Practical Brand Building Tips with Ana Pessanha

Hello, good evening or good morning depending on where in the world you are. And thank you for joining our event today about how to build your brand on a budget. Today we have invited a very interesting expert. Our guest speaker is Aya Pestanha. She will join us in a few minutes, but before that Let me introduce myself. My name is Emilia. I work for Foundry Institute. And Foundry Institute, for those who are with us for the first time, is the world's largest global pre-seed accelerator. You can learn more about it in the links in the chat that our assistant Akshay, my assistant today, Akshay, is posting. Also, a few words about our agenda today. We will invite Anna in a minute. She will present for 15-20 minutes, then we will have a Q&A session for about 15 minutes, and after that, everybody is invited to join our networking lounge, which you will see after the Q&A session, you will see these tables. You can join them and engage with us. You can give us feedback there, also speak to Anna if she's available, and connect and meet with each other. Few clarifications about the platform. It's on Airmeet. We have the chat where you can introduce yourself. We can look at it now. Usually we ask you where are you joining from. Today we have, as usual, very global audience and more than 400, almost 500 people who signed up for today's webinar. And please share with us where you're joining today from. We have people from Colorado, Switzerland, Germany, Boston, all over the world pretty much. I'm joining today from Alicante, Spain. I'm very happy to have you all here. Last thing before we go, we may— we have made a poll. We asked you one question that is related to today's topic. About branding, and I'm gonna publish this, I'm gonna put it on stage now. And please vote because this is going to help us understand your needs better and what are the obstacles for you, what you find challenging. So what has been more challenging for you when creating your brand? Is it the naming, the logo, the tone, tagline, colors, graphic, other graphic elements? This time we put many options to make it more interesting. So tone is prevailing for now, and name I will put this on the side. You can still vote. So there is the poll also on the right-hand side where is the chat. So you will find the Q&A section. Please, during the presentation, post all your questions there and then we can find them easily. You can also vote for them. And this way we'll know which one more people are interested to hear the answer. And last but not least, here under, there are these emojis that also help us understand what you like about the presentation. And now, without further ado, I want to invite Ana Pizanha with who is the head of brand voice and creative strategy at VMLY&R Branding.

Exactly.

She's gonna tell more about branding, about herself and all the branding tips and tools for startup founders. Welcome, Ana.

Hi, Emilia. Thank you for having me.

I'm gonna leave you now On your own, the floor is all yours and see you in a bit.

