Part II, in which we connect the visible trunk, branches, and leaves of your branding tree to brand roots by continually asking how design and forward-facing decisions relate to brand vision, values, and goals.
Imagine an infomercial. The voiceover sounds a lot like the “In a world…” guy, but faster. Imagine him reading this script:
Do you find yourself cringing when customers visit your website?
Was your logo designed 10 years ago by the CEO’s cousin’s high school son using clip art?
Does your tradeshow booth look like it was last updated when a Bush was in office?
Then it might be time for a rebrand.
While infomercials are corny and easy to make fun of – remember the thigh master? – this fake infomercial illustrates common reasons clean energy brands trigger a rebrand.
Potential clients often reach out to me with a specific ask – a website, a presentation, a tradeshow booth, etc. These specific asks all have one thing in common – they are part of your visual brand. If you think of branding as a tree, these pieces are part of the visible tree. The roots, the branches, the leaves.
Outdated and irrelevant visual branding often indicates outdated and irrelevant branding roots. And, as noted last month when we dug into branding roots (pun intended), unless all aspects of the tree are healthy then the tree won’t thrive.
Before tackling that specific ask – e.g. a website – we’ll take a step back and spend time defining, redefining, or clarifying the brand. Defining the unseen roots of the clean energy brand in question. Only once articulated do we circle back to the piece in question.
Why make sure the branding roots are in place? In a word – clarity.
Building a website or creating a presentation really can be easy with the tools currently available. But building an effective website or presentation that not only represents your brand, but speaks to your target audience, and does so in a way that uses best practices in design, color, psychology, accessibility, all while conveying your message gets quite a bit trickier.
So, we start with the roots, define those well, then have a good foundation on which to build. The roots provide a roadmap, giving us clarity when creating those pieces visible to your audience – the trunk, branches, and leaves.
What counts as visible?
A solid clean energy brand will have several core pieces that make up the trunk, built directly on the roots. These pieces include your logo, visual identity (layout components that make your visual brand unique – typography, colors, etc.), and brand identity (articulation of your roots research, tone/voice, connection of the visual to the brand, etc.).
A style guide will communicate these “trunk” pieces in a cohesive manner to share with employees, partners, vendors, etc. To read more on what should be included in a style guide, check out this article.
A style and brand guide is a transition document, bridging the unseen with the seen.
From this point, anything forward-facing is counted as “visible”. This is a wide category, including obvious pieces such as a website, letterhead, collateral, presentation templates, tradeshow booths, internal and external newsletters, and social media. Anything visual that a customer, vendor, media, or stakeholder might see.
But it also includes components that might not feel “visual” but are nonetheless visible. Customer experience, sales content and process, training, press, thought leadership, press, webinars, etc., all fall into the visible category. They all strongly impact public perception of a clean energy brand, yet are not really “visual”.
Making the connection
How does a clean energy brand connect the brand roots to the visible tree? Let’s take a look at a couple of examples to illustrate.
A logo
Let’s say you have a company called The Energy People*.
Example one
The Energy People is a solar EPC, working primarily in the 5+ MW range. They have a vision to convert all utilities to 100% carbon-free energy. The company has several targeted roles detailed in their customer profiles, including utilities and developers. They have built a reputation for professional, on-time delivery [competitive strengths and value propositions].
Specific colors, fonts, and shapes will appeal more directly to their target audience while also denoting their vision. Mixing a bright, vibrant color with a professional, calming color will show that movement to new (100% carbon-free energy) combined with professionalism. They may choose a clean, simple san-serif type for their name in the logo, denoting the ease of working with them. And while they primarily work with solar now, the logo mark (icon) they use will likely not show solar for easier expansion in the near future (e.g. energy storage).
Example two
The Energy People is a non-profit focused on helping people transition into jobs in solar, energy storage, and wind. They have a vision of all jobs being good for the planet. Their customer profiles have identified younger workers who want sustainable jobs now, and older workers transitioning into clean energy as a second career. They have built a reputation for strong education and networking [competitive strengths and value propositions].
They may choose a green color palette to both indicate clean energy and relate to money that we receive from working. The company may use softer typography and shapes to feel more approachable and appeal to a wider audience. And the logo mark might focus more on people than the technology represented.
A website
Example one
Let’s use the same The Energy People – the EPC firm and the non-profit, as examples. A website is much more involved and will use the logo, visual, and brand identity detailed in the style guide. It will also utilize the vision, mission, customer profiles, competitive strengths, brand values, and value propositions to determine what content to include and how to include that content.
Their primary goal is brand awareness and to reinforce the messages of their sales team. They have inbound lead options through white paper, webinar, and newsletter content, but leads from the site are secondary to supporting their sales team.
The EPC firm works on larger utility-scale projects, which are larger and take longer, leaving them with fewer projects in their portfolio than other firms who work in C&I or resi. They chose to create a portfolio of case studies, each focusing on solutions they provided that made their clients’ jobs easier [customer profiles and competitive strengths].
The copy on the website is short, to-the-point, and uses skimable bullets, reiterating messages their sales team covers [interviews, profiles, and value propositions]. They reinforce their vision with images of their final projects interspersed with images of happy people who are similar in profile to their customer profiles, tying project results with an indicator we can all relate to - happiness.
Visually, the site follows their style guide, which uses the same mix of colors as their logo and typography choices. Again, they keep the design clean and straightforward, reinforcing how easy it is to work with them.
Example two
The non-profit, on the other hand, has built their website to accomplish goals aligning with their vision. They see their website as a hub, connecting and educating their audience, members, and hiring companies [vision, brand values, value propositions].
The website includes a job board and a membership area with community boards and educational materials. They know they won’t compete with large-scale social platforms like LinkedIn, so they work with the platform integrating groups, posts, and job postings [competitive review and strengths, value propositions].
Their primary visuals will revolve around people imagery, a complimentary color palette to their logo colors, and similar softer typography to their logo [style guide, brand identity]. By focusing on mobile first, their site design places readability and accessibility high on the requirements list [customer profiles, brand values].
Content is delivered in multiple ways, including long and short-form text and video, to be accessible to a wider audience [competitive strengths, customer profiles].
Connecting your brand roots with your visible brand not only saves you time but reinforces clarity for your key audiences. It’s more straightforward than it seems if the roots are well defined. And it keeps you out of infomercial territory (unless that’s part of your brand).
* I did not find a company named The Energy People, while there were groups within companies with this name, and a company simply called Energy People. If there is a company named The Energy People out there, know that I used the name as an example only and has no relation to your company.