Our checklist before we pitch a branding campaign to clients.

Being part of a brand consultancy and merchandising firm for a while now, I’ve come to a conclusion that to come up with an idea for a branding campaign, you need to tick mark all the items in the checklist that we have created of late. The following is what we do.

1. We analyze the history of the brand. What are past campaigns like? What are the images like videos, animations, graphics? Where do they advertise?
2. We look at the brand’s colors. You see a color palette that the brand is using, and do they use it consistently?
3. What can you learn from the logo and other brand identity elements?
4. What do you see as a unique selling proposition? The uniqueness of the brand will develop a brand positioning statement to help us.
5. Does the brand have a slogan? Does that slogan match your perception of the brand, or could you suggest something even better?
6. Who is the target audience? What are their characteristics, like age, profession gender et cetera? And what are their internal motivators, like their values? What motivates them? What drives them to purchase?
7. What is the presence of the brand on social media? Then, we create a brand personality analysis, where we analyze brand traits and the brand personality.

The next step is critical in this whole process. And that is to create your campaign strategy and identify your tactics.

After the brand analysis, keep it very simple.

First of all, figure out what your strategic objective is with your client. Are you trying to increase web traffic? Are you building a vibrant brand personality?

What are the steps of achieving the objective? One, two and three. It’s that simple. But remember, your strategy is going to drive everything that comes after this in the process.

Then, we propose campaign ideas which convey the brand personality and create excitement around what makes the brand unique. Then, we develop production brief for each one of those final campaign ideas with a mood board, possible locations, the look and feel etc.

Then, the final step is to get our creative pitch ready for pitching.