Perfect. Thank you so much. I'm just gonna share my screen here. Um, and maybe just jump right to it. Well, thank you so much for attending. I hope you find this is a very helpful webinar. What we want to do today is give you tools to actually— we're going to go over branding essentials and branding principles, but then give you the tools to actually start doing it yourself and not having to rely necessarily on an agency to get this stuff done and have it done well. And by the end of the session, we're also going to announce something that is new at Vogal that we believe— or Vogal, I was saying it the Portuguese way because I'm currently in Portugal, could say either Vogal or Vogal. And they're going to be announcing something, we're going to be announcing something that is really interesting. So hopefully You'll stay until the end and we get to announce it as a community. But what we're gonna do is we're just gonna jump right into branding basics and essentials and how you can build them. But first, a little introduction. Why do I know this? Why am I here in a position to talk about this? I'm a EU-based writer and creative strategy. So I've been working with brands for over 8 years now. And what I do is I help them determine their positioning, their tone of voice, and overall help them with their identity. So I've worked with brands such as FIFA and UEFA, for example, right now. I developed and am also doing some work for Euro 2024. It's actually done at my agency. FIBA, we did practically all of the basketball World Cups in the last years have been done by us also. And then I also for Vinted, I'm a localization expert. So everything that is creativity in the Portuguese market, I'll help them develop that. And I do all of this while leading the brand voice team at an agency called VMLY&R Branding and also helping Vogel out as a branding consultant. So with this out of the way, we could start talking about why you should care about your brand. And this is always a tricky subject because if somebody is not very versed in the subjects of branding, you usually think of the brand as an extension of the company. But actually the brand plays a different, completely different role. Um, because they have this power. Brands will often be worth more than all the other assets of the companies combined. So a brand can be worth more than your property, your locations, your factories, materials, all of that. According to the brand, the European Brand Institute. So what does this mean? We can give you a visual. Um, Airbnb, for example, the tangible book value— and, and being a service, they don't necessarily have houses or anything, so their tangible book value is pales in comparison to what their market cap is. And their market cap is building on that notion of the brand, on that awareness, on that, uh, all the values that are associated with it, all the top of mind. Usually, even if you're staying in another kind of service, if you're staying in a house rather than a hotel, you're probably just saying I'm Airbnb. And you know, they kind of like Uber, they've owned that space and that space is of course worth a lot of money. So we could say to sum this up that brands are actually the perception of a business. They're not the everyday bread and butter Excel file of the business. They're actually what people will think and feel about what your business is. So they're very important. They're that meeting point. They're the relationship that you're going to build. They're the reason why people will choose you rather than your competitors, or they're the reason that you can thrive and in the end have something that is much more valuable than everything else. It's all building up on that idea of the brand. So everything you do then, if brands are this perception, branding can be defined as everything you do to influence that perception. So Starting with the name of your company, that's going to influence the perception people have of it. Also the logo, the visuals, all of that is going to have a great, great influence. But also little things like how you reply in your customer service. Do you have newsletters? Do you have a ringtone when somebody calls support? All of those things. Do you have a chatbot? What did you name the chatbot? Like all of these things are going to influence that perception. So branding is not just the logo. And it's easy sometimes to think that brands are just the seal, the logo, the thing that kind of sets you apart visually, but they're much, much more than that. And there's a lot you can build to create a very strong brand. So how, if you have that, how will you grow this brand? The first and the one I kind of already touched on is this idea of differentiation. So if you're starting a brand, it's important to know that it doesn't look like any other brand out there and that you're not gonna have that issue of not being different enough. And then when you have that differentiation, you have to have a consistency. What sets you apart and what is, um, what makes you different? And we're gonna see how you can get to that point. What makes you different has to be consistent across all your brand assets. So your name has to have a relationship with your visuals. It has to exist in the sealed world, and then it has to be coherent. So if you have your brand, then you're online on your website, it has to have a coherent tone with what you're doing on social media, for example, or even how you pitch your project. If your brand has to be the basis and it has to guarantee this coherence across all channels. And then of course, presence, because you can have a great brand, you can have a great brand idea, you can have great visuals, a fantastic name, but if you're not present, if you're not buying that right domain, if you're not showing up on ads, if you're not showing up to events, if you're not, guaranteeing that visual, mental presence of your brand, then you could have the best logo in the world. It's unfortunately not going to be noticed. So basically I would keep— you could, you could even have these on a Post-it somewhere or something just to keep in mind when developing your brand, guaranteeing that it has that differentiation, it has consistency, coherence, and also save some budget for presence. And after you have this covered, how, what are actually the pieces that are going to help you build a brand in an early stage? Of course, there are more pieces. There's also sound branding, there's smell, scent branding, there's all of those assets, but we're just going to focus on the basics to get you covered. So we'll start with the strategy, not the business strategy, the creative strategy. So what's going to be the story that you're going to tell? What's your purpose? What's your vision, all of that. And then the naming. If you have that story, you have that visual, how do you come up with a name for your company? Um, and then how do you develop a visual identity? So that includes not only the logos, but also all the little visuals, the graphics, the things that you're going to put as a template on your decks, all of that. And then, uh, the verbal identity, which is often overlooked. And in the end, you just start relying to, in a sense, in the tone of whoever is replying back or writing. But you should have a fixed tone and you should keep that coherence, uh, as I said earlier. So let's just jump into it. How you can get started. The strategy, as I said, the creative strategy. What's your story? And first, I'd like to address why this is important and why you definitely should not overlook this. Even though you have an idea in your head, you have to sit down with your team. You have to write your story and to understand if it makes sense, if it's going to set you apart. And we can see when a story is, is good and it does set you apart. And also it drives what you're doing with your company. When the brand is good, it's going to drive everything that is happening in the company. And we can see this in the case of Patagonia. So Patagonia grew their story so