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Tire.ae – Tyre Shop – A Complete Review

Among the most renowned tyre service companies in the Middle East is Tire.ae. Founded in 2004 and located on Umm Suqeim road in Dubai. Additionally, they have branches in Umm Ramool Dubai, Baniyas Abu Dhabi, and Mussafah Abu Dhabi.

In their workshop, they keep a wide variety of tyre brands and types. Tire sales and installation, wheel and rim repair, digital wheel alignment, oil changes, and car polishing are their main services. In addition, they keep the most famous battery brands in stock. Additionally, they offer mobile battery stations to help customers who need jumper starts or battery replacements at their locations.

If you are looking to shop tire and rims online in Dubai, then you should visit Tire.ae. The purpose of Tire.ae is to assist their customers with their tire and vehicle-related needs in Dubai, Sharjah, Abu Dhabi, Ajman, Al Ain, and the wider United Arab Emirates.

Tire.ae – Most Exhaustive Selection of Branded Tyres

In the UAE, Tire.ae is recognized as one of the leading online tyre companies. There are many brands of tires available for sale in Dubai, including Bridgestone, Dunlop, Pirelli, Sumitomo, Hankook, Michelin, Continental, and Goodyear, among others. Their UAE website showcases tyres at rates that are simply unbeatable by other tire companies. Tire.ae’s business model is centered around customer satisfaction, so quality is never compromised!

Tire.ae- Tire Segment

Tire.ae distributes premium brand tires in the following segments:

  •  Passenger Cars

  • SUVs

  • 4×4 Cars

    The vision of tire.ae is to provide excellent customer service and high quality brands in the tire and accessories distribution business. Providing the best quality tires and services to its customers is tire.ae’s mission. A leading Branding Agency in Dubai, MoonBox builds long-term relationships with brands and businesses. Moonbox Branding is proud to have tire.ae as a client.

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Blogs

How to Design a Fashion Logo for Your Brand?

The fashion industry requires brand owners to stand out from the competition and attract customers in a crowded market. Having a strong, unique fashion logo is one of the best ways to achieve this.

Design is an important aspect of the fashion industry. This is also true for your brand’s overall aesthetic, whether it’s clothing, accessories, sportswear, or any other kind of apparel. 

By designing a fashion logo, you validate your professionalism, tell clients who you are and what you do, and help you stand out from the competition. 

Fashion Brand Logo Design: What to Consider?

When designing a fashion brand logo, there are a few key points to keep in mind. 

1. Simple 

When it comes to logo design, sometimes less is more. Simple logo designs allow you to express your brand’s essence clearly, which is important since your audience will only look at your logo for a short time. 

Logos that are simple highlight the most important aspects of a brand without taking up a lot of space. Color, font, shape, and icons can be used to convey messages, as can distilling ideas to their simplest form.

2. Recognizable

Audiences must be able to recognize your logo immediately. It is important that your logo creates a connection with your target audience and generates interest in your brand. The Nike swoosh or the Lacoste alligator are two examples of brands whose logos instantly evoke a sense of recognition.

3. Scalable 

No matter where your logo appears, it should look amazing. Consider your logo design’s look across different mediums, whether your price tag, clothing, website, or social media page. It is therefore important to choose a layout that preserves the quality of your logo even after it is resized.

4. Original

Being true to yourself is the number one rule of design. Customers are much more likely to remain loyal if you are authentic. Keeping your logo design original to your brand will give your brand a sense of identity.

Your Fashion Logo Style – Make your own Fashion Brand Logo

As well as those four tips, the design of your fashion logo will also depend on your target audience and specialty.

1. Target audience

There are specific demographics within society that want or need what you’re selling. You should select design elements (color combinations, icons, fonts, etc.) based on who your target audience is.

Here are a few examples of fashion design logos that appeal to specific target audiences.  

Feminine 

Color is the first design element to consider when creating a fashion logo for a feminine audience. 

