As a partner in the Fancy Club, a New York design firm working in the fashion and music video industries, Kim Swift focuses much of her effort on helping clients tell a brand story. But when it came to creating a corporate identity for her own firm last year, she and partner Andrew Stevens turned to outside experts.

Swift describes the Fancy Club as a group of creative young “culturesmiths” that strives to communicate ideas through holistic narratives rather than through conventional ad campaigns. The approach results in “stories that morph into strong visual brand identities, viral short films, luxurious experiential events, or all of the above,” Swift says. Yet it also raised challenges in setting pricing strategies, defining deliverables, and allowing the company to find its niche in the industry.

So the firm hired the New York–based brand identity specialist Muffin Cupcake & Associates, which streamlined the Fancy Club’s services and created a concise business development strategy to complement its nonlinear creative process. “Their intuitive consulting guided us to the uncharted territory between art collective and ad agency,” Swift says. “That’s the brand identity we now convey in all our engagements.”

These days, it’s not enough for a growing business to rely on the products and services it offers and the prices it charges. Having a strong brand identity lends credibility in a crowded marketplace and gives a company a personality beyond the people who work there, says Jessica Resler, a principal at Muffin Cupcake. “Brand identity lets customers and potential customers see the lifestyle of your company,” she notes. “It helps them decide whether they want to do business with you.” Properly executed, a good brand identity program can also offset a small company’s limited resources for traditional advertising, Resler adds.

How the Process Starts
Any corporate identity development must start with an inward-looking audit, says Erin Ferree, principal and lead designer at Elf Design, a consulting firm based in Belmont, Calif. Working with dozens of growth-oriented businesses since 1996, Ferree has developed a well-defined approach she calls “brandstorming.” She starts by having clients sit down and define their business. “An entire lexicon of marketing terms has grown up around this process, and big companies can devote lots of time and resources to it,” Ferree says. “But small businesses don’t have that luxury. What it really boils down to is figuring out what your business is about, what your tag line should be.”

Conveying a consistent, unified message is critical to any brand identity program, Resler admits. And that’s one reason such programs should be rolled out gradually. “First, you have to make sure all employees understand the new brand, or changes to the existing brand, and how to communicate that brand to customers,” she says. “A gradual rollout reduces the risk of alienating existing customers.”

Involving customers — especially important ones — during the initial design process not only helps to reassure them, it also provides you with valuable feedback from the people who are most important to your business, Ferree says.

Stay Abreast of Marketing Trends
In terms of the brand design itself, logos and marketing materials are subject to trends just like any other visual art form. While there’s nothing wrong with being trendy, so long as the design reflects the qualities you want to project for your business, it’s a mistake to choose a logo design on that basis alone, Ferree warns. “Your brand identity is going to be your company’s wardrobe going forward. You don’t want to be stuck with something that makes you look dated,” she says.

The cost for end-to-end brand identity development or a makeover (including both strategic and design elements) is based largely on company size, goals, and the extent of the materials you want produced. According to Resler, a good brand package for a growing business can usually be brought in for less than $10,000.

Brand identity marketing is a must-have, not a nice-to-have for growing businesses in a competitive marketplace, Ferree stresses. “If prospective customers don’t know who you are and what you stand for, they’re not going to do business with you,” she says. “Brand identity is the rifle-shot way to deliver that message and make it stick.”

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