BRANDING AND MARKETING FROM CERTIFIED EXPERTS AND AVID COFFEE CONSUMERS.
Plus
Two EXCLUSIVE “Ask the Experts” questions
Welcome, Founders!
We have arrived at Issue #3 of The Founder’s Huddle, and you may have noticed it looks different from the last one. Well, we decided to take a spoonful of our own medicine!
The Boldthink team underwent our comprehensive brand audit process, a service we provide for our clients, and the results left us itching for change. It was time to make exciting shifts to our brand to keep us fresh, authentic, and unmistakably Boldthink. Our takeaway? No one is immune to a brand strategy becoming stagnant; always keep a finger on the pulse of your business!
If you find something in this issue that piques your interest or sparks questions, drop us a line. We’re here to support you. Alright, it’s time to huddle up!
*coach’s whistle*
Warm regards,
Theresa Goodwin, Founder & CEO
It’s a new year, which means it might be time for a brand refresh! Reevaluate and redefine your business’s brand identity.
Reflect on your brand’s essence and trajectory by asking yourself:
“ Does our brand narrative align with our current values and mission?”
“How does our brand resonate with our target audience, and how are they perceiving our organization?”
“Are our branding strategies adapting to emerging trends and technological shifts?”
“Is there consistency in our brand across all touchpoints?”
If you need help addressing these questions or have realized that your brand needs help, we’ll work together to make your brand bolder in 2024!
Brand consistency is presenting a uniform and cohesive image of a brand across all its touchpoints. Consistency in branding is more than the visual elements; it extends to messaging, tone of voice, and overall brand personality. Brand guidelines, icons, photos, social media templates, and color palettes are all tools for brand consistency within a company. The goal of brand consistency is to create a recognizable and memorable brand that fosters trust, loyalty, and positive associations in the minds of consumers. This consistency affects not only how consumers perceive your brand but also how your team represents it.
Imagine stepping into a McDonald’s anywhere in the world. Whether you find yourself in bustling New York City or a quaint European village, the golden arches and red and yellow color scheme are instantly recognizable. This immediate recognition is the result of a carefully curated brand. Matching elements give your brand a distinct and memorable look and feel, creating a visual identity that becomes ingrained in the minds of consumers.
Consistency in branding ensures that your assets are aligned across all touchpoints. A consistent visual identity is not only aesthetically pleasing but also serves as a powerful tool for brand recall. When customers encounter your brand repeatedly with a consistent
presentation, they begin to associate specific visual cues with your products or services. This recognition becomes a valuable asset, fostering a sense of trust and reliability.
A brand style guide provides clear guidelines on how to communicate your brand’s identity. By following a consistent guide, your team members can produce visuals and content that align seamlessly with the brand’s identity.
Inconsistency can lead to confusion and dilution of your brand. If your marketing materials convey a playful and casual tone on social media but adopt a formal and serious tone on your website, it creates a disjointed experience for the audience. Theses discrepancies make it challenging for customers to form a cohesive understanding and connection to your brand.
A well-defined brand guide acts as a playbook, ensuring that every member of your team is on the same page when it comes to representing the brand. Whether it’s designing a new advertisement, or writing a blog post, consistency ensures that every interaction reinforces the brand’s values and personality.
Consistency should not be mistaken for rigidity. While brand consistency is important to establish a brand, sometimes brand elements used repeatedly can feel stale to your audiences.
A consistent brand is one that can seamlessly introduce new elements, whether it be a refreshed logo, an updated color palette, or a shift in messaging tone, all while maintaining the brand’s authenticity.
When stagnation is a worry, it could be a good time to audit your brand. Within the audit, we can find and expand upon the pieces that resonate with your customers and remove the pieces that are distracting from your brand’s main goals. Consistency allows brands to make small changes to remain fresh and interesting without straying from core values and identities.
For customers, a consistent brand is one they can interact and associate with, building a relationship with each interaction. For a company and its employees, brand consistency removes the guessing game on how to portray a brand, giving guidelines for employees to follow. This duality makes investing in branding an important part of any company’s identity.
