Ana Pessanha: Why Founders Should Care About Branding

Hey everyone, hope you're all having a great Monday. My name is Daniel, I'm a part of the FI marketing team, and we're back again with a really exciting webinar for you guys. And this time around we have Paulo and Ana from Google, so they're going to be talking all about branding. And for a lot of people, branding, you know, it's limited to their logo, But I think Anna will do a much better job explaining that it's a lot more than that. So before we kind of kick, bring Anna and Paulo on stage, let us know where you're coming in from. You can just type it out in the chat. We have people from Australia, from India, awesome, Sweden. I'm not sure what time it is over there. We have someone from Lahore, Berlin, More people from Berlin, Lisbon, awesome. Denmark, Sydney, Ghana too. Amazing. We love it here, we love it here. Yeah, so like always, we have a very international audience. Kind of tells you how prevalent the startup ecosystem is all across the globe. I apologize if there's like a ton of noise in the background or if my video is blurred. You know, I've had to kind of work with a makeshift internet connection. Apologies for that, but like, without further ado, Akshay, could you bring on Anna and Paulo? And yeah, while Akshay brings on Anna and Paulo, just to let you guys know, if you look to your right, there is a Q&A button. If you guys have any questions at all throughout the webinar, just click the button, type in your question, and then I'll run the question by Anna towards the end of the session once she's done with the presentation. And yeah, and we'll go from there. And lastly, we also have a networking portion that's right after the webinar, right? So once everything is done, maybe Anna and Paula can stay back too. I'll be here from the FI team. You guys can also talk to each other. I think I've done a ton of talking. Ana, I'll just let you take the stage.

