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Brand concepts
Branding is the process by which a business employs marketing strategies to make it easy for people to remember your business and products over others ... essentially, it's applied psychology.
As a kid, I met a relatively new burger chain that had started in Australia. Not much has changed in these years regarding this particular company and I suppose that is one of the reasons I remain a customer. I know every time I walk into that establishment what I'm going to eat, where everything is, and God help you if you ever take the item off the menu! Even if they radically changed the decor, I'd be nervous.
One of the main supermarkets in our country has the habit of moving products from time to time in its stores. Customers who generally search for particular products are exposed to other items while searching for their favorites. It is a very annoying tactic and it only works in this situation because the supermarket is very competitive in prices and variety of products. People are not that patient on websites and continually moving items on your site will cause you to lose traffic ... nothing is safer.
Having worked in the management of another major fast food chain, I learned that once a company has established a presence and has been successful, any changes to the operation must be carried out with the utmost care. Our clients were very much in tune with the company, they were essentially part of it. Their perceptions and opinions had to be taken into account every step of the way, and not just when it came to products.
Why?
We have succumbed to the experience of the brand ... it makes us feel "safe"
Branding is not just about logos, it is all the "feeling" associated with a company. In these days of cutting edge technology and rapid change, people still enjoy going to places that follow a pattern of operation. This applies a lot to our websites. Your logo should appear on every page, your domain name, and a one-line blurb contained in every email, your theme should be consistent across your site. Of course, quality content is king, but it's important for visitors to remember where the content is coming from. Branding establishes your site's retrieval capabilities.
Recently, I decided that I was going to change the color schemes on my site because of the research I had done on the psychology of color. Many articles I had studied suggested that black was not really appropriate for a web design site. After discussing the plans with some regular visitors, I was surprised by the response. The answer was for me not to change the color in any way. Even those people who didn't feel that black was appropriate considering the nature of the site didn't want me to change it. They were "used" to it. It was a constant on the site, as was the location of the logo and the general navigation structure. Then everything stays. My plans were to make the site look more in tune with other very successful web presences that focus on web design. What was I thinking!?!?!?
Branding is not just about constants, but about individuality ..........
If someone told you that they were going to establish a burger franchise and the color scheme of the logo would be red and yellow, you would probably think they were crazy. Red tends to mean danger and yellow is supposed to be the most annoying color of all. But try to tell McDonalds that ...
But having said that, if you are only in the planning stages of your site, I suggest that you be careful when choosing navigation, logos, and color schemes. If your site is established with a good traffic flow and you are considering renovating it, it is of the utmost importance that you consult your visitors first through some kind of survey before any radical changes are made. Otherwise, the many hours of hard work you put into the update, as well as the hours invested in developing the original theme, may be lost.
