Each and every client teaches us something about marketing. Whether it’s social media strategies, acquiring new leads or reaching out to a wider audience, working with a client gives you the opportunity to grow and improve as a marketing agency.
Our ongoing marketing collaboration with the Averești Domains, the Romanian wine producer, has reignited our passion for advertising ingenuity while keeping their brand identity in check. There are some clients that pose the challenge of bringing in new ways of advertising their products without compromising the principles on which said brand stands. And this is precisely what we had to deliver for the Averești Domains.
What is Brand Identity?
Before we dive into our process, we have to understand what brand identity represents both to your client and their audience.
If we take a look at lucidpress, they define brand identity as:
“…the visual component of a brand that includes logos, typography, colors, packaging, and messaging, and it complements and reinforces the existing reputation of a brand.”
In other words, brand identity is the overall image of your brand, packaged as nicely and as authentic as possible. It’s called “identity” mainly because it helps your consumers easily identify your name and business. And most importantly, the more cohesive and consistent your brand is with how they identify themselves in the business world, the more successful and memorable they will be.
How did we apply these principles to Averești Domains’ already established brand identity?
There are two main things you have to thick off your list and those are: talking with your clients and analyzing their brand identity. Covering ground on these issues will help you understand a customer’s brand identity and inspire you to come up with efficient marketing strategies for achieving better exposure. Find out what matters to a brand, what common language they use with their consumers, what visual character they prefer and how they position themselves in comparison to their market contenders. Only then you’ll be able to devise a proper marketing strategy and deliver on your goals.
In the case of Averești Domains, we already knew from the beginning that while wine is the center element of their brand, the relationship the customer has with their wine is infinitely more important. Averești Domains prize themselves with true Romanian wines, exquisite flavors and a tight community spirit they prefer to express in all of their social media posts. Consequently, we gathered all of these points and made it our mission to reflect the same values in all the visuals and copy we provided for them.
Most of all, make sure you deliver an omni-channel experience to your clients and have their backs from all points of view.
Here are some of our findings:
- Find the sub-identity and respect it
We’ve noticed that at times, a brand that showcases a variety of products will have sub-identities in its main identity. The secret is to pinpoint them and contour your strategy based on how each product behaves.
For instance, Averești Domains has several wines that through their appearance and taste are elegant, which means that whatever visual you devise for those particular products – it needs to be complimenting the whole picture entirely.
As seen above, the first visual showcases a Chardonnay which, by definition, is an elegant, fine wine. It pairs very well with fish and other white meats and deserves a contrasting visual to express the intricate trait of this particular product. The second visual brings forth a wine that is hosted in a very sophisticated bottle. It goes without saying that it stands out better in an elegant-matching background as it expresses the celebration of the Romanian Independence Day.
- Don’t be afraid of creativity
Just because a brand is well-established, that doesn’t mean you can’t experiment with your visuals. On the contrary, we recommend finding ways of differentiating your client’s business from their competitors through something new that only you can create.
You’ll see many advertising agencies using only stock photos and sticking the product in the photo without making use of creativity. It’s time you think out of the box and try other ways to market products on social media. For the first visual, we had to advertise the online shops from where you can order the Averești wines and we had the idea to conceptualize everything as a map with the bottle as the starting point, the shops as the stops on the route and the paper plane on its way to the customers.
Moreover, you need to identify the strong points of a brand and parade them around all channels, especially if they are actively and regularly rewarded for it. For instance, we have focused on the fact that Averești Domains has the best rosé in Romania and we have always reminded our audience of their leadership status through all possible channels (written, audio, video).
The second visual presents the latest prizes two of the wines had won. We went a step forward with this one and we decided we were not just going to resume placing the sticker on the bottles. No, we were going to make the medals bigger and attain that 3D effect you can see in the picture. This makes the visual more appealing and interesting, which we were clearly aiming for.
As for the third, it’s good to take things out of context for a change. This post advertised an online partner shop and what better way to combine the two than show the wines on the laptop screen? In short, you need to make your audience relate to your posts. Always.
- Your collaborations go both ways
Should your client partner with others to advertise their products on their page, your role as a marketing agency is to take into account the visual identity of both partners.
Here’s what we mean:
Use their representative colors, their aesthetics and values and deliver something that identifies with both brands. What this does, is helping your audience immediately recognize what you’re expressing and instilling in them the confidence that it’s alright to purchase from both brands. Does this mean you have to do more brand study on both? Yes, but that’s exactly why clients will contact your agency over others and choose to work with you. Think about it.
- A little humor never hurt anyone
From time to time, a humorous post will perform better than how you would normally expect. In fact, amusing posts are the ones your audience will most probably interact with. The reason is simple: Humorous posts add the human element to your posts. It reminds people that behind your brand name and identity there are humans that work relentlessly to provide the best of services and products.
Translation: If you hold a glass of wine in each hand, you can’t touch your face.
It’s very important you stay connected with your audience, after all, they are buying your product and growing your presence on social media. The trick is to find that fine line between humor and value and integrate the products accordingly. Pay attention to what your audience expects and surprise them with entertaining content once in a while.
From our experience, brand identity is what makes or breaks your product. Taking that into account, each client should find that one agency that understands their concept the best and invest in their digital skills in order to have their values properly translated in the online world. Trust your agency, listen to their suggestions, say no when it’s completely against your vision and above all, don’t shy away from trying out a new strategy.
Read more of our work: here