Consistency in branding is not a one-time effort but an ongoing commitment. As your brand evolves and grows, it’s essential to revisit and refine your brand guidelines to ensure they align with your current goals and values. The outcomes of a consistent brand set the stage for long-term success.
Erin Mawhorter, Senior Brand DesignerWe were asked...
“When planning for the upcoming year, what are the top 3 marketing goals your company should strive for?”
When it comes to marketing goals, the key is tailoring them to your unique business objectives—there’s no one-size-fits-all approach! But if you’re still looking for a little guidance, here are a few goals worth considering as you build your new marketing strategy:
In 2024, brand experiences go beyond the transaction. Create meaningful interactions on social media and curate personalized content, highlighting your attention to each customer who interacts with you.
This year focus on articulating your brand’s unique place in the market. What sets you apart? Why should we take notice? (And if you’re too close to the subject for an objective view, Boldthink is here to help you out!)
While revenue is driven by sales, loyal brand followers don’t stick around because of a constant sales pitch. Who is your company beyond transactions? What are your interests, discussions, or activities outside the business realm?
If you want your business to stay relevant for future generations, you must continuously adapt to evolving preferences and cultural shifts. One of the biggest hurdles long-standing companies have faced in recent years is the decline in the ability to read and write the cursive script, especially among the younger generation (Gen Z). This shift has forced several companies to rebrand and abandon their traditional cursive logos in favor of more modern, legible designs.
So, why are companies changing their cursive logos for san serif ones? The decline of cursive education in schools. Recently, many schools have shifted their focus to teaching digital literacy and keyboard skills, making cursive writing less relevant in the digital age. Many students now primarily type or use touchscreen devices for written communication.
Schools are also dealing with curriculum constraints and have to prioritize what they teach. Educational systems often have limited time and resources to cover a wide range of subjects and skills. As a result, some traditional skills like cursive handwriting have been de-prioritized to make room for subjects that are considered
more essential, like critical thinking, problem-solving, and digital literacy. Therefore, cursive has become a lost art, with fewer students mastering the skill. The downfall of this shift not only affect individual’s handwriting abilities but also the societal perceptions of cursive as a whole.
Only 37% of Gen Z individuals can read cursive writing. Compared to 60% of Millennials and 74% of Baby Boomers.
As Gen Z rises in dominance as a demographic with considerable spending power, companies are taking note of their unique characteristics and preferences. Among these preferences is the inability to read cursive handwriting. In response, several companies have decided to rebrand, opting for logos that are more accessible and legible to a broader audience. The photo below shows a few examples of popular companies that have taken the leap to the modern side.
The motivations for these companies’ rebranding efforts are rooted in the need to remain relevant and appealing to Gen Z. It’s estimated that Gen Z accounted for 40% of all consumers in 2020. Companies understand that their branding must resonate with the preferences and habits of this influential demographic. The move away from cursive logos is a way to bridge the generational gap, ensuring that their brands remain inclusive and understandable to all consumers.
As companies continue to adapt to the changing landscape of consumer preferences, the fate of cursive logos hangs in the balance. While some companies have already made the switch to more contemporary designs, others may choose to preserve their cursive branding. The businesses that have rebranded for clarity and modernity have reported increased engagement with their target audience. This suggests that moving away from cursive logos has been a favorable strategic decision for their brand evolution.
As companies continue to adapt, the future of cursive logos remains uncertain. This shift is motivated by the need to stay relevant, recognizable, and appealing to a generation with significant purchasing power. However, the statistics clearly indicate that the legibility and accessibility of branding will be essential for companies to thrive in the evolving market. Whether a company embraces a more modern design or retains its cursive roots will depend on its target audience and its value in bridging the generational divide.
withSeniorBrandDesigner,ErinMawhorter
We were asked...
“What are three brand trends (specifically visual) that are emerging in 2024?”
With Generations Z and Alpha in the mix, companies in all fields are moving towards brighter, eye-catching colors. From the craze of Stanley cups to popular skincare brands, companies are using color to go for bold.
Dynamic type refers to the angles and design choices that makes logos appear to move, giving a sense of action and innovation. Popular rebrands such as Nokia and Fanta have reinforced that this brand trend is here to stay in 2024.
