When launching or designing a new product how can you guarantee your brand will stand out from the competition? 

Knowing what else is on the market, and how those brands are positioning themselves, is essential to drawing up a strategic brand design.

Only with a full understanding of what other products are out there – and what sells well – can you begin to formulate a strategic brand design that will make it part of that niche, but also allow your product to stand out. 

At Brand Britain we know that a key component in branding success is conducting a thorough category audit ahead of taking any decisions on brand design.  

Using an analytical approach from the start will lay the foundations for a strategic brand design that will benefit the launch of a product, or the redesign of an existing one.  

Map out a recipe for success

A thorough category audit will help both the design agency and brand owner know what designs work well in rival brands – and what has met with less success.  

Taking the time to do this will also identify any gaps in the market, that could be targeted by a strategic brand design.

Finding a need and filling it is an inherent part of branding success and a category audit is essential to this, rather than looking at a pre-existing design idea with no clear strategy mapped out. 

A category audit will also identify trends and the possibility that conforming to consumer ideas about how a product should look, could actually help its success. Likewise, it will identify any need to revitalise a category with an innovative design aiming for maximum impact.

A strategic brand design needs to consider all aspects of the marketplace. If uniformity is important to consumer tastes the design process can look at how to adapt this. There needs to be an understanding of why a particular approach has worked in the past and what aspect of the design appealed to customers.

Is it time for a change? 

Yet a category audit is also a great opportunity to consider whether there are benefits to be had from disrupting a time-tested visual for specific packaging design.

A different, stand-out approach could be exactly what the customer is looking for. 

Knowing what products will be competing alongside yours and what emotive signals they send to customers is the best way to pull together a strategic brand design.

While a key part of packaging design is to stand out, there are retail norms that consumers value and times when packaging design needs to accommodate the environment it will operate in.  

For branding that will catch the eye of customers new and old, a category audit is a must to inform a strategic brand design that covers all corners.

Make sure your next step is an informed one, contact Brand Britain to discuss strategic brand design.