“Wholeness is not achieved by cutting off a portion of one’s being, but by integration of the contraries.”
What Jung means is that we all have visible qualities that help differentiate us from each other. But there are also hidden ones, which need to surface and integrate with our larger visible self to make us whole. Just as at the personal level, brands need some wholeness love too. Just as the integration of all of you makes you YOU.
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Fast forward to the terrenial, my client calls my cell phone and asks, “I need a sell sheet design template to use at my client presentation.” As a former colleague I want to help him but also provide him with the best advice. Politely, I tell him I would be glad to do it BUT that my main interest relies on helping with an integrated brand system. I explain how that would better prepare him and his business to position it in the industry and be more cost effective in the long run. Below, I will explain why brand integration matters.
What is Brand Integration?
Before explaining why brand integration is important, let me define the concept as you try to point out to some of your own experiences and interactions with your favorite brands. Have you ever thought why you keep coming back to them? It’s usually because of elements you barely think of that are subtly connecting with you. Those elements interact more with your subconscious than with your bright awakened consciousness. Within those elements there are styles, language, images, voices, tones, smells, melodies, a certain pace, and even blank spaces in between. When working on a brand system all these elements interconnect and deploy with purpose to reach you and nobody else.
Brand integration is the assembly of elements (tangible or intangible) in an intentional and controlled manner to convey a specific perception of a product or service in an audience.
Brand Integration for Stronger Brands
Brand integration is no longer a privilege of large corporations. With accessible social media, technology, and information, brand integration has been democratized and is more visible than ever. If you have founded your business in a set of values, unique value proposition, and clear business goals, you have an excellent foundation to start your brand integration.
These are 3 visual strategies to create brand integration:
1. Dynamic repetition to reinforce positioning
Repetition can fall into dullness but “dynamic” repetition keep brands fresh by carrying elements that are consistent but with added surprise and interest. Dynamic repetition is customized and targeted.
2. Visual patterns to reinforce perception
Placement of visual elements in consistent layouts set expectations and create a better understanding of your brand. Patterns create order and make choices clear.
3. Consistency to reinforce brand recognition
Being consistent in generating dynamic repetition and utilizing visual patterns deliver quicker brand recognition in the consumer’s mind. Consistency requires commitment and supervision.
Brand Integration Makes Productive Teams
The benefits of brand integration are not only on your audience side but also internally within your business. Branding a product might be perceived as expensive and time consuming but if you can develop integration in advance you can speed up internal creative processes, brand execution, and streamline chains of approval (if you belong to a large organization).
These are 3 benefits for your internal team when developing brand integration:
Cost and time effective when producing and executing
By having preset visual and language styles in your communications and marketing tactics, execution and production will go smoother than creating something from scratch every time.Set expectations with stakeholders
People involved in the creative process have an interest in seeing getting things done in a certain way and providing feedback. An integrated branding system brings everyone on the same page in advance.Ease of approvals and getting buy-in
An integrated branding system doesn’t require for you to get approvals from everyone every time there’s a deliverable as you would’ve done that in advance. And if you have a variation to the original system to meet a specific goal, it will be much easier to bring people on board on something that’s already familiar.
See your brand as a whole rather than snippets. You will then let your product show a stronger personality and your teams observe a more efficient workflow for themselves.