Okay. Hi, thank you. I'll start by sharing the screen. Okay. So thank you, Daniel. And I'd like to thank you all for being here. My name is Ana Psaña. I'm in Lisbon right now and I'm a copywriter, creative strategist, and branding enthusiast. And today's session is exactly about that, branding. Uh, we're gonna cover the basics of branding. Um, and we're gonna try and, uh, tap into how a good brand can actually help your company or your project. And hopefully by the end of this session, you'll feel inspired to develop and improve your brand and business moving forward. And I'll try to keep today's session simple, but also practical. So At the end, um, we'll give you, uh, we'll, we'd like to leave you with a little practical tool. So a workshop that you can do by yourself or with your team, uh, to kind of determine the core of your brand. And remember, here we'll be talking about brand, not business, and we'll see the difference in a little while. But first, um, why am I here? Why am I in a position to talk to you about this? Well, I've been helping brands Shape their identities for over a little over 8 years now. And currently I lead the brand voice department at VMLY&R Branding. It's part of WPP Group. And I'm also a localization expert for Vinted for the Portuguese market. And I'm a branding consultant for Vogel, the savvy agency that invited me here today to talk to you lovely people and the agency that Paulo founded. And I have worked with some big brands and I thought I'd drop some logos here to give you like some confidence about my experience. But I also added a probably more obscure reference to an Australian platform here called Payapps to kind of keep things real and on the tech side and across all hemispheres. 'Cause I've seen that there's people joining from all around the world. And that's enough about me now. I think we can move on to more interesting matters. And kind of the real reason why you're here. And I'd like to begin by suggesting a kind of a chicken and egg situation. So what do you think should come first, your business or your brand, or rather, what do you think should take the lead? So of course, like every brand is a business, um, or they serve a business purpose, but as much as they are vital to one another, they have fundamental differences. So let's take Airbnb, for example, like as a business, a platform, it's kind of a middleman. It connects hosts and travelers, but the brand, the brand is all about belonging. And as soon as it became about belonging and not just about connecting and being that middleman, but having this bigger purpose, it kind of knew where to focus. So it knew what to say and who to say it to, how to stand out and how to attract this attention. And basically they knew how to convince people to switch from hotels, what they had done for like the whole history of humanity, and to change and actually stay at complete strangers' houses. So a very big shift in behavior. So if a brand can inspire all that, then we could say that if it is done correctly, the brand kind of informs the business. And when it informs the business successfully, what you end up with is according to the European Brand Institute, a brand that can be more valuable than all of the other assets of the company combined. And what does this look like for a company like Airbnb, for example? So when we compare the tangible and the intangible, we understand that everything people think, say, and feel about a company is actually a result of its brand. And the tangible book value of all everything they have, like the offices, the, the the staff, everything is not as worth as much as the market cap, which is going to have all those intangibles that were built from the brand and the perception, because that's what we kind of understand that what we actually do with the brands is we create the perception of a business. Because you're not always, you have this business, you have this idea, but you're not going to always have chances to like show your customers your spreadsheets or show them, uh, your pitch deck. But you can show them a logo. You can try and convince them with the tagline. You can try and do all of these things that we call branding to inform that perception. So we like to consider branding or the art of branding as everything we do to influence that perception and to shape that idea of what people think about your business. And I was watching a documentary the other day about Tesla. And it was really interesting because in the beginning, the company did not look good on paper, but they still managed to sell a lot of cars. And it had a lot of issues that normally are terrible for them. Like they had to actually educate their audiences how to charge the cars, how to do all of that. So how do you go about and actually sell this nuisance? Well, they had to sell it through the brand, the ideals, the purpose, all of that. So when they sold those first cars, even though they, they very— they look very bad on paper. They look terrific on the ideals, on the, the everything that's related to the brand. So how can brands evolve from, um, something nobody knows about and it is just an, um, an internal thing to something that everyone knows and relates to? So we, we want to create brands that have strong positive perceptions. They're not necessarily always consensual perceptions— not everyone loves Tesla right away— but at least it's a widely shared perception. And if I show you this symbol, for example, um, I'm sure you know exactly what this brand is. I'm sure that with just this symbol, uh, you can think of its name, probably remember its tagline. I'm sure you know, uh, at least some of the products they make. You can think of sponsorships, you can think of ads, And some of you might even know its history, its origin story, all of that. It's become part of our culture. It's, I think there's even a movie on cinema right now about a contract they made with a basketball player. So like they, and they, and to have all of that perception, they just need at this point, they've invested so much, they just need this symbol. But I didn't bring it to you today to despair. Like, it's not— you don't necessarily need years and years of building a brand or millions in investment to reach this similar level of recognition. It's not a case of like, be Nike or just don't do it. I think you should definitely still do it. And if I show you this symbol, on the other hand, for example, it's probably as recognizable, at least to the participants of this webinar, which is great because that's their target. Um, so we can see like two different brands that exist for different times. They have reached a level of recognition that is relevant for them, for their business, and they don't have to keep introducing themselves over and over with their name and their descriptor. But how, how did they reach this point? And I think that if you basically, if you follow these simple suggestions, you can get to that level of consistent perception. So one of them, definitely, that you should consider when, when considering your brand is differentiation. So you have to make sure that your brand is different, and not just different from the competition and different in the category, but different overall, different from all the other brands that your target is probably going to experience in their day-to-day lives. Then you have to guarantee consistency, and this means you can't be afraid to repeat your messaging, your