Color psychology suggests that colors help your brand connect with your target audience psychologically and emotionally. In choosing your logo color palette, you are also selecting the emotions you want to convey. 

Kids

An icon is a sure way to attract younger audiences to your fashion logo. Icons convey and make recognizable certain ideas.  

Masculine

Typography is an important design element to consider if you want to attract a masculine audience. 

A font can evoke specific responses and create unique associations with a brand. Creating a fashion logo requires you to take into account the psychological meaning of each font type. 

Slab serif fonts, for example, represent confidence, dependability, and assurance thanks to their thick lines and less delicate serifs.

2. Specialty 

Designers specialize in specific fields or categories. Depending on your specialty, certain design elements will work better for you.  

Here are a few examples of logos that suit fashion designer specialties.  

3. Athleisure

In terms of logo design, athleisure or sportswear fashion brands have a lot of room for creativity.

4. Vintage 

Vintage clothing brands should use their logos to get their message across loud and clear. Many vintage logos have a weathered appearance, often with muted colors and a simple color palette.  

For vintage brands, script fonts evoke creativity, freedom, and an antiquated feel.

Winding Up

The information you have just read should help you create a logo for your fashion brand. Focus on what makes your brand stand out and what you want to communicate to your customers. It’s easy to create a logo with just a few clicks when you’re ready! 

 

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Blogs

What Role do Websites Have in Branding?

Your website offers great potential for your brand to be noticed and remembered. There are pages on your website that help connect your brand to your customer and generate potential leads.

Every website is created with a different purpose and brings out your brand’s best and most unique qualities, but what’s common across all sites, is the need to create customer connect and loyalty. Few critical changes to your website can impact your brand immensely and bring the desired results.

Did you know that the most visited pages on your website are your Homepage, About, Blogs, and Contact us? How these pages are designed and written is crucial. Knowing the purpose of each page helps design them to achieve the desired response.

There is a way to optimize these pages or any other page on your website that is intended to bring traffic. Have you heard the term “optimize” in relation to a webpage?

This buzz word “optimize” is used frequently in phrases like “search engine optimization” (SEO) and “conversion rate optimization” (CRO). We advocate USER OPTIMIZED pages. It is vital that traffic is diverted to your page to initiate conversions. That can only happen when your page is user optimized.

How does one achieve user optimization? It is simple. You ask questions, and the answers to these questions will pave the way to create a page that is USER OPTIMIZED

To reach your user, find out what they are looking for and their source of arrival to the website.

The source of the user will aid in delivering relevant information. The user could have appeared from a number of avenues like:

1: A search engine- If yes then how? What was the question asked?

2: An email- What kind of email?

3: A navigation menu and therefore what option on the menu

4. Google Playstore

5. Referrals- which site were your visitors redirected from?

Find out what your target needs to know and remember that a single page can deliver only a limited amount of information. Less is more holds true here. The lesser you load on your WEB PAGE, the more are the chances of your brand being remembered.

Visuals such as explainer videos, diagrams, hero shots help make information compact and deliver the message with greater emphasis. Once you know what your user is looking for, you are halfway through.

easy navigation

Now you need to know the goal of your user. You have to ask the user to do something. This is the critical hit or miss spot, or, the call to action. In fact, every single page of your website should contain a CTA, a call to action.

Make every page informative from a user perspective so that it leads the user to the next page or the Call to Action. Ask questions that are on their minds and let the answers be revealed in the Call to Action. Define what you want the user to do, and create threads that link the user to the final action.

To increase brand recall make sure your HOME PAGE is intriguing. There is no doubt that every page should reflect your brand image and brand values, but your Homepage will ultimately bring in traffic and keep customers coming back.

Your Home Page is the door to the rest of your website and should be complete and crisp, encompassing everything that stimulates interest and inspires a purchase.

Role of Websites in Branding

Without an impressive Home Page, it is almost impossible to get to your user and your potential buyer might be lost in a pool of sites that are trying hard to be noticed.

A good Home Page encourages easy navigation by giving access to information the user is looking for, in a systematic fashion. A user experience influences purchasing decisions.

