By Tania Rashid is a co-founder and director of Aesthetics Lab, 

The American Marketing Association defines a brand as “a name, term, design, symbol, or any other feature that identifies one seller’s good or service as distinct from those of other sellers”.

In reality, brands and branding are so much more than just that. Powerful brands have a strong impact, they have the ability to influence trends and behaviours, across the globe. This is most evident in the fashion industry. However, branding is indeed important across different trades, because a strong brand is often associated with consumer trust and reliability. The type of trust will depend on the company and the industry it is in – it can be trust that you will not be disappointed with the food in a certain restaurant or that you will receive reliable legal advice at certain law firm, and so on.

And of course, a strong brand will differentiate you from the rest. Living in the world where most industries are very competitive it is paramount to have a brand and associated brand values that will draw customer to you. Branding can be simple or elaborate as long as it tells your company’s story and reflects your values.

The key things to remember when developing your branding. 

First and foremost, you need to know who you are, what is the story behind your brand and where do you want your brand to get to.

You also must know your competitors well. Who are they, how are you different from them? What is it that you offer that they don’t? Understand your core values – they are bound to be different from those of your competitors and this is how you can begin to create that differentiation through branding.

Keep an eye on the trends in your industry – it will give you an insight into where the industry is going and give you an opportunity to be there before your competitors, thus being more desirable for your customer.

It is true that a brand’s visual expression is important, thus your logo, colours and strap line (if you choose to have one) all need to be unique and catchy, however if your brand’s visual expression does not relate to your values of what you do it will feel misplaced, forced and superficial.

Branding can be an expensive exercise. If you are seeking a professional company to help you with your branding, consider when the best time to do it is. If you are new to the business you may want to wait until you understand your business better – what works and what doesn’t, how your customers see you and then with all this knowledge go to a company that will help realise this into a brand.

This was the approach we took at Aesthetics Lab. We did not spend a lot of money on the visual expression of the brand at the very beginning, although a lot of thought and effort went into how we wanted to look, what colours would make sense to our business and what our Logo should represent. For us the values and the story behind the brand were more important to bring to the forefront. We had an advantage as we were a local monopoly when it came to beauty clinics in Primrose Hill so had that competitive edge straight away. 5 years later, 3 website redesigns and 2 colour scheme changes, we are now ready to undergo a full-on rebranding process.

I do sometimes wonder if we got help from a branding company at the very beginning of the journey would we have changed and tweaked our visual expressions of the brand so many times? And every time I come to the conclusion that we were not ready to create a Brand in the beginning of our journey, although interestingly in the 5 years we did create one. It grew and evolved just like the business and I now feel that we are ready to take our business from a local beauty clinic to a brand that will take over London’s beauty industry and will extend beyond the United Kingdom.

So when should you change your branding?

In my opinion there are two times you should make the decision to change your branding. One – when you have grown out of your brand and it no longer represents who you are; and second – when your brand is associated with something negative.

In the case of Aesthetics Lab, thankfully, it was the former. As our business grew and developed, we realised that we were no longer a local clinic catering to the residents of Primrose Hill. Our reputation, the results we achieved for our clients, extensive treatment menu and customer service meant we were attracting clients from all over London. Our business model was scalable, and we could expand but we felt our brand was not and needed some work.

Your brand and its visual expression should be consistent across all platforms and reflect what your business represents. Small details like finishing touches in the décor of your shop or your website design can be easily missed but when you look at the brand as a whole all these small pieces fall together like a puzzle and create a beautiful picture that tells a story; and that story is the backbone of your company.