We recently conducted a webinar on Branding + Marketing Themes for 2020 for the Global Ground Transportation Institute. The biggest themes we've seen for 2020 are related to flexibility, authenticity, and visibility.
FLEXIBILITY
Flexibility in branding can be a slippery slope. You never want to distance your customers and potential customers from brand identifiers they have previously engaged with, but at the same time, it's important to give your brand room to evolve and also flex to best meet varying mediums. Today's brand often has a presence on web, email, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, as well as many traditional channels such as print and display in addition to a brand or organizations actual physical presence. Not all of these channels are created equal, however, and your brand expression needs to be flexible enough to reach your potential targets in each area, while still retaining your brand standards and integrity. It's also important to simply have a logo that is responsive, to fit mobile, social, web, and print.
Below is an example of how we have leveraged responsive and flexible logo designs for LMC Spotlight as well as our parent company The LMC Groups.
AUTHENTICITY
For most of recent history, our brands have had a level of professionalism and separation from the humans behind the brands and the humans consuming the brands. We didn't often see behind-the-scenes photos of the employees working for these companies, and communication was often generated with a modicum of distance between the content and its intended recipients.
Today's consumer is interested in your story, and your authentic brand. They want to know what causes you support, how you treat your employees, that humans actually work for you... As companies have grown, outsourced support, and become less personal, consumers have become less trusting and also less willing to forgive errors. Now is the time to correct this trend. Let your clients get to know you. Tell them why you care about them as well what you do, and in the end, they will care more about you.
Don't have a story written yet? We can help!
VISIBILITY
Okay, we get it. The need for visibility isn't new, but the reason it's a 2020 branding trend is because there are more opportunities than ever for you to raise your visibility...and if you don't, you could lose out to a competitor who is investing in an effort to raise visibility. We mentioned several channels for marketing above, and it's critical that your organization be visible in all the channels that make sense for you. The last thing you need to do, however, is be visible on all channels. Do not spam your brand across channels that do not access your target audience. Pick the ones that make the most sense, and do them right!
Also, it's not enough to just be there. You have to make a splash if you really want to grab the spotlight. Luckily, we know some people who would love nothing more than to help you make that happen.
Want to hear more? Check out our webinar here or in the link above. We look forward to seeing a lot more of you and your brand in 2020!