3 reasons why developing your brand will help your product succeed
by Gemma Olds ✦ 25 May 2023 ✦ 5 Min Read
We can all name plenty of brands that we love and recognise instantly. They use brand identity, tone of voice and behaviours to establish consistency, trust, loyalty and advocacy across their product.
A brand identity with a distinct personality helps to differentiate you from your competitors. Good brands stay true to their purpose, mission and values. Why they do what they do. When people feel a connection to your brand and its values, they are more likely to continue using and recommending your product.
However, an emphasis on brand development doesn’t need to take away from the focus on user experience. Brand and UX go hand in hand. A positive user experience has a direct impact on brand perception. Focusing on both better equips your product to succeed. Read on to learn the three reasons why developing your brand will help guarantee product success.
1. Product design focus
Designing your product can be an overwhelming process. You know the problem you are trying to solve but there are a handful of ways you could do it, and even more features and ideas you could include.
Businesses can often get stuck at this stage not knowing how to move forward. Defining your brand's purpose, mission and values can guide you through your product design process. By using your brand as a lens, you can ensure that your product vision is mapped to your brand. Making choices becomes easier when you have a set of clear brand values to support your decisions.
The hot coral card effect
Monzo is regularly held in high regard amongst product folk. And for good reason too. With a clear purpose from the very start, Monzo created a product and brand that has stayed true to its optimistic spirit.
Starting with the famous hot coral card.
The card quickly became a physical manifestation of Monzo's desire to be the smart bank for a new generation. Representing the brand's warm and empathic tone of voice. The effect? Monzo has gone on to surpass one million new users, every year. The perfect disrupter.
2. Market distinction
A good product needs to stand out from the crowd and have its own identity. This means it’s not enough to solely focus on the visual aspects of your product, you also need to hone in on tone and personality. Your brand and product need to connect with people for them to choose it over something else.
But more than that, your brand personality can help guide the behaviours of your product. If you're playful you should be focusing on interactions that add delight, if you're minimalist your interactions should be to the point and free from jargon. All of these decisions will flow naturally if you have done the groundwork defining your brand.
3. Fast-paced iteration and development.
Brand work done upfront, however small, will help your product design process flow much quicker. When you already know how your design should feel, how you should talk, and what your purpose is, you can spend more time focusing on the core problem you are trying to solve.
Spending even just a little bit of time on your brand ahead of time allows you to quickly design and test with confidence.
Using brand values to secure product success
Doing brand work alongside design gives your product the best chance of success. We’ve seen it first-hand. From working closely with some of the best branding agencies around (shoutout to Koto) to designing something that’s the first expression of a new brand. We take brand values and help teams define their product and deliver their idea.
If you're a startup wanting to validate a new idea this can feel like a big investment. But getting ahead and developing your brand early will give you better foundations to get your idea to market.
So whatever your product idea, whether you're a startup or household name, don’t overlook the importance of taking the time to develop or evolve your brand when designing your product.
If you’d like to find out more about how we can develop or evolve your brand to help set your product up for success, drop me an email, gemma@planes.agency.