name, your symbol, your purpose, your tone, every chance you can. Just keep it consistent. And when you do so, keep it coherent. So make sure that said purpose is tone or message are the same across all channels. So if you're witty on Instagram or TikTok, of course, you're probably going to have to shift a little bit when you go on LinkedIn, but you should always keep a little bit of that same tone. And finally, presence. So if you don't buy that ad space or you don't sponsor that show or sponsor that event or create original content or something like that, people just won't get to know your brand. And, um, it's very true what they say, unfortunately, that out of sight, out of mind. So it's important to guarantee that, that presence. So these are just very, uh, key, simple, basic, even intuitive steps, to be honest, that you need to consider when developing your brand. And I think you should even keep those throughout, um, the whole, throughout the whole existence of your business. Just have this on a Post-it or something and just keep checking if you're still following all of these key steps, because you would be surprised how many brands actually change tones and messages and sometimes even colors, surprisingly enough, depending on if they're on their website or platform or if they move into social media. And it does sadden me to say, but there are some terrific brands and products that are completely lost in the multiverse that is the internet and that are very hard to find because they're not investing enough in their presence. So just keep these key points in mind, go over them and just to make sure that all the other branding efforts that you're going to do, that we're going to cover a little bit further on, that they're not in vain. So these are the basics to start with, but then this is how we evolve a brand and we cover the importance of being different, consistent, coherent, and the presence, but What are we going to actually keep different and coherent and cohesive and present are the brand assets. So we, here, we're going to talk a little bit about the basics of building a brand and basics of building these brand assets. We're not unfortunately going to cover all the possible brand assets that there are out there, but we're going to cover the big ones. And one of the very big ones, uh, and just to start off is actually the story. So a story, a brand story, um, it can be long, it can be incredibly short. So Nike's "Just Do It" is in itself a story. It's a tagline, but it's also part of their bigger story about self-improvement. Um, and apart from Nike, there are some very good, uh, brand stories out there. And an example of that is Patagonia, for example. Everybody knows it. Um, the— and Patagonia's story and purpose is considered so relevant that even people who are not necessarily their target, uh, as they don't practice outdoor sports, they still want to be associated with the brand. So if you truly know your brand's core, you can have a reason, um, why you're doing things and you can turn it into a great story. And then you can tell it in like 3 seconds, like a tagline, 3 minutes, or 3 hours if you, if you're that lucky to to have that kind of attention. And then you're right on track to creating an asset that can potentially be more valuable than any specific product or service that you're selling. Because I think that's a bit what happens with Patagonia. Nothing they sell is more valuable than the reason why they're selling it. So when they're selling you a white t-shirt, it's not that specific white t-shirt, that, that specific product. It's the whole story behind it and the whole story of the company and their whole philosophy and all of that. So how can you find something as powerful as this for your project or business? Well, there's many, many ways to find your story. And when I work with clients and we do these workshops, there's a million ways we can kind of like shape and carve out this story. But a great place to start is with Simon Sinek's Golden Circle. So through answering these simple questions, why, how, what, but the other way around, what, how, why, um, you can kind of try and shape your unique brand story and find your company's purpose. And, um, if by the end of doing this exercise, you don't think that you have that differentiating angle that sets you apart from the competition, or you don't really know how your why can actually become your story, then you probably should go back to the drawing board and try and find that different why that isn't being kind of done, being nobody is doing it. And that's how you kind of find your purpose and your story. And when you have that, what's next? And this is probably a big one. Naming is a big one. I do a lot of namings for clients. I do, I think, names every month now. I don't love doing names. It's probably one of the hardest parts of being a copywriter or creative overall is names. Because it's, the stakes are super high. It's one of the hardest brand assets to change. And they're going to be your company's primary identifier. They're going to be the thing that everyone's going to literally say about your company. And, and it really has to work. And although they're very hard to change, I did bring some examples of, of companies that have changed their names for different reasons. I think we all probably remember that moment in David Fincher's Social Network where they say drop the de about how like the Facebook became instantly cooler as just Facebook. And some naming decisions have like a lot more reasoning behind them and are not as cool as that scene. And some of these examples are exactly that because sometimes names, it's not just not being cool. Sometimes they're not differentiating enough or they're not telling the right story or they're just not connecting with the audience or there's like, they're not easy to search. There are very different reasons. And so we have companies like Backrub, which actually realized that it would work better as Google, um, or a startup called Cadabra that then evolved into Amazon. And it's an interesting name and, and they— an interesting logo because they have this thing where they connect the A to the Z. So actually kind of telling their story through the name also in the logo. And then Blue Ribbon Sports, which, um, turned into the mentioned Nike. So names that, um, work much better and that follow, um, different naming practices. And this is the other thing about names, is that sometimes they might seem random them, but there are very different origin stories and different ways that— and naming theories. And I bring to you one today that is an attempt to categorize the kind of different naming practices that a brand can follow. And these are descriptive, invented, experiential, or evocative. So in the descriptive category, we have names like booking.com or Whole Foods Market, and it's Descriptive is exactly that. It's just what it does, what it is. You kind of, you guarantee that it's yours. Uh, you, you want to book it. It's just called booking. That's it. Then, or Whole Foods, you want to prove that your foods are healthier, good. Why not just call it Whole Foods instead of coming up with something that's different? If you can own the actual name, perfect. And then you have the invented names and these usually follow specific reasoning behind them. So for Häagen-Dazs, for example, the company wanted the perception, again, that it was a European brand