Where Branding and Brand Licensing Collide

Design agencies often focus on one or the other. But we do both. Why? 

Well, we don’t think they are actually that far apart. They utilise the same set of skills and knowledge. The end goal is just a little different. Here’s where we have found the key similarities:

Audience knowledge

This is a crucial one. For both brand design and brand licensing design, you need to know how audiences think and feel. What motivates them to buy a product or service from a company. 

Brand strategy

Yes, this applies to both brand design and licensing. If we can get to the heart of your business goals. We can ensure that all assets and guidelines are tailored to help you on your way. Whether that is expanding into new markets or attracting new types of licensees, or tailoring your brand to a new audience demographic. This all comes down to brand strategy. 

A good brand proposition and strategy should help inform all areas of your business. This means that any brand licensing project should fit within your brand strategy and align with your proposition. If you stick to this, you will always know that licensing is right for your brand. 

Understanding tone of voice

For this, we mean both visual and verbal. When we work with businesses on their brand, we use our skills in crafting the perfect tone of voice to help build out their brand identity. For licensing, this same knowledge of how tone of voice works, and how it translates from visual through to verbal expressions, is key. 

Even though you may be looking for a style guide that will really expand on your brand’s current licensing offer, you will still need it to make sense with your core tone of voice. The skilful dialling up and down of various personality traits within your tone of voice can help you to reach new audiences whilst not diluting your core brand identity and the value within that. 

Guidelines

They aren’t the most glamorous part of any branding job, but they are essential for the longevity of a brand. Equally, they are essential for a strong licensing project. 

In both case,s strong brand guidelines are all about presenting all the elements within a kit of parts and explaining the simple system behind successful usage of them. Good brand guidelines will make it easy for designers or licensees to create something beautiful and creative without having to reinvent the wheel each time they do it. 

Asset creation

For both branding design and brand licensing design, the creation of beautiful assets is at the heart of the project. A great set of assets, whether that is for licensing or branding design, will do two things:

1. They will create a clear visual language that is recognisable and unique to that brand. Helping to build brand recognition within its audience. 
2. They will allow for flexibility within that clear visual language. Ensuring that the brand doesn’t feel stale or dull. Branded content or licensed products will feel on brand and exciting. 

It’s important for licensees to feel like they will be able to create something unique from their brand assets. So that flexibility and scope within the assets we create is essential here. 

This is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to transferable skills between the two disciplines. What it all comes down to is the creativity of our designers matched with their deep understanding of audience desires.