Is your brand stagnating? Are you having trouble getting your branding to a place where you want it to be? Maybe you’re just uninspired so your creative branding brain is suffering. This is normal in business. We can’t be on all the time, so don’t stress too much.
Instead of focusing on your anxiety, instead focus on getting inspired. Sometimes what you need to get your branding mojo back is to simply looking to others for ideas and inspiration. Influential branding success stories are out there – in fact, there’s more than you can ever imagine. Here are three branding success stories that may just inspire you to make your own brand greater than ever possible.
Shopulse
Have you ever heard of the phrase “branding is so easy, even a kid could do it?” Probably not, but that doesn’t mean it’s not something that’s impossible. If you’re familiar with the shopping site Shopulse, you’ll know it’s a site famed for its great flash deals, but what you may not know is it’s the brainchild of a 16-year-old boy.
Raphael Paulin-Daigle is a teen from Moncton, Canada that’s had business aspirations since they first reached the double-digit age bracket. Over the years, he considered the problem that many retailers face: inventory management. Shopulse takes excess inventory from suppliers and uses this acquisition concept to sell goods cheaper to consumers while eliminating the back-stock problems of other businesses.
This kind of brand concept is attractive to consumers who want value both from the financial aspect of their products and the purpose of selling them. It’s also important to note that it’s impressive that Raphael has accomplished so much for someone so young. This is another lesson to learn – the more unlikely your success story, the more consumers will root for you.
Hootsuite
One of the best ways to brand yourself is to attach your own image to a popular trend. Not only does this boost the searchability of your campaign, it also infuses some personality and humor into your brand and business. When you show that you’re conscious of pop culture and can take a joke, your business is seen as more personable.
Take Hootsuite’s lead – after they noticed the huge popularity of the HBO drama “Game of Thrones,” the social media management company rebranded the trend as a viral video, “A Game of Social Thrones.” This video focuses on business value while still being humorous and light.
Disney
Maybe Disney has a head start with brand image and loyalty compared to other companies, but it doesn’t mean that they can fall asleep on the job. You may not have looked at it like this before, but Disney is one of the largest lifestyle brands in the world, they just don’t sell services or products that offer a tangible help – they sell experiences, magic and family happiness.
This isn’t just something that they do through their cruises and Oscar-winning films, either. Disney offers blog posts and other online content that furthers their family-friendly and experience-heavy brand. What can you take from this? Three things: brand consistency is key to customer loyalty, lifestyle branding is something you should focus on and promote this brand across a variety of mediums.
When you look to other brands for inspiration, always keep these questions in mind: what is this brand doing that could be valuable to me, and how can I take this success and turn it into my own?