much and they're so honest about it and straightforward. And it's such a big part of the whole company and the brand that maybe when you buy a Patagonia t-shirt, you're buying it because of the story and not necessarily the fabric or the logo. It might just be a white t-shirt, but because you know that with that brand comes a very big story and a very big purpose. And this is something that gets people, um, to back you up, to get excited, to want your product. So if we have this, if we don't know what our story is, or if we're not sure what our purpose is, a great way to start and to find your story is with Simon Sinek's Golden Circle, for example. So you can start by trying to figure out what you're doing. Like, how would you define what you're doing? And how can you find something to do that is a little bit different than everyone else is doing? And then how you're doing it. Maybe What you're doing isn't that unique, but how you're doing it is your unique selling point. And then why you're doing it. So in the end, if you're tired, why are you waking up every day? Why should people care? What is this why? And that's very important to have written down and for your whole team to share that reason of the why. And have it be something simple, something effective, memorable, maybe even emotional. Not have it be like a 40-slide deck that's very confusing and that everyone gets to pick what they think is more important. You should have it in a straightforward sentence that if you're going to onboard somebody tomorrow, in like 20 seconds, 30 seconds, they get to feel what you're doing and what it's all about. And then this why has to be something that as you grow your company or your project will still be true to the whole, your whole endeavor. So here are some useful books to get you to understand your creative strategy or the, the, the story that you want to tell. So you could either go into the positioning. So how are you going to find a story that's different to all the other stories that are being told out there? Of course, you have the Start with Why by Simon Sinek, the one with the golden circle, which is a great exercise for you to do. But then we also have more general books about branding and building brands. They're great. Bedside table reads. They're good to keep, they're good to pass around your team if you have a larger team and to get everyone inspired in the potential of a brand and the potential of a very good story. And one of the first tools that we're bringing you today is actually from the book, Building a Story Brand, and it's kind of helping you shape and find that story. So you can find it, clarify it, you can tune it with this suggestion, this link based on the theories of the book. But we'd also would like to invite you to try at Vogel. They developed a very interesting workshop that you could actually do with your team and kind of go through the steps to figure out your purpose and your story. So save this, screenshot it, Whatever is more convenient for you, but definitely give it a try with your team, especially if you feel like not everybody is necessarily on board or not everybody has a clear message of what the perception of the business should be or the potential or what you're trying to do, then definitely start with the why. That's my first and probably biggest advice. And then when you're super clear on the why, and because this is going to be important because of course the naming, has like your name has to somehow live up to the expectations of the why or serve a purpose of the why. And also when you're looking for your why, you're also looking at the other whys that are out there and the other reasons why people are doing things and the other names that are out there. So all of that research is important to then sit down and come up with names. And names are hard. They're the hardest part of my job. No doubt about it. They're very, very hard. And when you're working with clients, everyone always expects that haha moment because they think every name that's out there, somebody said it and somebody went, oh, eureka, yes, that's it. Like, that is not true. A lot of names are crafted. They take long. A lot of people in the meetings, maybe when somebody suggested a name like, I don't know, Tesla, I'm sure that, well, maybe nobody had a say in that meeting, but maybe somebody said, I'm not sure about that name. And then Elon Some said, yes, I'm very sure about the name, you know, not everyone is always on the same page, but then these brands make sense ultimately. So namings are not necessarily easy. And they're, although they're something that you should definitely kind of invest in in the beginning, because it's very hard to change a name. But don't worry, if you already have a name, there are solutions. And this is why I brought these slides to show you that even if you have a name, there are turning points. If you're pivoting, if you're investing more on that communication, uh, maybe you should go back and reassess if the name you have is, is still, uh, worth that investment, or if it's a good time to kind of look into other names. So we have here an example of companies that started with very different names. And I don't know if, um, anyone out there knew about this, but in the end we can talk about, uh, some of these examples. So Backrub actually ended up being Google. Started up with— started with a very different name, Kadabra, ended up being Amazon. Very clever name. Uh, and Blue Ribbon Sports became the, um, immortal Nike that I think I even have a box here. So brands everywhere. Um, and there's— I, I brought this little kind of— I, uh, there are many brand naming, uh, theories, and there are very tactics, and, and creatives will use different, uh, ways to come up with names. But usually what we do is we kind of group them into different purposes. So you have names that are descriptive. They're great because they're exactly what you want in, in, in your product or when you, what you want to come across. They're very hard to guarantee the domains, very hard to register. So they involve, you have to, to really invest in getting descriptive names and in beating everyone else to it because Everything has been done already and it's very hard to get a name that hasn't been done or bought out there that isn't out there. So when you can't guarantee the descriptive name or you want a little bit of something different, then you go into the invented names and invented names. Agandas is here because I think, I'm not sure, it's an American company, but I think they want it to sound either Austrian or Danish. I'm not really sure. Or Swiss. I'm not sure. I know they want it to sound European, fancy European. So they came up with this completely made-up name that doesn't mean anything, doesn't look like anything, but kind of was bringing that layer to the perception of the products. So they wanted their ice cream to have this fancy European perception, and they used the name for that. And then we have something like Oreo, which is completely made up, made up but to be more fun and to be more about the shape of the cookie. And you almost make the shape of the cookie with your mouth when you're saying it's like Oreo. So invented with a completely different purpose. And then you have the experiential names, and these are kind of a step up on the descriptive. So you didn't guarantee the descriptive, but you can guarantee the experiential. So what kind of experience are you trying to get here? So we know that Dropbox, it's the idea you just drop it on the box It's done. Zendesk is kind of organizing, I think, in a way that is not overwhelming. All the queries that you're going to have, everything is not going to be overwhelming. It's going to be very organized. And then finally, we have names that are evocative. So words that already exist but are repurposed here by brands to kind of bring some of that meaning into the company, but not be a descriptive name. So Tesla, I think, was chosen for kind of the irreverence of the original Tesla and for being