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Benefits of Excellent Graphic Design to Brands

Alan Kaplan

Brands have enormous potential to create wealth for their owners. The brand value of many of the world’s largest corporates such as Google and Apple is billions of dollars and in some instances constitutes the majority of the value of the enterprise.

According to Brand Finance Nike (84%), Prada (74%) and Acer (71%). are just a few examples of this.

The principle of brands being able to contribute substantially to the value of a company holds irrespective of size. In addition to help building brands for large corporates such as Agrevo, Aventis and Sakata, I have also assisted many SME’s in this regard.

Once optimal branding and brand marketing strategies have been formulated they need to be implemented through tactical endeavours. In my view, creative execution should always follow strategy.

Graphic design is an art and visual communication that has the capacity to integrate words, symbols and images in the best possible way.

As brands have immense potential, it is imperative that the creative implementation of brand identity, positioning and marketing be executed in the best possible manner and in this respect outstanding graphic design can benefit your brand in a number of essential ways including:

• Creating attention and building awareness. When exceptionally undertaken, elements like print advertising, packaging, websites and others are able to break through the clutter and grab attention. If an advertisement is able to capture attention and create interest and your packaging stands out amongst the competition your brand is off to a really good start. These aspects will enhance brand awareness, as well as speed up the diffusion of new brands. The same principle applies to your website although in this instance traffic must also be generated through SEO.

• Educating your target market in the most informative and visually beneficial manner about your product and brand.

• Enhancing recall, especially when combined with trigger points (which represent communicating the most important elements of your product or service offering) such as the safety features that have made Volvo famous.

• Building your brand image through excellence and association. The Gatorade lightning bolt, Nike Swish and Apple logo are all excellent examples of logos that have excelled for their owners.

• Differentiating your brand and its value offerings from those of competitors. Standing out from the crowd in a positive manner has many advantages and can certainly impact positively on sales and market share.

Graphic design can be extremely economical when one considers the many benefits that accrue. Whilst larger companies often have their own internal resources, smaller companies generally outsource their requirements to specialists who should have sufficient understanding of your strategy and the objectives. Graphic design should not however be viewed in a vacuum but rather holistically as part of a broader branding and marketing effort.

About the writer

Alan Kaplan PhD has international experience spanning more than twenty five years across academic, media, agency, client and consulting areas. Alan’s profile can be viewed on LinkedIn and he can be contacted on 041875855.

Contact us

Contact Optivance 360 for a no obligation discussion on how we can assist you with all your branding, marketing and communications in a consulting, non executive management or mentoring capacity, or for any of our other key business services including franchising.

Alan Kaplan © 2012

This article is for general information and the reader should seek specific expert advice before taking any action.

Posted in: Marketing and Communications

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