategies are willing to rebrand i.e. change their brand image with a completely new name, logo or design. Some examples include Burbn to Instagram, BackRub to Google to Alphabet, and Relentless to Amazon. 

But before any of that, a good brand will first do an amazing job at telling you simply what it does. Everything else is auxiliary. Yet, in our experience of leading 30,000 naming projects and conducting branding workshops with over 1000 companies, I am surprised at how few of them can tell me what they do in a single line. 

So, how can we begin creating an epic brand or rebranding an existing business? How can we simplify who we are and yet, connect with our audience? In this article, I take you through 3 extremely simple steps to creating a brand or rebranding your older one.

1. Summarize who you are

You could call this the value proposition, elevator pitch, USP or positioning statement, the bottom line is: who are you, what do you do? No matter who you are connecting with or conveying your message to, be it a potential customer, investor, partner, employee etc, everyone first wants to know who you are. Similarly, when you are rebranding, think about what is the new message you want to get across to your stakeholders because most companies choose to rebrand when their value proposition is no longer reflected in their older brand. This summary doesn’t require too many words yet must be comprehensive.

For example, if you simply say, I am a tech company, that tells me nothing because there are a gazillion tech companies. Such a broad definition might only work if you are a disruptor in an industry. For example, Google organizes the world’s information. But any of Google’s successors, who do the same thing will need a different value proposition. And can you imagine Google telling their first investors, “Well, we’re a tech company.” For a practical example of a comprehensive brand refresh that aligns with company values and enhances user experience, you might find Wrike’s recent brand update insightful.

Also, note that describing what you do does not imply that you get caught up in the technicalities of it. For example, let’s say you run a pizzeria and offer the most lip-smacking pizza ever. This is made possible because you add a dash of extra oregano to your sauce. Yet, regardless of how special it might be to you, this cannot necessarily be your elevator pitch since it’s a technicality that not many people care about, understand, or are affected by. But, if you tell me: we get you fresh, hot pizza delivered to your door in 30 minutes or less — or it’s free, I am interested! 

Lastly, remember that who you are is different from your tagline. For example, you might associate McDonald’s golden arches with the jingly “I’m lovin’ it” yet its USP is actually along the lines of food of consistently high quality and uniform methods of preparation.

2. Understand your audience

A brand is a connection between who you are and who you are talking to a.k.a potential and existing customers and other stakeholders.

Once you are clear about who you are, you should spend some time researching who your target audience is. Market repositioning is another major reason why companies rebrand. So if doing that, ensure you are very clear about who your new target audience is, and how the new brand will reach them.

Larger companies will have budgets carved out for formal research projects. If you’re a smaller business, however, you can do this by networking, talking about your brand and product or service to your friends, colleagues, and family, and getting their honest feedback. Don’t be hesitant to strike up conversations about your brand and business with strangers. They are not emotionally biased and best suited to offer you real-time actionable feedback. They could also more accurately mirror the thoughts of your potential customers.

A hack I endorse is talking to someone about your brand at a bar and checking with them the next day if they remembered anything. (Use discretion on how drunk someone might be!)

3. Analyze your competition

For this last step, think: Do I want to stand out or fit in? You can weigh this against your competition. See what they look like, and how they define themselves and then, think about whether you want to be like them or diverge from who they are.

Think of a room full of people discussing the industry your business is in. Who do you want to be seen as in such a conversation? That’s the answer to who do you want to be in comparison to your competitors. For example, Apple decided to stand out from its competition by focusing heavily on design, the price point, and the human experience. On the other hand, the cybersecurity unicorn Tanium chose to fit into the industry with a typical tech-centric brand although they offer a unique and powerful solution. 

What next?

After you have combed through the above three points, you can begin the task of creating the brand – its name and nature or re-branding your business. In either case, while a brand should succinctly convey who you are, it will also evoke a certain image in the consumer’s mind. To figure out what that should be, I usually recommend choosing from the following 5 options:

1. Timeless and Pre-eminent: You want a brand that surpasses any boundaries of time and trends – something that is classy no matter what era we are in. Examples of such iconic brands are Gucci, BMW, Rolex etc. It is no secret that these brands have a reputation for their quality but the brand must reflect that. A luxurious brand should naturally have a name that sounds high-end. 
2. Pragmatic: You want your brand to be seen as solution-oriented and practical. Examples are PayPal and Dollar Shave Club. The brand hits you directly with what they do. As the Dollar Shave Club rightly says on their website, it doesn’t get any simpler than that. But once again remember whether such a model matches your brand needs. If you are a pricey brand, your primary aim is probably not to seem too approachable or practical. Hence, check if each criterion fits what you are trying to sell and say.
3. Modern: This is a popular option among many startups. You want to be seen as contemporary and someone who is fulfilling today’s population’s needs. This is a go-to option for many tech companies. A brand name that is modern will usually be short, easy to say, and punchy. Slack is a great example but the name is pretty much the opposite of what they do hence, the pragmatic approach doesn’t apply here. Another remarkable example is Urban Decay – it is undoubtedly modern, a bit rebellious, and really pushes the boundaries as a cosmetics brand.
4. Emotional: You want your brand name to evoke an emotion. This approach takes a key brand value and serves it upfront. Examples include The Honest Company. Once again, you may not know what they do from just the name but clearly, they want you to connect the brand to honesty. Similarly, Triumph Motorcycles ignites a sense of victory and adventure. Here are some other emotional brand names that we simply love!
5. Fun and Playful: Although less common, this approach is used by brands of a specific nature. You might say this is an offshoot of the emotional image, with the primary emotion being that of fun. Examples include Squatty Potty. Instantly, it makes you laugh, while also tempting you to know more.

I still can’t decide, what now?

When you are going through this exercise of deciphering what your new brand is and what it stands for, you will most likely come across and like multiple ideas. This could be a story behind your brand, a value, an emotion, your price point etc. Maybe you want your brand to be timeless but you also want to sound solution-driven. Or you want your brand to convey joy but also be seen as simplistic. If you are rebranding, you might have a different goal – fully transform your image among customers or somewhat erase the previous brand image.

This can be a delicate stage as many brands may choose to go ahead with multiple such elements. It can be confusing for the potential customers and for the business themselves. Particularly in the case of rebranding, you need to be extra careful as this is your second chance. 

I suggest that at first, you choose 8-20 things that your brand stands for. Maybe in case of a rebrand, you’ve already done this before. These could be big ideas, a tight personal story, emotions, values, differentiators, etc. And then, from among these 15-ish nuggets, you choose 3 that matter the most to you. In doing so, remember that these 3 final choices should also fulfill the previously discussed trinity of Who you are, Who’s your customer, and How do you want to compare against the competition. 

For example, Nike wanted to be seen as a brand about winning rather than price but Dollar Shave Club makes its affordable price known upfront. Burt’s Bees, for example, is simply named after the story of its founder Burt. So, they chose to showcase this personalized touch more than what they do. On the other hand, a brand like Teavana wanted to tell you what they do while still sounding classy. 

So, regardless of how many brand elements you shortlist, you must return to the value proposition and finally pick 3 pieces of brand identity that are totally indispensable and the most important to you. It will seem like an insurmountable task at first but as you dig deeper, you will know who your brand really is, and all other brand components will emerge from it. You can then use this information to create the name, the single-line value proposition, the tagline, the logo, the colors, etc. Once you have the trio narrowed down, you can also use our instantly-available naming ideas list to find the right pick for you. If you’re willing to go one step further, with this specific brief, you can launch a naming contest to get hundreds of creative geniuses to pitch names for your business. 

Let’s get branding!