kind of the opposition to Edison and to being connected to electricity. So all of that, when all of that kind of perception that you have of Tesla, so suddenly when you name a company Tesla, you're bringing in that perception into that. And Amazon was chosen because it's very clever. It's vast. Everyone imagines and pictures the Amazon as something that is very, very big. And then it also had that clever little detail of the A to Z. That's why it has the arrow thing. So they had everything from A to Z. So as a naming and a logo, it's a great example of a successful descriptive— evocative name, sorry. So you want to try testing out, you want to understand how to create good names. This is a good book. We share it it all the time around the office. We always have a copy. It somehow always gets left behind somebody's house and we keep buying it even though it's very yellow. It's very hard to misplace. It's very easy to misplace. But I would advise if you're— it's a small book. It's interesting. It's good to share with friends even if you're not naming a brand but you still don't know what to name your dog or your cat. It's also good for inspiration. And links, what we brought to you today is GoDaddy to check your domain availability. And this is important and it's a good way, a good place to start. And then to find inspiration, there are these websites. I chose one, the name Fazil, but there are, I think, hundreds of them out there and hundreds of them in different languages to kind of to help you find inspiration. But don't get too stuck on names that are generated, uh, Get your team involved, brainstorm with people you know, or even brainstorm with ChatGPT. I've never, to this day, I've never accepted a name that was generated by AI. But I like to have conversations and I'd like to ask them, okay, what kind of words do you associate with a Mediterranean feel? You know, kind of, if you don't have anyone to brainstorm at the moment, it's good to not get too blocked and to find and use these tools to kind of get inspired and kind of test out theories. And you can ask them like, is there a company that is named this? Or would I be the first? Things like that. And then there's also Namecheap and it kind of combines that inspiration with the domain availability. And it's a good one when you already have some options or you're, you're, you're not sure that your options are going to be available, then it's a good one to go. But have fun with it because Coming up with names is very hard. It's very easy to get discouraged because it will seem like there's, um, everything's been named and all of the names are taken. But when you get there, when you find something that works, don't worry if it's not a haha moment. If it works, if it will serve your purpose, if it's in line with, uh, your whole company and your whole team, then That's good enough. And then when that is done, you can move to the visual identity. So the visual identity, the first kind of main assets that your brand will have visually is the logo. And, uh, we brought this example to why a visual ID matters. Uh, I don't know if you remember the previous Airbnb logo, but it wasn't very inspiring. It wasn't terrible, but it wasn't telling a story. So you couldn't really sense what the, uh, what the why was with this logo, right? You kind of know the B&B, bed and breakfast, air, lighter. Like there wasn't a lot of, of heart in that story. So what they did was they came up with a new Airbnb logo that literally had a heart, but also had a story. So I don't know if you're aware, but this is actually the meaning behind the new logo. So they saw people, they saw the pin for the places, and love, and an A. And that's how they came up with that, um, symbol. Very simple symbol, but a little bit more inspiring, a little bit more proprietary. It's theirs. It's not just a wordmark, so it's not just the name written out in a curvy font. It's a story, and they do it perfectly. But then, moving on to a completely different, uh, topic and, and, and category, Your visual idea is not just your logo. Your visual idea is going to be everything. So it's going to be your whole visuals. It's going to be how you present your app, how you present your company, how you present your product, uh, the templates you use, the images you use, the photos you're going to use, um, everywhere. All of that is considered visual ID. And your visual ID is a very strong tool of differentiation and coherence and consistency. It's a very strong tool, but the differentiation one can be defining in the category. So here you have some samples of, um, the mindfulness apps. So apps that will help you meditate or that will help you reassess your life, all of that. And they were very— they all had these— they're two different apps, they probably look the same, but that's how the category was. It was very blue, very calming, very similar, like somebody decided these are the codes of this category and nobody was really doing anything different until Headspace came along. And instead of the calming blue and all of that kind of the codes that they were using, they just came with these characters, these bold colors, these visuals that instead of having a person breathe in and breathe out, they had these cartoons trying to explain mental states with little stories, kind of like Pixar stories. And this was so interesting. And their visual identity was so rich that they even got to pivot and they even got to have a show on Netflix, for example, based on their visuals. So something that, that's a very great example of why branding should not be an afterthought. Like, you could actually take, get a lot of potential from, for your company and for your, to develop your story and to develop your product if you have these good assets to begin with and if they're differentiating. So some books to get you inspired Definitely get The Brand Gap. He has— Marty Neumeier has a lot of books that are very visually interesting, very simple to read, also very nice to share with your friends or your team. And then The Book of Branding about creating these visual worlds and creating consistent and coherent visual worlds for a brand. And useful links: Canva, definitely for all your design needs. It's amazing. It's Uh, very intuitive, very easy to, to do. But then if you're not sure what your brand should look like or what you should do, then jump on Pinterest and Behance, like for inspiration, look at what brands are doing, what catches your eye, what works, what doesn't work so much. Like really get that vision, that, um, visual culture is very important to be aware of what's out there, to be aware of what people are drawn to, specifically your target. What is your target paying attention to? All of that. And you can find that on Pinterest or Behance, and you can save the images that you think are interesting to inspire your brand, things that you can share with your team, or you can share that will show what you want visually. Even if you're, if you're not doing it all by yourself, if you just have one designer, it's good to have these tools to share, um, your ideas, your visual ideas. And then when, if you're need the images and you need them on your website or you need them on social and they can't just be pulled out of anywhere because of copyright infringement, you can go get free stock photos from either one of these websites. So either Unsplash or Pexels, you can just download them. Unsplash has good, um, they're, they're pretty, they're not, uh, bad stock photos. They're very good stock photos, uh, most of the times. And you can use them if you need to have images and you don't want to spend a lot on like Getty Images or Shutterstock, or you don't really need a subscription to one of those right now, but you want images that you're free to use, uh, online or that are free from copyright, then these two websites are perfect for that. And now let's go into verbal identity. And this is particularly close to my heart because this is one of the things that I do every day. So I'll do