and it was more gourmet. So they thought, well, let's come up with a name that sounds Austrian. So that's just to shift that perception. And Oreo, I think it's completely invented, but it's inspired by the shape of the cookie. And actually the shape your mouth does when you're pronouncing it is kind of like the shape of the cookie. So that's probably why they went with this name. And then you have the experiential names, which are not exactly descriptives, but they kind of want to show you kind of how easy the process is or how it's— how the process is going to be actually using these products or services. So Dropbox, easy. It's just, you have a file, you drop it in the box, that's it. So these are kind of the experiential names. And then you have the evocative names, which are becoming even bigger. And those are, you kind of take names that your target audience already knows, words that your audience already knows, and then repurpose them for your company to mean something a little bit different. So Tesla is used now to sell cars, and Amazon the rainforest is used now to sell almost everything. So using something that people already associate with that word to the benefit of your company or your, um, brand. Also, then we have another big one, another big naming asset, and the logo and, and your symbol. So the logo, the thing you all can't wait to add to your email signature, your customized stationery, your LinkedIn profile. Everybody always wants— our clients always want the logo straight ahead. It's like, okay, I like the story. Okay, the name is okay, but can I see the logo? Like, that's the thing they they most associate with brands is the logo. But, and we can see here in this slide that, uh, the, sometimes the logos are so powerful that they completely kind of override the name. So, um, I think we can, I trust that you can all recognize these brands, um, even without the name. And if you can't recognize some of them, I'll, I'm just going to blame generation gap. I'm not, I don't think it's a problem with the power of the logo. And why should you care about your logo? I think this one is easy to explain. Everyone cares about the logo, but sometimes you have a logo that you think works. And here is the example of Airbnb. There's nothing wrong with it. It works, but it wasn't telling their story. So this is what they currently have. And why did they change? I think they wanted a symbol that would help them tell this story about people, places, love Airbnb, about belonging, about about actually being about people because you're gonna stay in strangers' houses, about places that you wanna discover, about love, about all these emotions. So they actually decided that no, we don't just need a logo. We need a logo with a symbol that actually tells our story. And if you can't tell your whole story on a logo, don't despair because you can always tell it in your visual identity too. You could always expand your story. This next step, the visual identity, uh, I apologize to all the designers out there. I'm not going to explain it as well as I'm sure they would, but I'm going to do my best. Um, so the importance of a good visual identity, and I brought to you an example of, of how it can actually really help your brand. So you have here, um, how the category of mindfulness and meditation apps looked. So very calming, very blue, full of like landscape photography and, uh, things that are considered naturally calming. And here was where the competition was and how the category was defining itself. And then you have a company that came and decided, no, we're gonna have a visual identity that's completely different to that. And that's Headspace. So through their visual ID, they're, they built their brand's own world and they created, um, a proprietary visual identity. With filled with illustrations. They have their specific color palette that moves away from the blues. And I'm sure they use it. I'm sure it's not just to be different. I'm sure they also are kind of trying to figure it out if it was also calming colors, but not the ones that the category was using. And then instead of having all the other tools that the meditation apps they created had, they created these visual aids. To explain what goes on in the mind when you feel stress or anxiety. So instead of just showing you the typical neural connections that happened or showing you a bubble that like inflates and deflates as you're supposed to breathe, what they do is they'll use like a cartoon. And they'll show you what it's like when your mind is racing and they'll show you a street that is full and then they'll show you the cartoon actually just going across the street. So a completely different visual representation of what all the others are doing. And this, the fact that they have this strong visual identity, then helped them pivot to, from going from the app to actually having like a show on Netflix. So all of these things were very much also influenced by their strong visual identity. And then another interesting asset that unfortunately I don't get to work that much with yet. But, um, I think it's becoming more and more relevant because brands are not as static as they used to be. So usually when we did branding projects in the beginning, it was very much about, okay, so, um, uh, here's your brand, here's your logo, here's your stationery, which is always a classic. Um, here's what it looks like, like, uh, on an outdoor, uh, billboard or something like that. And then came the age of the websites. So the biggest branding tool that we were showing people were the websites and then social media. But all of these are stopped being static. So they're moving and you can use moving visual ID and you can also use sound. There's a lot more sound now and a lot more sound branding to consider. And you all know these sounds. Like you kind of know what to expect from all of these. When we talk about sound, it's not just intro sounds. It's also the sound you're gonna show your clients or customers or your target when something goes wrong. All of these now are beginning to be considered in the beginning of the branding process and they're not an afterthought. Because again, we want to keep that coherence and that cohesion and we have to consider sound now. So as I said, I think sound is becoming a lot more important, but another big one, and unfortunately I don't, haven't worked with a lot of sound projects yet, but I do work with tone of voice every day. It's my area of expertise. And I think to better explain the importance of tone, I brought to you an example. So I'm sure we have people from all over the world, but I'm sure you probably all heard of this brand called Oatly, of oat milk. And when they began, they were really not that differentiating. Like they, they were doing what everything and everyone in the category was doing. And then they shifted one thing, one simple thing that they didn't have to pay more for it. It's just, they have the packaging and they thought, well, why don't we talk to people like people? And they started shaping their tone. Uh, and they started adding, like, talking to people like actual people and with a sense of humor. And they did it in the packaging, but then they did it everywhere. And they created this, this proprietary tone that people now associate with Oatly. And they kept that, uh, coherence. So they had it on the packaging. They then started having, having it on ads. So you'll have ads like this.

