What is a Brand World and why do you need one?

Simplify, streamline, and consistently deploy distinctive brand assets

Everyone agrees Marketing today is way more complex than just 5 years ago. A proliferation of channels makes it hugely challenging to create a consistent and compelling experience for customers. And it’s easy to lose focus on the great creative idea that has the power to move your brand forward. Creating a Brand World solves these problems, allowing your brand to live, breathe, and embed with your community to build brand love—and become a “brand that adds.”

What is a Brand World?

A flexible set of ownable brand codes (aka distinctive visual and verbal assets) that can sign, seal, and deliver your brand to your audience, no matter what platform or channel they are finding you on. These are united and deployed by a core set of principles—the fewer principles and more concise the better.

When do I need one?

Your project is up and running, and you’ve landed on a big idea that is manifesting as a visual identity. You’re looking at a new comms plan, overhauling your current website architecture, or locking in a major new distribution partner, and need to leverage this moment to make a big impact. Start planning and building your brand world now—so that you don’t launch in a vacuum—and fortify the investment you’ve made in growing market share and share of mind.

How does it bring value?

• Simplifies, streamlines and consistently deploying distinctive assets
• Uniting brand teams & stakeholders so everyone in your organization has a shared vision
• Clear, concise principles for how your brand can and should show up across the brand experience
• Creating focus and efficiency for agency partners, empowering them to be better collaborators on your behalf

What a Brand World is not…

In April, the New York Times published a piece entitled “Don’t Call It a ‘Mood Board — It’s a World”. While the article captured some great callouts on how brand design is evolving in practice, the article also touched a hot nerve… getting the definition of “Brand World” wrong. A mood board does not equal a brand world. A brand world is bespoke — with custom assets that deliver your distinctive brand codes and built for the real world. Mood boards may be part of the ideation process, but they are a means to an end, not the end product.

Say hello to start building your brand world today.