the creative strategy, I'll do the naming, I jump the visual identity, but I do help designers with it, and then I come back for the verbal identity, or I'm working at the same time. But I really love this because, um, the tone of voice matters so much, and it matters so much when you meet someone, um, even if you're not aware, it matters when you are interacting with the brand. Just a simple introduction or a simple packaging description is just gonna create a perception for— of a brand, even if you're unaware. And this is an example of a brand that was not noticeable. I, I don't know if you're familiar with the brand Oatly, but this is how they started. So they were very unnoticeable. They looked like everything else in the category. They weren't exciting. And then they did one thing that was a definite game changer. They changed their tone. And they didn't do it by like having to invest a lot on ad campaigns and saying, oh, we're We're different. They just, they had the packaging and they thought, well, why don't we start talking to people through the packaging? And they kind of, in a time where it seemed like nobody wanted to say too much and writing or reading too much was like a no-no because with the age of the internet, it was like, oh no, people don't want to read people. But they were like, no, let's actually tell them stories. Let's tell them about our product. Let's tell them about our why. On the packaging and let's not make it just a catchphrase. Let's make it engaging. Let's give it a tone. So they did this fantastic job and then they did that thing that I was telling you about, which is the consistency and the coherence. So if they have this tone on the packaging, they're gonna have it outside when they have a billboard or in this case, not a billboard, but a wall, and they're gonna have it in their videos. And I think there's this recent campaign that even came out that they bought, actually bought like 2 pages on newspapers or 2 billboards next to each other. And on one billboard, they say their carbon emission number or something like their sustainability numbers. And then on the other, they're inviting dairy brands to actually put their numbers there. So it's a very bold move. It's a very Oatly kind of move. And then they also have Interesting, when they pivot to video, their ads are very OTLY. I'm just gonna play a quick ad. Wow, wow, no cow, no, no, no, wow, wow, no cow. See, so when you have a fun tone, when you have— you can do songs, you can, you can explore your tone. And another thing they did is they explored their, their tone with a kind of a play on a reality show called Will It Swap. So the basic behind this reality show is they invite people to kind of see if the way they cook with dairy can actually be swapped with oatly. But it's not as remotely as boring as I make it sound. It's much more interesting. It's much more in tone with what they're doing. You're going to use oatly instead of milk? It might go wrong. Does my mom sing the little swap song? I'm not so sure. Oh, she wants to go in. So older people that are probably not the target of Oatly, they're very used to doing things with the dairy, so they're not the target, but we're gonna bring them in without compromising our tone. And that's just just so clever. It's so interesting. So great example of why actually creating a tone can really set you apart. And just to know what's out there and to know how tone can then be used in advertising, there's this interesting book. It's very beautiful, so it's a good coffee table book if you're in need of one. The Copy Book: How Some of the Best Advertising Writers in the World Write Their Advertising. So tone is not necessarily advertising, but usually because brands are now kind of waking up to the idea of having it, because brands usually before social media, they didn't have to have so a tone that was so present and so constant because they didn't have to post every day. They didn't have to like talk every day. Now they only had like ads every few months or weeks, but now they have to really have a brand tone, but Because this is fairly recent that they're paying attention to this, all of the tone used to be in advertising, in advertisements. So it's a good place to start this copybook. And then to actually help you with the brand tone when you're creating brand materials, you could either use one of these two tools. So one is TypeTone, TypeTone.ai. And what it does is you prompt it with your brand guidelines of the tone you want. So I want it to sound friendly, I want it to sound— and then it will write down in your brand tone. And the same Canva, the one that I showed you yesterday for all your design— yes, minutes ago— for all your design needs, they also have a tool called Magic Write in Brand Voice where you feed it the guidelines of your brand voice, and then as you're developing the materials, it will help you fill them in with your tone. So after you have all of this and you have a very good base, how would you measure the success of a brand. And this is kind of to close the, the webinar and, and the chapter. We don't know how to measure the success of a brand because it can mean very different things. We know that a brand, uh, when you're developing it, a good brand will help you identify, attract, and differentiate your business. So it helps your target know what you are, it helps it be interesting, and then it helps differentiate from the rest of your competition. But what we do and what Vogel does as well and what they believe in is that a powerful brand will not stop there. It would actually create, help the team relate not only to the work they're doing, but to each other to kind of that what share in that why that you found out in the beginning with the creative strategy. And then your audience is not just going to be attracted, but that they will connect, they will interact with you. And ultimately, we believe that if all of these needs are met and the business thrives and it even inspires the business or it pivots the business like it did for Headspace or it did for Oatly, then definitely it is a very, very powerful brand. And we believe that shaping your brand in the end, going back to the beginning of the workshop, shaping your brand will definitely help you shape your business. So please don't overlook it. Don't leave it to the last minute and save a little bit of— the biggest investment here with these tools is not going to be money. It's going to be time and it's going to be the importance that you're giving these subjects. And we, I think we made an interesting point of the importance of not leaving these things to chance. And I'd like to close with the announcement that I said in the beginning that we were making. So Vogel is actually developing a tool a brand strategy tool that is based on this, on the countless workshops they did. Their, their target is, um, all of like, um, early, um, stage startups or startups that are growing but really never considered their branding. Like, they've been working with these startups for a long time, and all of that knowledge they're actually going to feed into this brand strategy tool. And hopefully, um, they— Paulo from Vogal wanted to have a conservative approach and say it, it's probably not going to be done by November, but hopefully, uh, it will be ready soon. So if you sign up, you'll be one of the first to know. So the idea is all of that knowledge, all of those workshops, and all of the working with those, um, startups is going to feed an AI that will help you fill out your creative strategy for your, um, brand, company, or project. And that's it from me. Let us know, uh, if you need some help. I think I'll open the floor now, but, um, basically these are the contacts. You can reach Paulo for sure, um, he's great. He— Vogal really believes that good branding, uh, startups deserve good branding, and it doesn't have to come with crazy price. And so just reach out. And I think now we can move into some questions. Let me just stop sharing the screen. So, hi, Amelia.