Wow. Wow. No cow. No, no, no.

Wow. So very Oatly. But then when they start to create their own contents, they're always, they're also going to create content in that tone. So they have a show called Will It Swap, which I think is them trying to understand if, if you swap dairy products with Oatly products, Will the recipe still take? But then it involves younger people or older people. It's very much like an actual show.

I'm going to use oatly instead of milk. It might go wrong.

Oh, sorry. I'm going to use oatly instead of milk.

It might go wrong. Does my mom think it will swap? I'm not so sure. Oh, she wants to go in.

Here we go, ladies and gentlemen. So again, they're keeping their tone throughout their communication. They're making sure that it's always the same wherever they are. And that's probably their biggest brand asset in the moment. And it's one that's— it doesn't take away— it's easier to rethink the tone. And there's a lot of projects that we do now with brands that they think they have a problem and they come to us and we understand it's not necessarily the logo. There's nothing wrong with the logo. There's nothing wrong with the name, um, it's— or the visual ID. Sometimes it's just as simple as the tone, and it goes a long way to then changing the whole way your company talks and, and your brand is perceived. And then another one is not necessarily a brand asset, but I thought that, uh, if we had a little bit of time, it would still make sense to cover, is brand architecture. So when you're developing a brand, um, if you know that you're gonna eventually have more than one product or service or more than one company, you have to consider how these will relate to one another. And usually if this is not thought of from a branding perspective, then it's thought from a company perspective and then brand is just an afterthought, then it becomes very confusing. So that's usually that how these brands inside a company relate to themselves, what we call the brand architecture. And there's a model by Dr. David Aaker, And it kind of, um, helps us organize, uh, brands as a branded house, endorsed house, or house of brands. So a branded house is, um, usually we can also call it a monolithic, uh, brand, a corporate brand, or an umbrella brand. And it's a brand that maintains the same assets, uh, of its identity throughout its— throughout all its products and, um, services. So you have, for example, Apple, which always maintains the same symbol, the same kind of naming conventions, the same with FedEx. So it will maintain that hierarchy of the symbol being the more important, but then they can create these subcategories with either endorsing or colors. And this is a great option when you want to focus on one brand and you want like all the things you're selling want to be connected to it and invest in it almost, uh, as much or even more than investing in communicating each individual product or service. So right now, when there's a new Apple product that comes out, they have— they can fall on all of that Apple history and that Apple brand ideal that you have. They don't have to like start over every time. But sometimes you don't want this. Because you want your products and services to actually have their own personality or be able to address their own specific audience. So you can choose something like an endorsed, uh, house of brands. And we have like, for example, Kellogg's. So they know they're going to go into cereals, but they want different cereals for different targets. So it can't look the same. Uh, Marriott, the same, you know, it's going to be hotels, but you want different experiences. Or Lego, for example, where they have targets that go from like adults with tall Lego architecture, but then you also have like Lego for toddlers, Duplo. It has to look different because some pieces are a choking hazard and the other ones have to like look like they're not a choking hazard at all. So the, even the brands, it's good to kind of change them a little bit for the target. So they still all say Kellogg's or they still all say Marriott or Lego, but as endorsements and letting then the sub-brand actually have its own place to shine. And then the final way you could just, uh, organize your brands is having a house of brands. So basically all the products or services, um, of brands have their own identity. Um, they're very different. They, like, for example, Procter Gamble, you don't, when you're buying an Ariel detergent, you don't see the Procter Gamble, the logo in front, it's probably in the back, but it's not as important. The brand has its space to shine in its place. And it's not, you don't necessarily associate like, uh, Ariel detergent with then, I don't know, I don't know what they have, but, um, like a Head Shoulders shampoo. You don't necessarily associate them together, even though in the end it's the same company. So this is a strategy when you really want your products to be differentiated, even though there's like an umbrella company, uh, behind them. So we covered, um, what we covered, uh, brand assets. And after all of this, and usually this is, we talk to clients about this, we'll pitch them the importance of branding and then they'll be like, okay, so let's talk numbers. How do we measure the success of a brand? And in advertising, success of a campaign is easy to measure. Um, it's also easy to measure in sales. But brands are built, as I showed you in the beginning, a lot around the intangible. So, and it does take time. Branding is not something that can guarantee like in 2 months, people will know your brand and they'll know everything about it and they'll associate it with happiness or they'll be comfortable riding in strangers' cars just because we told them so, you know, it's not something that we can guarantee will happen in the next amount of time because It's cultural. Usually it's emotional. So it does take a bit more time. And we, although we don't have terrific ways of immediately judging if a brand is or not successful, there's always, and there's always this possibility of, and some clients ask us to do this, of testing like in focus groups, but I personally hate that because focus groups are never natural environments. And I did, when I was younger, I did participate in some focus groups and it was weird because it's never, never in your life are you asked to consider a brand that you're supposed to come in contact naturally. And then in focus groups, there's always someone that stands out and starts talking and kind of like shifts the whole focus and everyone just agrees with them even because they just want to get out, I think. So I wouldn't necessarily recommend trying to test brands in focus groups. So how do we actually measure success of a brand? Um, in a short time, we know that the brand has to do 3 very specific things or else it's not a good brand. It has to identify, it has to attract, and it has to definitely differentiate a business. So these are the basics that we need to cover and we need to guarantee that what we're delivering to the client is something that will identify their company, that will attract their audience and will differentiate their business. But what we do then is we take it a little, a step further. So we want to create not a good brand, but a powerful brand. And by powerful brand, usually what we do is we make sure that it's a brand that will help the team relate. So everyone that is working for that company or that project, suddenly just with the branding being well done, they feel like they relate to it. They They see the purpose, they want to be a part of that. And I think this, um, for a brand like WeWork, it was basically just this. They created a brand that was— the team really related and the team really gave it their all because they believed in that project. Um, terrible company again, but great at doing this specific branding exercise. And then we also want the audience to connect. So we don't want just a brand that attracts the audience, but we want a brand that the audience feels something about and wants to connect with it. So like if you take Patagonia, for example, people actually want to wear a t-shirt with the logo. They want to connect to that. They want to be part of that world. And then hopefully if we do all of this, the powerful brand will help the business thrive, not just by selling products or services, but by actually inspiring the business to, okay, if, if as a brand we're about sustainability, for example, going back to Patagonia, then maybe we should try and push that envelope. What can we do more as a business that goes and meets that ideal and meets that brand idea, that big brand idea? So we do know this, that if you shape your brand, as I said with the Patagonia example, it can help them definitely help shape your business. We do believe this. And that's why we invite you to, as a good place to start, kind of understand how your story, how your brand story and how your purpose, if it's defined, it will definitely help you create this idea and then just have a great brand and a powerful brand. And I'd like to just take this moment to apologize. I have a problem with my eyesight and it's getting worse by the minute throughout this webinar. That's why sometimes I lost focus, but I hope it wasn't too confusing. And I think I'd like to open now for Q&As. I'm sure there are a lot because I'm sure there are a lot of things I kind of forgot to cover at one point, but it's because I can't see that well right now, but I can hear you and I want to help any way I can. And I think that's it. I'll just open the floor now and hopefully be more helpful.

