‘You have a logo, we have a tagline

In a previous article, we considered what ‘a brand’ means. We also briefly touched upon how branding companies and brand consultancy practices help a company define its brand and nurture that brand. It is not difficult to imagine that brand consulting is big business. In fact, any business that helps other businesses make big money, or get a great name, can expect to share in the success of its clients. And brand consultants in India are no exception to this.

Let us now step inside a brand consulting company, and see some of the work they do. When we talk of a brand, generally the first thing that comes to our mind is the brand logo. You mention Apple, and the image of the half bitten apple springs to the listener’s mind, even though, perhaps, you are just hungry and are asking for an apple to eat. Or, in India, the mention of savories and sweets brings up the yellow colored logo of Haldiram’s with its signature red lettering.

Thus, one can readily appreciate the importance a well-designed logo has in building a brand. A brand consulting practice could spend almost unlimited resources on getting just the right logo. And you can be sure a discerning customer whose brand you are building, is not likely to compromise on cost or time and accept the first logo that you can come up with.

That is not to say that a branding company is fully of design artists, who spend their time in smoke filled rooms strewn with printouts of discarded logos. There is more to a brand than just a logo. What would you think, if you just saw a curved tick mark? Even if someone pointed out that it was the Nike tick or the Nike ‘swoosh’, would you not feel that by itself, the tick, or the logo, was incomplete? If one adds on Nike’s tagline – "Just do it", you feel a sense of completeness.

A logo and a tagline are both required, to help identify a brand. Any brand consulting company takes on the creation of the logo and the tagline very seriously. They study their customer and the customer’s business. They make sure that the logo and the tagline convey the correct image about the customer’s business.

The logo and tagline should be appropriate. While a logo with a picture of fireworks or musical instruments would be good for a wedding planner that would hardly be true if the customer were an undertaker. To know more visit our website at http://www.brandharvest.net/

So what do you look for, when you are trying to select from a list of brand consultants in India.Look at their list of clients. Look at the logos and taglines that the brand consulting company came up with for its customers. Consider how attractive and memorable the logo is, and how catchy the tagline is. Look at the letterheads they designed. If you saw someone across the room, holding a sheet of paper, would you from that distance, be able to recognize the logo, and remember the tagline?

As any brand consulting company would tell you, a logo and a tagline are not all that make your brand. There are many other things that go into a brand. More about all that, in our next.