Hi, I'm back. Thank you so much, this was amazing, really hands-on knowledge and tons of examples and links. It was really, really good. So yeah, for Anna, and we have shared your links, but if our attendees didn't have the chance to take a screenshot or to write down, to copy the links. We're gonna share also the presentation, the deck, and the video in within 20 or 48 hours. And we have many interesting questions. We maybe will not have time for all of them, but let's start with the one that got the most votes. I'll put it on stage. First one is, can you give examples of using your company brand in early startup strategies?

This is, uh, examples of using company brand and early startup strategies. So I'm not sure, uh, I understand the question 100%, but is it giving examples of why early startups should already have a branding strategy or should already focus on it? Is this—

I think the focus is that it's very early stage. It's most of our people in our audience are very, very early stage.

So, okay. So one thing that I will say is that if you have that reason and that why, and it can inspire your brand name, even if it's early stage, just the fact that you're attending a webinar like this, if you could say my project is called this, and if it's an interesting name, if it's a memorable name, and if it's in tune with what you're doing, and if it's inspired by the why and all of that, then you already have an asset that will be in people's minds. And maybe some of those people will be your target and you're building that perception already. So even if it's very, very early, You have to name it something, right? So why not name it something that is aligned with the whole vision and strategy that you're going to develop for your brand? I think.