Awesome. I thought you did a great job, and honestly, 10 out of 10. If you can look at like the bottom of your screen, you're getting a ton of emojis. Yeah, the folks loved it. Awesome, awesome. You're still getting a ton of love. Yeah, so that's great. I really liked the story of Airbnb's logo. Right, because I was listening to the founder, Brian, and he was talking about how people are such— trying to be able to tell just by looking at the logo off the top, but like, you know, you can tell like, uh, you know, that intent to be a people company is also a part of like their brand identity. So again, it's like, you know, you learn all these great things in webinars like yours. So awesome. We have a ton of questions, so we'll kind of just move on, right? Yeah, so okay, so I had this question in mind and I want to like, I know I'm hogging up some space here, but because everybody here is essentially a startup founder or they're thinking about starting a startup, right? So my question is, should a startup founder focus on the brand before launching or do you work on it as you go along?

Okay. I think maybe you should work on it as you go along, because that's when you're going to probably find your purpose or why you're doing things. Because in the beginning, as I said, that example that I have with Airbnb, in the beginning, it's a platform that connects hosts with travelers, right? But then it's, as they were developing it and they were understanding, okay, we have to find a way for people to trust staying in strangers' houses, all of that. That's when they understood, okay, branding is going to help us there. Branding is gonna— if we actually tell a story of belonging, then it's not just about, uh, oh, it's cheaper and you can stay at this stranger's house. It's about visiting a place like a local. And I think as they were developing it, they understood how branding was going to help them kind of shift, uh, their target's perception. So I think, and if you have a brand from the beginning, it will change. And we saw in the examples of like, uh, Google and Amazon changing their names. So it's normal to change the name in the beginning as you go along. So I think it's definitely something as you go along. Yeah.

Right. That makes sense. And I think one of the other really important things is especially when you're a startup founder and you have very limited resources and often very limited time, you don't necessarily have the bandwidth to develop a brand. And I think you at some point as a company, not just as a startup, you do need to go to an expert or build a team that can help you elevate the brand that you're creating, right? So I think that's also a really important part.

Yeah, no, definitely. I think that, and I think we are branding experts for a reason. And I was in a meeting with a client the other day and he had all these ideas of what the brand should be. And as much as we like to take in these ideas, we then, we kind of know what is going to work or not. So because we have that experience and we kind of know how to reach the, we keep, we're always aware of the audience and what they want. And I think that kind of expertise is always great as a resource. And that's where we add the value. It's not like, of course you will know the client, the You will know your company or your startup better than anyone else, but we will know how to give the perception you want to give.

Right. Yeah, and I think like kind of in a similar trajectory, we have this question for Julian from Portuguese. How much do you think a business should invest on branding in terms of time and money and Like what's your thought process with that?

It's very, uh, I don't know. I think it should be, um, sometimes unfortunately it's where companies want to cut costs because it's very hard to prove the value of creativity and the value of branding. As I showed you, it's very hard to measure it immediately. So sometimes they will ask us, okay, so if we invest this, when will I have a return on investment of the— and we can't tell you, it's, uh, we because then they have to guarantee that they'll keep that coherence and that consistency and all of that. So what we are developing right now at VMLY&R Branding, for example, is kind of a brand follow-up where we are going to start to measure brands over time and understand what are the factors that will influence, uh, the brand's, um, strength, uh, and how we can kind of give them that, oh, if we invest this, then you'll have this kind of— it's very, it's very hard. So I think, I don't know exactly how much to invest in terms of money and time, but I would say not as little as you'd hope to have a good brand, in my opinion.

Yeah. I think another way of saying it, and we say this oftentimes with startups, is it depends. You know, like that's kind of like the catch-all answer.

Yeah. Yeah, that's true.

Yeah. So we have this, I feel like this is a pretty great question from Ali Hussein. He asked, after launching, what's more important for a general continuous rebranding, feedback from customers and what they want to see, or your general vision and like aspirations for the brand?