Role of Websites in Branding

Secondly, an attractive Home Page boosts conversions. Who wants to associate with a sloppy-looking company? Make your Home Page look confident and convincing.

To pack a punch into your Home Page include elements like a Call to Action, white space, and excellent copy to complement a fantastic layout. This exercise will build trust and assist visitors.

Another important aspect of a Home Page is that you have to keep it adaptable and evolving. A static Home Page can get boring and out-dated too. One more important aspect of a Home Page is to keep it clutter-free.

Too many graphics and features might make it look messy. Also, it is extremely important to make your Home Page mobile compatible as that is where most brand information is viewed today.  Your Home Page should appeal to your audience persona.

Avoid any fluff and keep it honest and direct. Use an appealing value after studying the consumer psyche.

To wrap it up neatly, keep your Home Page minimal. Speak less, but be impactful.

Use breath-taking images and be real. Show your audience right off the bat and you’ve got what they are looking for.

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Blogs

Humanize Your Business to Make It Big!

To make it big in the market, you must have a strong sense of who your customer is.
You may think about conducting full-fledged market research to understand your customers but first, remember this one fact:

Before anything else, your customer is human.
In today’s fast paced, increasingly digitized world, what people crave the most is connection and interaction. Nobody likes to interact with chatbots or the pre-recorded voice that tells us what to do.
In order to make your brand memorable, the first step is to humanize your brand. In this blog, we are going to share 4 practical and easy tricks that will make your brand more approachable for your customers!

  1. Show the People of Your Organization

The best way to humanize your brand starts by sharing something about you and your team. The people behind the brand. You can start by creating a Social Media Account on Twitter or LinkedIn along with a company page. This space can add a more personal element to your brand.

Here you can share the achievements and stories of your employees through your company page or website. Moreover, hosting social events virtually where your employees or team can add value and show their humorous side is a huge plus!

Marriott does this wonderfully, by using the storytelling format by dedicating an entire month to their women employees, and showcasing powerful stories to highlight their work experiences.

Humanize Your Business to Make It Big

Your audience actually wants to see the people who work with you, so include real pictures of real people on your website.

 

  1. Focus on Educating Your Prospects. Sales Will Follow

When do you buy a product? What compels you to buy a product?

There could be multiple answers to these two questions and all of them could be right, given particular circumstances. While you think the answer to these questions, let us tell you something fundamental: Nobody likes to fall for an effective selling strategy! It is because we feel manipulated.

focus on educational information

However, when a purchasing decision is made after thorough analysis and understanding, the purchase becomes more organic and special. So, a better approach is to understand the problems, and requirements of your customers and instead of telling them to become a buyer, focus on telling them how your offering can solve their problems.

  1. Leverage the Power of Video Content

Videos are among the most engaging forms of content, and a great tool to capture audience attention. You can use videos to show your employees, office, and through these tell the story of your brand or product.

The best part is that you can fit in a video anywhere; be it your “About” page, Home page, blogs, social media handles, or even ads. Using videos will ensure that more and more people will know about your brand and product.

video content is the key

  1. Nothing Says Human More Than Moment Marketing

When it comes to humanizing the brand, nothing beats the power of moment marketing. (A marketing strategy that involves the use of text or graphics, related to any recent event, is called moment marketing.) Brands like Netflix and Zomato have acquired a lot of followers through this marketing strategy. Before the latest season of Money Heist, a Netflix show of worldwide fame, many brands including Pepsi and Magnum jumped onto the bandwagon to promote the show in association with their brands where characters of the show were seen on Pepsi bottles.

Closer home, the Al Mamzar area saw it’s first Money Heist themed cafe in Dubai- El Professor Burger. The place was a hit immediately owing to its relevance to this popular show, with the owner of the cafe even taking the name ‘El Professor.’

moment marketing strategy

Moment marketing represents your brand as trendy, approachable, and fun.

We hope these tricks will prove effective for your brand. If you have any queries, please feel free to reach out to us.

