← Journal · 31 May 2022 · Alex Barratt

Discover Your Brands Real Identity

The first step to discovering your brand’s authentic identity is to take a long, hard look at your business.

It sounds easy, but brand identity it’s tough to build from scratch. And even when you have one, it can be hard to keep it consistent. In the simplest terms, your brand identity is an agreed collaboration among executives, writers, marketers, and others in your company to project a certain image. It determines what you discuss in your corporate messaging, the tone you have, and how you want your company to be perceived by the rest of the world.

Start by taking stock of your business

The first step to discovering your brand’s identity is to take a long, hard look at your business.

What’s the point of your organization?

What are your brand’s values?

What pain points are you addressing in your market?

Your brand as a person

Create brand consistency by centralizing assets, brand guidelines & UI.

What does this “person” enjoy?

What words would you use to describe this person to others?

How would this person answer questions posed by his/her market? These essential questions determine who your target market is and how you should address them. Look at the purpose of your company, the problems you’re solving, and your company’s biggest values.These foundational questions form the basis of your identity discovery process.

With the basics on paper, move on to the next step: imagining what your brand would be like as a person. Given that you’re creating a “identity” for this corporate entity, this is a natural next step

The idea here is to look at what your brand is composed of and distill the elements into a theme that aligns with your company’s goals. This is the core aspect of what it means to define your brand’s identity.

The road to a great brand voice is one of self-discovery and trial and error. You might not get it right the first time, but that’s okay. What’s important is that you stick to the process and test the results over time. You’ll want to get feedback from your market on how well your voice resonates, but as long as you follow the above steps, you’ll be well on your way to a brand voice that’s effective at connecting with your audience.

E very voice needs to be aligned to a specific audience—no matter what the brand is.