That is a great question, and particularly now in the age of everyone has an opinion on every kind of brand, it's very, um, for us, for example, when we launch a brand, and I work with a lot of, uh, football, uh, related brands, so like, um, we do here, we do the UEFA Euro tournaments. We also did the rebranding for the Portuguese football league and people have a lot of strong opinion on those. So I think that you shouldn't always take every kind of feedback into consideration. You should definitely keep to that general vision and those aspirations and kind of know what you want the perception to be over time. So the initial feedbacks, all of that, It's not necessarily something relevant that you should be afraid of. This person hates it. Of course, everyone that's going to comment on the first 24 hours of a brand launch is going to hate it. It's just nobody actually goes out of their way to say they love it. It's the effect it's going to have over time. And, but then over time, you kind of, you can listen to if people say, well, I can't really read the logo, or I don't think this symbol looks like that symbol, or those kinds of constructive feedbacks, then those you probably will take consideration. But if you just launch a brand or a rebrand and people hate it, don't be afraid. Everyone hates it in the beginning. It doesn't attest to its relevance or its strength, right?

I feel like that's a pretty— yeah, pretty great answer. Uh, yeah, so we— okay, so let's go over, um, brand colors, right? So we have this question, um, 'Will it hurt my brand if I have color variations?' Right? And I think this is something people kind of struggle with sometimes, especially when they don't really know like how to, you know, build like a visual set of visual assets.

I think a visual ID and a designer again will explain this better than I do, but from what I see from working with designers, you definitely have to have a color palette. You can't just have one color, you have to to have a palette for different situations. And it doesn't hurt your brand. If you, if you work with a brand designer and you kind of figure out, okay, what is your primary colors and your secondary colors and when to use them, then that's perfectly fine. And it won't hurt your brand. It will just create a rich visual identity. It's not, it will hurt it if like on Instagram, you're purple, on LinkedIn, you're yellow, on your website, you're black, on it's, if, if If there isn't a consistency, then you will never own a color. And you can see in categories like service provider, telephone service providers, and like, like they will have that color or banks, they will have that color and they will own it. And then that will set them apart easily from the competition. And of course they will probably have other colors in their palette that they use, but that primary color, you kind of want to own it to set it apart. To be different from the competition.

Right, awesome. We have this, okay, so we've had this kind of recurring theme of comments and questions about personal branding as well, right? So the question is, what is the difference between personal branding and branding when it comes to, you know, your business, right? And can they affect each other? And I just kind of want to add to this, right? You have some people like, for example, Elon Musk, right? Elon Musk and Tesla, right? Elon Musk is such a massive brand, and Tesla is also a massive brand. Like, should these intersect? Like, what's, what's the story there?

Yeah, I think that that's a big issue, and that's why they wanted him to step down, because those two brands were definitely clashing. So, um, I think It's a great question. And when I've been thinking recently, because doing this, for example, it's kind of an exercise in personal branding. And I was talking to my team the other day, it's like, what kind of values should I do this with that will then meet the team and what we're doing as an agency? So I think that they definitely affect each other and they, if you, and you see this all the time, if someone does something in a company that goes against the values, they will be asked to step down. So they should, they don't have to be the same. You know, you, you're an individual and personal branding has different assets than, uh, brand branding. Um, but they have to like have, uh, something, they have to, to make sense together. So great question. And I think it's very relevant these days because, um, with social media and everything, everyone is a brand. So yeah, and when companies don't like the brands of the people they're working with, they will make it clear. So yeah, definitely.

Just to kind of like, just to add to that, right? Should, as like a founder or, you know, as someone who's like at a top spot within the startup or just like, should you have a graph? Like, is it an absolute necessity?

Um, I guess that's another great question. I think, um, if you're gonna, if you're gonna like give talks or if you're gonna, you, you shouldn't, you don't necessarily have to think of it as a brand, but you have to think like, for example, I'm usually a lot, uh, wittier than I am today. So it's like, I'm not keeping that coherence or that cohesiveness, but, um, You have to try and find the assets of yourself that you want people to relate to your startup. So if you want, if you have a very enthusiastic startup and you have to bring that enthusiasm, so you don't have to think of what's your brand and blah, blah, blah, but you have to like, if you want to help your startup and it would help if you in fact were enthusiastic, then you should try and do that. But if you know that that's not your brand or that's not You can find someone who is, and that will help you get to that audience. So, um, I think you don't necessarily have to think of yourself as a brand, but kind of think of that coherence with your project. And if it's like posting something on your personal social network, is it going to affect or not? I think it could be in the back of your mind, but you don't have to think of yourself as a brand.

Right, no, I think that makes sense. So what we'll do is we'll go to the last question and yeah, so I think I lost this question.

I saw a question here that I think is interesting because it does relate to something that I forgot to talk about. So can I just answer this one?

Yeah, go ahead.