 

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Blogs

Visual Elements Matter! Use Them Smartly for Effective Brand Identity

Read before you choose the visual elements for your branding

About a year ago, one of our prospective clients approached us and said:

“We have to launch next week. We can’t delay. Let’s start with the current branding ideas, and we will keep changing things as we move forward.”

We could not allow that to happen because branding is not a one-off thing that should be changed every now and then. It is one of the key aspects of your business, it gives your business an identity that people will associate with for a long period of time, if not for life.

The main reason for sticking to one brand identity is to strengthen brand recognition among customers. Changing it often would destroy the true purpose of the branding process. Therefore, it is crucial to properly plan and carefully choose every aspect of your branding process.

How do you think our team responded?

Of course, we couldn’t turn them down! This was a big project. Our team arranged a meeting with the client and explained to them the whole scenario and how this could be a disaster.

Visual elements help generate emotion and establish a connection with your audience, reinforcing the power of your brand in their mind.

Let us have a look at some of the key visual elements that businesses have to consider while drafting an effective brand identity:

The Logo

image

Your logo becomes the visual representation of your brand, and it is engraved on, literally, everything! You might have to go through several changes to get that final logo that best represents your brand and all that it stands for. But when you do, it will be totally worth it!

 

Color Palette 

image

Choose colors that reflect the personality of a brand. For example, you may want to select bright colors when you open a toy store, but you need to pick highly sophisticated colours while selling cosmetics.

It is also better to choose only a few colors and use them throughout your logo, images, designs, and even texts. Moreover, this strategy also helps in building brand recognition. Doesn’t “red” come to your mind when you hear “Air Arabia”? ‘’Apple’’ is associated with its iconic black and white colors, and ‘’McDonald’s’’ for its famous yellow arc.

Studies show that when audiences see a logo repeatedly, they are able to recognise the brand basis the color palette without even seeing the name.

 

Typography 

image

This is a fancy term for “Fonts”! Just like colors, you need to pick your fonts carefully because they affect how your audience perceives your brand. For instance, for a toy store, you can select fonts like Gill Sans, but you have to be very selective while picking a font for a cosmetic brand. An elegant font like Playfair Display or Sans Serif is a suitable option for such a business.

 

Images and Layout

image

Just like all the aspects discussed above, the images you use must align with the theme of your brand. A sophisticated monotone image with a backdrop of London Street will look out of place on a blog of your toy store’s website. However, the same might look just right on a fashion or lifestyle website.

 

With all this settled, the last thing that you have to focus on is the layout and whether it aligns with the whole branding strategy or not.

That’s it! You are all set and ready to go!

If you are wondering about the project, we still got it! However, it was a mammoth task for our A-team to complete the project before its launch.

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Top 5 Go-to Websites for Graphic Designers

Creativity is just like any other skill. It needs to be polished and sharpened time and again. Whether you are a new graphic designer or an advanced professional, one thing remains unchanged: your heavy dependence on typography, colour theory, and other creative resources to expand and add dimension to your designs.
To get you moving when you hit a creative block or need a fresh perspective on things, we’ve put together a list of 5 great websites to help you take your next project to a new level.

 

  1. Logoinspirations

logoinspirations

The name gives it away; this site hosts a vast collection of professional logo designs. Browse through it, and you might find the inspiration you need from one of the many beautiful templates. You can also design your logo on this website.

The resources section on the website has an extensive list of tools you need to succeed as a designer, including Envato, Printful, The Hungry Jpeg, and Flywheel, among others.

 

  1. Dribble

dribble

Dribble is an online community for graphic designers to connect with other creatives, share ideas, get inspiration, and feedback, maybe even find a future collaborator or colleague. You can sign up to this site for free and follow designers whose work interests you. You have the option to publish your work on the site where others can see it, but only if a member has invited you. Note: You must save and upload your work to Dribble’s draft page to get an invite. Once it is uploaded, make sure to connect and interact with other designers to widen your network and improve your chances of getting an invite.

