The brand, before the decoration

Brand projects derail in the same place almost every time: a visual identity gets commissioned before anyone has settled what it is supposed to carry. The result either pleases or it does not, the conversation turns into a matter of taste, and nobody has a criterion to settle it.

These articles take the problem in the opposite order. They start from what can be decided and checked, and only then talk about execution.

Where to start, depending on your situation

• You do not have a name yet, or you doubt the one you have. Legal availability does not follow from domain availability: checking a name you can actually keep covers the searches that matter, and naming a B2B brand covers the decision itself. If the name is already in use and the question is whether to change it, start with renaming without losing what you built.
• You are about to commission an identity. Read brand guidelines vs visual identity first: the two are routinely confused, and the confusion is what produces a deliverable nobody can apply. Then what you own when you pay for brand guidelines, which is rarely what people assume.
• You need to approve creative work without arguing about taste. Approving a creative direction and building a moodboard that forces a decision give you criteria instead of opinions.
• You want to know whether any of this pays. Does B2B branding drive revenue and does branding lower acquisition cost go back to the evidence rather than to the claims made about it. So does what logo research actually establishes, which is considerably less than the internet suggests.
• You want to write in a voice people recognise. A tone of voice that survives contact and an editorial line for B2B are about writing rules somebody can follow on a Tuesday afternoon.

One thread runs through all of it: in B2B, a brand never replaces proof. It decides what people remember about you, and what someone can repeat in the room when you are not there. That is useful, only partly measurable, and it excuses nothing. Our full approach is on the B2B branding page.