Okay, so it says, would you suggest including a descriptive word to help customers? And this is, uh, I had this note that I was going to talk about the difference between taglines and slogans. And usually a tagline is what is like the big company, like, purpose thing. And it can be more inspirational, like Nike's "Just Do It," or in the beginning it could be descriptive. So if you're gonna have, um, if a company called Nike, which doesn't— when it was Blue Ribbon Sports, it's more related to sports, but then when it's Nike, you kind of lose that. And if they thought, well, people are not gonna know what it is, maybe we should have a tagline that's a descriptor and just say sporting goods, for example, in the beginning. And then when people already know what it is and they know that it's sporting goods, then we could have an inspirational one and shift it to just do it. So it's perfect because slogans are like communication messages. Slogans are more for ads or more for instant communication. But then taglines are the things that are going to last longer, but it's perfectly normal and usual for them to change over time. And in the beginning, it's usual to kind of like have to use a descriptor instead of an emotional tagline, because people will not necessarily know what, in this example, Nike is just with the name and the logo. So sometimes, yeah, it makes sense to have that descriptor.

I think that also kind of speaks to just in terms of messaging, like how much, you know, how much support or aid do you provide like your viewers or your customers or audience when you, let's say, launch a product, right? Should you give them description? Should you explain what it is? Or do you leave it up to, you know, the imagination or like the understanding? Of the customer and audience, right? And I think that kind of is like a similar thing. Does that make sense?

Yeah. No, I think it's always, because you do want to, when you, as I said, brands are also very emotional and there's always this temptation to kind of speak to people and be emotional, but sometimes you have very specific needs. You need people to know what you're selling or, and sometimes they're not aspirational or they're not as sexy sexy to write, but you kind of have to explain what it is. And then as people know about you, you can then dive into more interesting creative outputs.

Yeah, I think that's a pretty good answer. So what I want to do is I want to move to the last question. We still have a ton of questions to go, but unfortunately we're hitting the hour mark and everybody kind of has a busy day. I'm not going to take up any, you know, too much time. So, okay, so we have a question from Jordy. What books would you recommend for like, uh, to provide good brand structure? But like, I just want to change this up around what resources, not just books, like resources. What are some of your favorite resources for when it comes to branding?

This is a great question, and before I came on, I did talk to my colleague Paulo and I said I think I should add like a bibliography at the end of the print, like have some resources. And he said, I don't think people are gonna, uh, are gonna ask about that. And now here it is. Um, but I think there's so many, it's hard for me, like top of my— but if, if you're looking for, um, your story or your purpose, then Simon Sinek definitely has a lot on that. Then, um, Jean-Noël Capferner, he's a very good brand, uh, a strategist who kind of predicted the quiet luxury trend, for example. But there's a lot. I don't know if we can send out a mailing, like a list after this through email or something, because there are, it's hard for me, like top of my head to just think of all of them. There are some very good ones, but I think there are good theorists on brands in general. And then there are very good brand strategists. And they're terrific books. There's a terrific book on naming that I don't remember, but I think it's called Hello, My Name Is or something. It's great if you're looking for a name for your startup. There's so many, I could go on and on. And you just said we were hitting the mark on time, and it's just, there's a lot of them. I'm sorry, I can't. I wish it—

That's perfectly fine.

I wish there were like a top 3 in my head, but I really don't have that.

You're Yeah, it's all good, right? I think we have, we got a ton of information from you, right? So that's like a really good starting point. And hopefully this kind of inspires our audience to do a ton of research and figure out what they want to do for their brand, right? So I think we're perfectly good in terms of that. And with that, yeah, Anna, do you want to add something?

No, I was just going to say I'm always open to— if you can reach me on LinkedIn and ask me all these questions, and I will take the time to actually give constructive feedback and good lists of books and all of that if you need. Just, I'm not sure if my LinkedIn link was up, but if you can find me easily, Can I write it somewhere and ask me the questions that you—

Yeah, what we'll do is, yeah, we'll share out your LinkedIn along with the presentation and a recording of the video in our follow-up email, so we should be good.

Okay, perfect. Then go ahead and just— I'm sorry, Jordy, that I couldn't be more helpful at this second, but just send me a message and I'll get to you.

Yeah, awesome. So guys, with that, um, we're at the hour mark and we're done with this, what I feel like was a really, really great webinar. Thank you, Anna, so much.

Thank you.

And thank you, Paulo, for making this happen. Awesome. Yeah, you're getting a ton of love. You can see the emojis, a ton of hearts, claps.

I can hardly see, but I think that, yeah, I can see things moving. Yeah.

So hopefully, yeah, hopefully you get a ton of rest and you get time to heal. Anna, would you want to add any, like, Any words?

Uh, no, just that thank you so much for your time and patience. Um, it— I think, uh, if you have any questions, if I can help with anything, you can reach us through LinkedIn. And again, apologies if some of it was confusing. I had a ton of notes that I couldn't read. So, uh, if anything else comes up, if you have any questions, just ask me and I'll, I'll take the time.

Awesome. Thank you, folks. Thank you, Anna, for being here. Like I said, all the details, the presentation, the video, Anna's LinkedIn, everything will be shared with you guys in 48 hours. With that, we end our webinar. Thank you so much for being here. I hope you guys have a great weekend.

Thank you.