Yeah. Thanks. And you talked about measuring, but here, what metrics should founders focus on to measure the success of their branding efforts without expensive analytics tools?

Yeah, so analytics tools are expensive and they're not always a very big signifier of brand health. Or maybe sometimes if, let's say, you're selling a product, if the product isn't selling, it might not be necessarily because of the brand. So it's hard to set the brand apart in those metrics. The company I work for, VMLY&R, has this big, big brand study called BAV, of course expensive, uh, but it focuses on brands, which is hard in other analytics tools. So most analytics tools were probably— will be expensive and will not be very helpful to identify brand health. So what founders can focus on to measure the success of the branding efforts— and it's a great question— is, well, is it helping, uh, them? Is the name helping them? Is it too complicated? Do you have to to like pitch it and it's very hard to write down, for example. Like these are very small signifiers of success. But if you can just leave a meeting and everyone understood your purpose and everyone understood your name or the name of your company and everyone likes your logo or is inspired in a way and it thinks, oh, this is not, you know, this is a, there's some thought behind this. There's this nice logo. There's, that creates perception. So I think if it's helping you is a great way to measure. If it's not helping, if people don't really understand the name, if the visuals you're using are not captivating the audience that you need at the moment, then maybe that's because it's not too successful.

Great. So not just tools, but looking for feedback as well.

Yeah, exactly. That's a good place to start.

Another question from Boncani: are there specific social media platforms or online tools that are particularly useful for budget-conscious branding efforts?

Um, so I'm not an expert on social media, to be honest. Um, so I wouldn't really know how to help in that department, but I'm sure there are, and I'm sure we could look into it and we could ask our colleagues. But all of the other tools that we provided are budget conscious. So we just might have to add that social media slide next time. I'm very sorry, I don't know any at the moment. I don't, can't think of one. Maybe Paulo or Daniel there in the audience, if you have a better answer than mine, please You can share in the chat, sir, and we're going to invite you again, no problem. Okay.

Next question is here. Okay, this is a question from Ling. Sorry, is it really?

Sorry, Amelia, just wanted to say that somebody in the audience did mention that they got their logo done through Fiverr. Fiverr is also a great platform to to get in touch with designers that won't break your budget or creatives that won't break your budget. So definitely it's a good suggestion and we do use it in agencies or projects where we have to outsource. So there's a lot of great, great people working on there. Sorry to interrupt you. Just didn't want to forget that.

