I hear it all the time: "That design is too simple. It doesn't mean anything."
My answer is always: "Maybe not ... yet."
Simplicity opens the door for creativity — not the other way around.
If I add more ingredients to a cake, it doesn't make it more clearly a cake. That will simply overload the taste profile and probably make it worse. Building your brand identity is no different.
It's easy to think that meaning needs to be inscribed — in your logo for example. That it needs to "say" what your company does. But the reality is:
Complexity is limiting (hard to work with + impossible to remember).
Literal is limiting (means one thing, can never flex).
A brand should never become one-note and lack flexibility.
Solutions that are simple — but find themselves free from being bound by a single story — become much more versatile and valuable over time.
What does the Nike logo mean to you? It means something else to me. There's power in that. It becomes personal.
Simple solutions that "lack meaning" on day one can take on a universe of meaning over time.
The Marketing Rule of Seven "asserts that a potential customer should encounter a brand's marketing messages at least seven times before making a purchase decision." That growing predisposition to your brand delivers tangible returns. Kantar's Blueprint for Brand Growth found that brands people are strongly predisposed to (aka strong branding) have nine times the volume share, double the higher price paid, and are four times more likely to grow sales values.
After Nike's poor Q2 2024 financials, the former senior brand director reflects on the failings of reorganization efforts, particularly the shifting from "brand marketing to digital marketing and from brand enhancing to sales activation."
There's a disconnect — and opportunity — between perception and reality in B2B brands. Although the majority of B2B marketers think they communicate a distinct brand position, "68% of buyers believe 'many of the brands I see at work have very similar marketing and communications messages — they all sound and act the same.'"
"Brand awareness is a vital component of a company's long-term success. However, when marketing budgets are tight, the first area that is often cut is brand spend simply because the immediate ROI isn't as evident. But this is short-term thinking with long-term implications."