Dribble also works as a platform for hiring managers to scout new talent.

 

  1. Adobe Color CC

adobe color cc

Earlier known as Adobe Kuler, this site offers a free online color tool that can be used to create various color themes and palettes. You can also share your ideas and work with others. Another highlight of this site is color relationships. Using Adobe Color on your browser you can find new color combinations and save them via the color wheel on the homepage. You can adjust the color picker between different search parameters such as analogous, monochromatic, complementary, or triad.

Another way to create color relationships is by using the app’s camera function.

You can identify color schemes from the various surroundings of your choice, and the app will pick up colors in real-time as you look through the lens. You can also take pictures on the go, and the camera function can pick up colors from the saved images.

While there are different ways to use Adobe Color, it works brilliantly for designers and other creative professionals who work with color.

 

  1. Httpster

httpster

Httpster offers a regularly curated collection of beautiful website inspiration for graphic designers to browse through and explore. It is a free resource featuring a quirky scale slider replacing the scroll bar. You have the option to filter websites by style or type. Different website categories have been thoughtfully classified, making the site easy and fast to use.

 

  1. Flaticon

flaticon

Founded in 2013, Flaticon is among the most comprehensive icon search engines today. They offer free, high-quality, editable vector graphics that you can download and use with attribution or pay a nominal fee if you want to use them without attribution.

The platform is easy to use, and you can search for icons using keywords or filters using monochrome or colored images. You can also download a set of icons such as ‘social media logos’ or ‘business and teams.’

These were some sites we really like and use for inspiration for design. We hope you found this post useful and can refer to it to make your next design project awesome!

 

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Blogs

How Do You Develop a Brand Story?

A brand story is a cohesive narrative to convey your brand’s journey. It evokes emotion and gives a personality and character to your business. With a story, you have the opportunity to engage your audience and get them emotionally invested in your brand. However, what many overlook is how integral design is to the brand story; these two elements work in tandem to create an impact. Getting this combination right allows creative agencies to build a powerful brand story.

The basics of a brand story

For centuries, mankind has been drawn to story-telling. Stories have the power to capture our imaginations in a way nothing else does. Brand stories needn’t be complex, but they do have to be engaging–to create a space in the minds of your consumers.

With the right story, your audience becomes a brand advocate– retelling your story for you.

 

How to tell a brand story

Start with the elements of who you are as a brand. Pick out some fundamentals to work with. Perhaps you are luxury, user-friendly, informal, community focused, or something else. Think about the roots of the business. Why did it start? Why did it develop in the direction it did? Remember that passion is rocket fuel for a good story.

Think about what you truly value as a brand. How are you different from your competitors? Who is your audience?

Remain true to your target audience and think about what motivates them.

 

What’s essential in any brand story:

  1. Positioning – How do you make your customers’ lives easier?
  2. Promise – What is your promise to them?
  3. Personas – Who are the heroes in your story?
  4. Personality – What kind of qualities do you have?
  5. Product – What do you offer?
  6. Pricing – What does this cost your customer?

 

Define your brand statement

Develop your brand statement by putting together the essential aspects of your brand. This statement will help you communicate to your audience what you stand for. A brand statement is not to be confused with a mission statement.

A brand statement tells your consumers and stakeholders what drives you and makes you unique; a mission statement explains the work you do.

Draft your story

With a strong brand statement in place, you are now ready to create an engaging narrative that is rooted in your brand purpose.

Tell your story in a way that it builds trust in your audience while keeping it simple to understand. The way you end the story is important. It should give a sense of continuation and success to come.

There are different types of stories a brand can tell

  1. Core Purpose

This type of story focuses on real events from your life and how those lead to the purpose behind your brand. A story like this helps form a community and common values.

Take this excerpt from Body Shop’s story for instance

‘The Body Shop is rooted in activism, and our history of campaigning started in 1986. Anita teamed up with Greenpeace on the Save the Whale campaign to fight the cruel practice of whaling.

