Brand Ecosystem
Your brand ecosystem goes way beyond your logo and color pallet. This is the interconnected web of touchpoints, content, channels, and experiences that shape how your audience perceives your brand. It is the cumulative effect of every signal you send, from your website to your LinkedIn posts. And as such, it requires a unified effort across just about every department in your organization.
More Than A Design Problem
It’s easy to see the word “brand” in the name and assume this falls under the design umbrella. Design certainly has a lot to do with it, for sure, but we need to widen our gaze a bit here. Brand ecosystems are bigger pursuits with loftier goals. Which goals?
Think of it this way: Brand ecosystems are your architecture of trust. You are building, one brick at a time, a system that holds, enforces, and grows the trust your audience feels when interacting with your brand. From whatever path your potential customer has taken to find you, your brand must stand up to their scrutiny. Your message must be consistent from every angle. According to MediaValet, if you get this wrong, you waste resources and dilute trust.
More Than An Aesthetic
I know what you’re thinking: We’ve already got this covered in our creative department. And while it’s true that assets like your brand guidelines are a foundational part of your ecosystem, it would be a mistake to think they are the end of the road. Using those guidelines to build a fully functional ecosystem is what will turn the hard work of your creative team in and real-world boost in revenue.
How much of a boost? MarcomCentral cites research that shows that maintaining this level of brand consistency across the ecosystem increased revenue by 23%. This is the power of thinking in systems. When all the moving pieces work together, you manage to leverage your brand’s voice, aesthetic, everything into a cohesive whole. And that builds trust.
Alleviating the Trust Problem for Cybersecurity and Tech
The elephant in the room here is that, for cybersecurity and tech companies, most of the decision-making journey happens long before your potential customer ever talks to your sales team. Trust is built, or eroded, during all the self-directed research behind every lead.
Buyers in this space are a savvy lot. They aren’t the sort to walk into a meeting without serious background info. In fact, Gartner found that a full 75% of decision makers prefer rep-free experiences. Your brand ecosystem is your chance to be there for each touchpoint they bump into during this discovery process. And each time they see you pop up, you have the same message, the same style, the same tone. That’s the sort of stability decision makers crave.
Examples
Bricklayer.ai:
Punch partnered with Bricklayer to build a cohesive brand system and digital foundation that spanned logo design, color palette, typography, messaging, and a full suite of brand guidelines. That’s in addition to ongoing marketing collateral creation, product UX/UI design, and continuous creative support.
Blackbird.ai:
When Blackbird.ai realized their existing brand didn’t fully capture the revolutionary nature of their offerings, Punch stepped in to redesign the brand, yielding new positioning, increased engagement, and better lead generation.
Raft:
As Raft continued to grow within the defense technology sector, they realized their brand, while established, was incomplete. So, Punch helped them refine their brand identity to align with their mission, build an interactive website, produce high quality videos for product demos and testimonials, and provide full-service creative support.