The Psychology Of Behind Branding

“A brand is the set of hopes, memories, stories and relationships that, taken together, account for a customer’s decision to select one product or service over another.”

Everything in our environment was designed and built with our psychology in mind. You probably don’t even realize it, but the lights in your office emit a cool-coloured light because they have been demonstrated to make people more alert. If the walls and other interior components are blue, that might not be just an aesthetic choice—the color blue has been linked to imagination. So it’s probably no surprise that the brands you interact with daily are also designed with your psychology. This practice is known as the psychology of branding. When you harness the psychology of branding, you connect with your audience personally. You’re demonstrating that you understand who they are, what they value, what they believe in, and most importantly, what they need from the brands they love. Branding is a powerful tool, and understanding brand devotion psychology is critical for any brand that wants to succeed—and honestly, are there any that don’t want to achieve?

What Does Custom Branding Have To Do With Psychology?

Keep that in mind as you explore the psychology of branding and the processes involved in branding. Branding isn’t a one-time, do-it-and-now-it’s-done kind of thing; it’s an active, ongoing process that requires work. Branding is how your business connects with customers. It’s how you communicate your brand’s values with them by positioning yourself as a familiar friend or something to aspire to be. It works because consumers don’t view brands as faceless corporations—they view them as people. So think of designing your brand identity, and following that, your branding like creating a video game avatar—what does that character like? What don’t they like? Moreover, what do they stand for? How do they express themselves? Branding communicates these traits and gives people the information they need to form opinions of your brand. This is shaped by psychology, so it’s a crucial connection you should be aware of as you build your brand.

The Science Behind Brand Psychology

Branding psychology isn’t just a catchy marketing term—it’s rooted in science. Specifically, it focuses on how brands recognize psychological principles to connect with their target audiences. These principles include:

• Color psychology
• Pattern recognition
• In-groups and a sense of belonging
• The five brand personalities

Colour Psychology

We’ve covered color psychology extensively on our blog. Different colors make you feel other emotions when you see them. Some of these feelings are culturally influencing, while others are seemingly innate. Think about how red indicates heat, anger, and hot tempers, and green is associated with plants and the natural world. That’s color psychology in action. Brands use colors to communicate their values, price ranges, and the customer avatars they’re meant for. Not sure what color is right for your brand? Contact us at PlusPrinters UK. With it, you input your brand’s characteristics, like whether you’re formal or informal, affordable or luxurious, and the tool gives you suggested brand colors based on your persona.

Pattern Recognition & Consistency

Human beings are programmed to recognize patterns. In branding psychology, this means a consistent brand is a strong one. When your brand delivers the same experience with every interaction, representing the same tone of voice, the same colour palette, logo, and imagery, and the same user experience, people trust you. And trust is the essential component of loyalty. What happens if you don’t give your audience consistency? They can’t get attached to your brand. Even if your brand is wacky, quirky, and spontaneous, running hot and cold regarding your interactions and your look and feel will make your brand forgettable because you need to create something consistent to remember.

The Five Brand Personalities

The last component of branding psychology is known as the five brand personalities. According to this theory, there are just five distinct brand personas, and each persona communicates with its audience through specific traits. They are: Sincerity. These brands are family-oriented, kind, and thoughtful. Band-Aid is a sincerity brand, positioning itself as a non-negotiable in every family’s medicine cabinet. Excitement. Brands that embrace excitement tend to present carefree, youthful, and exuberant. Red Bull is an exciting brand, emphasizing the expressive actions people can take when they drink Red Bull and get “wiiiiiiiings”.

1. Ruggedness. With the ruggedness persona, a brand aims to inspire its audience through athleticism, toughness, and a rough-around-the-edges feel. Jack Daniels is a ruggedness brand, expressing this through its black label and positioning as an old-school “manly” spirit.
2. Competence. These brands highlight leadership and embrace their influence and aspirational status. Chase Bank is a competent brand, expressing this through the trustworthy geometric logo and no-gimmick approach to customer interaction.
3. Sophistication. Brands with this persona are not shy about their luxuriousness and prestige.
4. This doesn’t mean every classy brand is the same or there’s only one way to express ruggedness. Think of these personalities as templates, not fleshed-out brand identities.
5. The goal here is to connect with an established in-group because people like interacting with brands that feel like people who share their values.

The Five Strategies To Make Brand Psychology

Here are five strategies you can use to make the most of branding psychology:

1. Be Clear And Consistent

Like we said above, your audience expects you to be consistent. If you aren’t compatible, they quickly learn not to expect anything meaningful from you, leaving your brand in a pretty forgettable place. Introduce your new branding through a message on your website and a post on social media. If you have an email list, let people know about the change there. That doesn’t mean your brand can’t ever change. Your original brand persona might be slightly stifling as you grow, move into new markets, and expand your offerings. But change is a deliberate process and requires ongoing communication with your audience (more on that in a second). Then, gradually implement your new branding. This way, you don’t risk alienating anybody or having people assume you’ve gone out of business.

2. Communicate—Don’t Make The Audience Assume Anything

Be intentional with your branding. Please don’t leave anything to the buyer’s imagination because that leaves them room to make assumptions. Instead, be upfront about who you are: if you’re bold, shout it. If you care, say it. If you’re ornate, show it. And when your brand has a specific message, express it proudly.

3. Use Established Color, Font, And Shape Associations

Human psychology evolved over millennia. You can’t rewrite it in the span of a post or a clever ad. So instead of trying to convince your audience that, in your case, red is soothing and sans serif fonts are sophisticated, work with established color, font, and shape associations. Brands use the design choices they use because they work. Remember, the psychology of branding is more science than art—and these psychological ends come from research and data collection.

Understand How People Think And Observe

Another crucial part of mastering branding psychology is keeping yourself up-to-date on the latest findings in psychology, sociology, and related fields. Don’t get complacent—effective branding is a lifelong pursuit. Understanding human behaviour is the key to making your brand feel like a human being rather than a faceless “thing.” It’s what makes it possible for your brand to behave like a person and not like a robot imitating a person. But if you don’t have any idea about the color palette, contact us at PlusPrinters UK! We give our customers the best guide that is worth it!

Personalize Your Relationships

Even though your audience members probably all have some standard, unifying trait, the audience as a whole can probably be divided into subgroups. The process of doing this is called segmentation. By segmenting your audience, you can deliver more personalized experiences to each of them. Let’s say you’re a coffee roastery. Your buyers are all connected because they buy coffee from you. But let’s say you do retail boxes and wholesale. For the customers who come into your coffee shop and buy individual cups of coffee, the most important thing about your brand might be that you stay open later than your competitors. So you catch the night owls looking for a caffeine fix and offer a wide range of flavours so everybody can find something they like. That’s one segment. A personalized relationship with your brand makes the buyer feel like they’re a friend, not a customer.

Connect With Your Audience Through Optimized Design

When your goal is to connect with your audience genuinely, science-backed way, you need to work with an experienced designer who understands branding psychology. The psychology of branding is more than picking a color palette and aligning your brand with specific values; it’s getting to the core of what drives your audience to make the decisions they make and present themselves in the ways they present themselves.