Our products were never tested on animals and didn’t exploit anyone in making them. We worked fairly with farmers and suppliers, and helped communities thrive through our Community Fair Trade program.’

 

  1. Origin Story

A popular format, this story highlights how your brand came to be with details like why it was established, who founded it, where it was first launched, and any other highlights.

Here’s a snippet from Coca Cola’s brand story highlighting their humble beginnings:

‘On May 8, 1886, Dr. John Pemberton served the world’s first Coca-Cola at Jacobs’ Pharmacy in Atlanta. From that one iconic drink, we’ve evolved into a total beverage company. More than 1.9 billion servings of our drinks are enjoyed in more than 200 countries each day.’

coca cola origin story

  1. Evolution Story

This is a story that shows how a brand went from its zero to hero stage. It lends a more real feel to your story, when your audience can see how you worked your way up, overcame challenges, and reached the top.

Who better than Oprah Winfrey to demonstrate the zero to hero story. The business mogul nicknamed “Queen of All Media”, is one of the most well-recognized figures in the world with unparalleled influence. While this is her story today, things weren’t always this pleasant. Oprah was born into rural poverty in Kosciusko, Mississippi, to a single teenage mother who could barely afford to send her to school.

While this is the story of an individual, Oprah has built a brand of herself, one that has helped grow her empire to a net worth of USD 2.6 billion.

Oprah Winfrey

Different elements of a brand story

Don’t make the mistake of thinking that your brand story is simply a chunk of text under the title ‘Our Story’ on your website.

You can think of building your brand story by understanding, words, imagery and emotion behind your brand’s design. It links everything together for your audience. If you succeed in getting both a strong brand story and intuitive design, then they become even greater than the sum of their parts – this is what a creative agency will aim for.

A well-built and comprehensive story encompasses everything from fonts to your logo, and graphics, to tone of voice and personality. These come together to tell an engaging brand story that draws your audience in and keeps them coming back.

Headspace does this well. It is a mindfulness app that offers meditation and other calming activities and the visual elements on its interface create the same sense of peace.

headspace

 

You can think of this in terms of the look and feel of everything you do. This makes your story richer. Visual elements such as colours and photos on your website through to packaging or brochure design play an important role in this.

The power of the designer

You have the most information about your brand. You know your audience. You know your history, values and objectives. An excellent creative agency will work on how to tie these different threads together, through design, to create a cohesive and emotive story. Without design, brand storytelling is simply words on a page. It is the creative design which allows your story to stand out from the crowd and get your audience 100% invested in your business.

Building a brand story is not an accidental process.

It is a conscious and directed process which requires knowledge of the business, the audience, the industry and marketing. Employing the right creative agency is vital to this process, to keep your business ahead of the game.

 

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4 Branding Trends to Watch For in 2022

In the last two years, we’ve witnessed the pandemic change the marketing landscape and just how quickly the industry can evolve. Lifestyle changes in the lockdown have made consumers conscious of their choices with regard to health, wellness, and inclusion which was reflected in the brands they engaged with.

Peloton tapped into this shift with their holiday campaign “When Your Workout is a Joy, It’s a Joy to Workout.” Headspace is another brand that picked up on the widespread but often overlooked ‘holiday dread’ and created exclusive in-app content ‘Happier Holidays’ to help navigate this period.

Whole Foods created an online educational program teaching their health-conscious consumers how to prepare new recipes using Whole Foods ingredients.

In 2022, we will see the impact of the pandemic hangover on how people interact with brands.

Staying current with industry changes is critical to staying relevant with your audience. To stay ahead of the curve, these are the branding trends to keep an eye out for in 2022:

 

  1. Video to remain a mainstay

Video content is best

A picture says a thousand words. So when thousands of pictures are put together to create a captivating video, imagine the impact it creates. With falling attention spans and the rising number of high-speed-powered smartphones, user preferences are shifting from long-form text to short videos or infographics. The coming of Instagram reels, YouTube shorts, and LinkedIn stories are proof of this.