Moving away from the skeuomorphic style of the early-to-mid 2000s, clean branding is continuing to rise in popularity. In combination with bold colors and typography, this style shows that we can do a lot with a little.
The recent Jell-o rebrand is a tribute to this style, with patternless, colorful backgrounds and a simple yet strong logo.
As we continue with our education campaign, Let’s Teach, Indiana!, we created a series of new advertisements, including billboards, bus shelter posters, and bus graphics! In our pursuit to change the teaching narrative, we created bold, eye-catching graphics to capture the public’s attention. If you’re around the Indianapolis area, be on the lookout for our work!
Pursuing perfection (especially in the creative field) can often become a double-edged sword. While aiming for excellence is respected, the relentless pursuit of perfection can lead to a phenomenon known as “perfection paralysis.” This state of overthinking and hesitancy hinders progress, preventing businesses from adapting to dynamic market trends.
The pressure to produce perfect campaigns and products is evident in the brand and marketing industry. However, an unrelenting chase for perfection often results in missed opportunities, delayed launches, and a stifled creative process. The fear of making mistakes can paralyze decisionmaking, preventing businesses from staying agile and responsive to consumer needs.
Perfectionism can manifest as a subtle barrier to innovation. Teams can become so fixated on getting every detail right that they lose sight of the bigger picture. This pauses progress, suppresses creativity, and limits the ability to experiment with new ideas.
The pursuit of perfection can also be resource-intensive. Pouring excessive time and resources into perfecting a single part of a campaign or product is not cost-effective for the company. So, it’s important to balance high standards and efficiency to ensure perfection doesn’t compromise the overall goals of your business.
Contrary to perfectionism, progress is about continuous improvement and learning from experiences. In the brand and marketing industry, being able to adapt quickly and iterate on strategies is paramount. Progress recognizes that setbacks are inevitable but views them as opportunities for growth rather than failures.
Embracing progress enables a culture of innovation within a company. Teams are encouraged to experiment, take calculated risks, and learn from both successes and failures. This mindset not only drives creativity but also enables businesses to stay ahead of the curve in a constantly changing market.
The continuation of progress allows for faster go-to-market strategies. Instead of waiting for every detail to align perfectly, businesses can launch campaigns or products and gather real-time feedback for improvements. This datadriven approach enables quicker adjustments, leading to more effective and successful marketing efforts.
Set Realistic Goals and Expectations:
Define clear, achievable goals for each project. Establishing realistic expectations helps manage the pressure that comes with perfectionism and allows teams to focus on incremental progress.
Write out your top three achievable goals for your project for the day, and you’ll see tremendous progress.
Cultivate a culture that values learning and improvement. A growth mindset encourages resilience in the face of challenges and encourages team members to view setbacks as opportunities for development.
If an error occurs, take the time to explain why something didn’t work so your team members are prepared and educated next time.
Create a sense of urgency without sacrificing quality. Efficient time management ensures that projects move forward without unnecessary delays, preventing the onset of perfection paralysis.
Before a project starts, discuss the timeline and deadlines with everyone involved so expectations are clear and agreed upon.
Celebrate Small Wins:
Recognize and celebrate achievements, no matter how small. Acknowledging progress boosts team morale and reinforces the idea that success is a journey, not a destination.
Even the smallest recognition can boost someone’s confidence, creating better quality outcomes.
Foster Open Communication:
Create an environment where team members feel comfortable expressing their ideas and concerns. Open communication allows for collaborative problemsolving and prevents isolation, often enabling perfectionist tendencies.
Collaborating with team members can spark new ideas or ways of tackling a challenge rather than one person trying to figure it out independently, potentially creating delays.
Learn from Failures:
Instead of viewing mistakes as setbacks, treat them as valuable learning experiences. Analyze failures objectively, extract insights, and apply the lessons learned to future endeavors.
Learning as you go will make you stronger in your position rather than never being able to learn because you’re paralyzed by perfection.
Overcoming perfection paralysis requires a shift in mindset, embracing imperfections as stepping stones toward improvement. By promoting a culture of progress, businesses can stay agile, innovative, and resilient in the face of challenges, ultimately achieving long-term success.