Yes. Fiverr.

Yeah.

Is it really bad if the brand reminds people of something already popular? Uh, but now many people say that my app Duolingo Speak reminds of Duolingo, which is a very popular app.

Great question. Um, it is an issue unless— I don't know if you're familiar with the MailChimp campaign, uh, where at one point they— MailChimp had a random kind of name, so a lot of people didn't really understand it when somebody said MailChimp. So they actually, they leveraged that and they used it in their advantage and they had this whole campaign with the different names that people call them and then visuals to like show that. I don't wanna spoil it for you. Just if you can go online and look for Mailchimp and that naming campaign they did. So they leveraged it in their advantage. But if you don't have the ability to do something like that, I would say that it can be an issue because you're always going to compete. You're always going to be competing with Duolingo already if you're doing something similar. And if you're not doing something similar, then people are mistaking you for one another. And I think it's the LingQ. Like, maybe if it was just you do it, I don't know, but I would I would rethink it. If it's an issue at this point, it's probably going to be an issue later on. And I think if it sounds too similar, you can even get sued by Duolingo because there's this— if something sounds like another thing, if they can prove that it's similar enough, then they could sue you if you get really big. So maybe look into that and just think if there's another name that is not going to pose that threat. I don't want to scare you, sorry. It's, it's, um, it's just a suggestion.

Uh, I think the issue here is about how the app looks, the design part.

Um, oh, oh, I thought it was the name because the name did, uh, look the same. Well, if I, I can only speak to the name. I don't know if the visuals are that similar or not.

But could be the name.

Yes, if it's the visuals, then I don't know. But if— I mean, you're at a point where you can change things, so maybe it's better to change them now than later if there's— if that's an issue.

Okay, thanks. We have time for a couple of more questions. Before we close. So let's do this one. Once a brand has established its identity, what are some cost-effective strategies for scaling the business and reaching a wider audience? Again from Bogani. He has great questions today.

I think it really depends, it really depends on your market. It really depends on what makes for your product. So if it makes sense to invest smartly on social media or if it makes sense to invest on, I don't know, maybe a billboard is enough for you to scale and reach a wider audience. So I don't, I think that then if you figure out that the cheapest way is just to get YouTube ads, for example, then I think the way you create them has to maximize that investment. So I know that Google has these, um, if you're interested, this is just an example, but if you're interested in doing YouTube ads, they will give you the metrics to get people's attention. So start a video with somebody looking at the camera, but they will kind of tell you how to maximize it. So I don't, I think the cost-effectiveness of the strategies is how much you can get from the money you're probably going to have to pay. But I don't, I really don't know then because that goes into like buying media space and all of that and that's not really my expertise. I'm just the branding part.

Right.

Just have this tip. It's not really an expert tip but.

Okay, thank you. Thanks for that. And one last question. Just a second, questions keep coming, but a lot of them were answered in the, in the presentation we're going to share with you later. So yes, you talked about this, maybe it's useful. Is it okay to add the meaning of the company's name, like the example with Airbnb? Especially if it helps tell the story in a company profile or brochure, other materials.

100%. Just if you're, if your story is going to help, add your story, but add it with tone and add it knowing that you're not telling yourself or your team the story, you're telling your target. So whatever that target is, maybe you have to custom the story to them, to custom tailor like the story and the tone to your target, but Definitely tell your story as much as you can, whenever it is appropriate, if you have space, kind of like oatly, like if you have space, use it wisely.

Wonderful. Thanks again. And with this, we will wrap up today's session. It was amazing, tons of useful knowledge. Please follow Anna and the resources. All the resources if you didn't have time to follow everything. We sent you the video and a deck. And join us at our next event. Also check on the website and sign up for the newsletter. Before you go, before we close, Anna, would you like to share last words? Anything else that you want to say?

No, I think if you have any questions, if there's anything we can help you with on You can reach us on LinkedIn. You can reach us through the email that we gave you, paulo@vocal.io. And I'd really recommend for you to sign up to that tool that we showed because when it's up and running, it's going to be amazing and it's going to help you on a budget, which was the whole purpose of this. So thank you so much for your time.

Thank you, see you in the lounge, and Anna, see you next time.

Thank you, bye.