Brands who want to focus on awareness and engagement must realign their content creation and marketing strategies to publish visually appealing content as an integral part of their content marketing strategy in 2022.

 

  1. Customer experience to be a hybrid of digital and physical 

customer experience

It is no surprise that the pandemic has brought about a wave of digitization for brands across industries with a large number of physical stores shutting down. Sales from e-commerce have gone from 13.6% to 19.5% in the last two years. This trend is expected to grow in the next five years.

Without building a strong brand and memorable customer experience in the virtual space, you risk little to no brand awareness, high customer acquisition costs and reduced remarketing and loyalty-building opportunities. The right balance of the digital and physical will give your customers a complete brand experience. Use online media for visual and informational branding and traditional channels for appealing to the other senses. Ralph Lauren did this successfully with a Snapchat collaboration. Users could take on different Snapchat avatars to virtually try on Ralph Lauren outfits and buy them via the app. This made the customer experience a wonderful union by adding fun and novelty to the online buying process.

 

  1. Audio Content

audio content

Marketers were thrown by the tremendous popularity of Clubhouse in 2021. This platform took the marketing industry by storm, and they did this without publishing any visual content. Major players including Twitter and Facebook rushed to invest in similar features. Notable names such as Slack, Shopify, and Sephora followed suit and launched their podcasts to expand their listener networks and this is expected to continue in 2022.

Closer to home, Dubai-based Huda Kattan, CEO of Huda Beauty shared the origin story of the beauty empire on ‘Breaking Beauty’ a trending UAE podcast that features successful women entrepreneurs.

While audio-only platforms may not have an immediate monetizing feature, they make a strong channel for increasing brand awareness and engagement.

 

  1. Influencer campaigns

influencer campaign

A majority of marketers already leverage influencer marketing but it is set to go from being a trend to becoming a tactic in 2022. A report states that it is among the top ROI generating trends. Brands need to collaborate with influencers who are part of the niche you operate in or have come under ‘micro-influencers.’ They will act as brand ambassadors except they are viewed as regular people which makes them more relatable, and audiences find it easier to trust their recommendations.

While it is important to stay abreast with new trends and changing consumer expectations, major business growth comes from a laser-sharp focus on your foundation. So while you adopt these new trends and or ask your branding agency to employ them into your strategy for 2022, don’t lose sight of the basics to ensure a strong bottom line.

We hope you find these trends useful and get a head start on your marketing campaigns in the new year!

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Hear Ye, Hear Ye: Branding by 8 is now Moonbox!

As the year 2021 comes to a close, we’re happy to share with you one of the biggest and most significant transformations we’ve worked on in a while.

Branding by 8, Element 8’s brand strategy and creative design arm, is now Moonbox, an independent brand consultancy. 

Branding is a strategic and continuous evolution, and while some moving parts work, others may become obsolete or require an upgrade. For this, we need to rebrand, a process just as important as creating a brand strategy from scratch. Together with the entire team, we took time to do some collective introspection, taking stock of where we are, what works and what we need to improve. A few critical things became apparent:

1. The audience perceives us as something we’re not.

  • We are NOT a website design and development agency. That’s Element 8‘s turf.
  • We are NOT a digital marketing and SEO company. That’s a function of another team at Element 8.
  • We are NOT a logo design company. Yes, we develop brand identity, but we are so much more than that.

2. The name ‘Branding by 8’ doesn’t fully represent who we are.

The name may be a dead giveaway for what we do. However, we get questions like, “Who’s 8?” or “Does the ‘8’ mean you only have 8 employees?” and the occasional “So do you make logos AND print business cards?” We need a name that speaks to what we do and actually tells a story–our story.

3. A department does not a brand make.

We want to step up to the next level, and to do that, we need to put out a clear message about who we are and what we are capable of. We are specialised, but that wasn’t the impression we were giving.

So, why Moonbox?

