Branding agency for brands that scale

Anyone looking to build a brand will meet agencies that all claim to do branding, yet start in different places. That starting point decides what you end up with. A branding agency starts with who you are, who you serve and why it matters, and works from there towards identity and guidelines. An advertising or marketing agency starts with a campaign or a channel and works with the brand as it stands. A design studio or freelance designer starts with form. Broadly:

In practice the lines blur: marketing agencies offer branding, and branding agencies design campaigns. Labels such as brand design agency, brand consultancy or branding company say little about it. Look instead at where the work begins and who makes the strategic calls. If you need a new visual identity on a course that is already set, a design studio is a sensible choice. If the course itself is the question, the work has to start earlier.

A brand strategy is a set of decisions that every later design choice relies on. A branding agency settles those decisions before anything is designed, because a visual identity without a strategy can only be judged on taste. A useful brand strategy answers at least these questions:

• 01Positioning: who is the brand for, in which market, and how does it differ from the alternatives a customer is weighing up?
• 02Brand essence: what is the core of the brand, in a few words anyone in the organisation can repeat?
• 03Brand promise: what can a customer expect at every point of contact?
• 04Brand story: where does the brand come from, where is it heading, and why does that matter to the customer?
• 05Tone of voice: how does the brand sound in a campaign, an order confirmation and a reply to a complaint?

Once those answers are sharp, the brand identity has a yardstick. A colour or typeface is no longer pretty or ugly; it either fits the positioning or it does not. That makes decisions easier, including for people who work with the brand later without having been part of the project.

Mission and vision do not have to be finished before you start. If they are missing, they belong in the strategy phase of the project, because the positioning builds directly on them.

• Brand essenceWhat brand essence means, with examples.
• Brand storyHow to write a brand narrative, step by step.
• Tone of voiceWhat tone of voice is and how it shapes the way your message lands.

Not every brand that feels dated needs a rebrand. A refresh renews the form and leaves the strategy intact: the logo is refined, typography and colour are tightened and the applications become more consistent. A rebrand goes deeper and also revisits the positioning, sometimes even the name. A new brand starts from zero, for a new product, a subsidiary or an initiative that has to stand apart from its parent organisation.

These signals suggest the issue goes deeper than the look:

• 01Your offer, audience or market has changed, but the brand still tells the old story.
• 02After a merger, acquisition or split, two brands need to become one, or one brand needs to become two.
• 03You are expanding internationally, and the name, story or tone works less well in new markets.
• 04Every department explains the brand differently, and your communication keeps drifting apart.

In a rebrand, what you keep matters as much as what you change. An existing brand has built up recognition, and you do not give that up without reason. A brand audit maps which elements carry weight and which get in the way, so the renewal builds on what already works. And a rebrand only takes hold once employees tell the new story themselves, which is why the internal rollout is part of the project.

Two cases show the difference. For Palo Alto Networks we strengthened the visual identity and online presentation of an established brand. For True Value Language, an initiative of Rabobank, we built the positioning, visual identity and platform from the ground up.

• Palo Alto NetworksAn established visual identity strengthened, from corporate design to online presence.
• Rabobank: True Value LanguagePositioning, identity and platform for a collaboration of more than twenty supply chain parties.

A brand does not become strong on the day it is presented, but in the months after, when other people start working with it. The brandbook sets out how. For many brands the website or webshop is the most important touchpoint, and that is where you find out whether the guidelines hold up in practice.

That is why it helps when identity and website come from the same thinking. Typography that works in a presentation also has to be readable on a phone. A colour palette needs enough contrast for buttons and text. Imagery has to work in product photos, banners and social. Test that only after delivery and the website goes its own way, diluting the brand exactly where customers see it most.

At Webfluencer, strategists, designers and developers therefore work in one team. For Renessence, a new concept by Urban Gym Group, we developed the brand identity and, together with Story of AMS, built the website with an integrated booking system. For Martini, branding, UX and development came together in the digital version of the card game Ask Your Friends.

• Brand bookThe brand book as the guide for visual identity and presentation.
• RenessenceFrom brand identity to a website with an integrated booking system.
• Web agencyHow we design and build websites.

When comparing branding agencies, people often judge portfolios on style. That tells you something, but not enough. An identity that looks good in a case study does not show how the agency arrived at its choices, or whether the brand held up after launch. These questions give a sharper picture:

• 01Does the agency show how it moves from strategy to design, or only the end result?
• 02Has it worked on challenges similar to yours, in scale, market or type of organisation?
• 03Do strategists and designers sit at the same table, or does a designer fill in the strategy alone?
• 04How is the brand applied after delivery, to website, packaging and campaigns, and by whom?

A good first conversation also takes preparation on your side. Bring what you already know: your ambition for the coming years, your audiences, existing brand materials and what does and does not work in them. Agree in advance who makes the decisions. A brand project with many voices and no owner risks ending in a compromise nobody recognises themselves in.

Whether you are looking for a branding agency in Amsterdam or elsewhere, proximity matters less than knowledge of your market. For workshops and presentations it does help when sitting down together takes little effort. Webfluencer works from Amsterdam and New York.

• All casesBranding and web projects, from strategy to delivery.