We drilled down on what our business is actually all about. It’s not about the nice and nifty logos; it’s not about the smooth taglines. It’s far more significant than that. We are in this game to make life better. We want people to engage with brands that improve how we see and do things. For brands to have that kind of superpower, first, they need to understand their purpose and catalyse change.

Transformation. That’s what branding is about.

The good kind of change gives you a sense of delight. It drives curiosity and inspiration, influences movement and serves as a guide. What better representation of that concept than the moon itself? Moonbox is all about capturing wonder, illumination and transformation.

What’s changed?

Apart from the look and feel, Moonbox focuses on its position as a distinct brand under Element 8 Group. We believe that having a unique identity is essential for us to carve out our own niche and be more competitive. We want to make the message clear and straightforward—we are not the branding department of a website development agency. We are an independent entity with its own area of expertise. To find out more, check out our About page.

How’s the rebrand going to affect your ongoing branding project?

Not much, really–other than it will become more awesome from here on out. While we are becoming a distinct entity, we are not flying solo. Moonbox is still part of Element 8 Group, and everything in the background is business as usual. The agreements we’ve signed as Element 8 will still be honoured, along with any invoices/receipts and documents.

We’re Moonbox, but you’re the real star!

We know you’ve read thank-you notes all your life but all of this would not have been possible without your support. Everything we’ve done is in service of transformation, and we hope that through our collaboration, we’ve helped kick-start a positive change in your organisation. In the future, we hope to make even bigger waves for your brand as we expand our capabilities as a team.

As our tagline goes, we invite you to capture wonder and make life better for all.

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Avoid these mistakes to create an incredibly strong brand

No matter what the size of your business, the importance of a clear and consistent brand identity applies to you. Without a brand strategy, you risk selling products and services to a market that has no clear vision of who you are. This can eventually weaken your brand’s audience connection.  Studies say that brands with strong reputations have 31% higher shareholder returns. Such organizations also have a more engaged workforce which can help a brand grow by three to four times faster than its competitors. Seeing just how worthwhile branding is, let us look at some crucial branding mistakes to avoid:

1) Not having brand guidelines

With well-established brand guidelines, you can properly organize your content on your website, social pages, and other properties. A cohesive brand styling guide helps create consistent messaging across all channels. With a brand guide, customers are likely to be confused about what your business stands for. It could also undermine the trustworthiness of your brand. Keep in mind the tone, voice, and writing style of your brand while creating a guideline. Fonts, color schemes, and proper logo placement are other visual elements that strengthen your brand identity.

2) Overspending on product development

While product and marketing departments are different business units, product departments are often more trusted by stakeholders compared to the marketing units. This leads to higher budgets allotted to them, while marketing teams are required to prove positive ROIs for every activation they run. In cases where marketing teams request additional spends, they rarely get approval. They are also the first to be hit by company-wide budget cuts. Together, these factors lead to companies disproportionately spending on product development with budgets for communication activities lagging behind.  A strong brand reminds your customer why they should buy your product. Without this support, brands tend to experience a decline in customer loyalty and retention.

 

3) Targeting everyone or anyone

Any brand that thinks ‘everyone’ is their target audience is set to make a huge mistake. Focusing on everyone or the wrong audience means your brand has generic messaging. This further translates to low engagement and no sales.  Make sure to pick the right target audience for your brand. Ask yourself some of the following questions to define your target audience:

  • How old is your audience?
  • What are their interests?
  • What are their needs?
  • What is their income?
  • What are they located?

Now that you know what to avoid to build a strong brand, here are some practices to strengthen your brand:

  1. Focus on one brand at a time. Generate brand awareness and don’t launch other brands till one brand is well into the brand advocacy stage.
  2. Spend time to make your brand popular. It is vital to have a good product, but never assume it will reach your audience on its own. By cutting your marketing budget you are actually reducing your business size in the long run.
  3. Create and maintain a wide range of branding assets and apply them where possible.

 

Creating and maintaining an effective brand isn’t something that can happen overnight as it involves consistency and dedication. We hope you’ll use the tips from this post and get one step closer to making sure your brand identity and messaging are on point.

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