Your branding is often the first thing consumers see when they discover your company. If your branding is off-key or feels wrong it could increase the churn among existing customers and send potential consumers to look elsewhere. 

In the digital age it is no longer good enough to sketch out a logo on the back of an envelope and stick it on the side of a van. Your brand doesn’t just need to work online and on uniforms it needs to reflect your company’s culture, values and aspirations.

Sairah Ashmann calls the work of Wolff Olins, the brand consultancy agency of which she is global chief operating officer, an expression and reflection of business strategy. Wolff Olins is responsible for producing some of the most famous brands of recent times, including Orange, EE and Unilever.

“We look at what a business is trying to achieve and ask how the brand is going to support that,” she says.

According to Kevin Roberts, chief executive worldwide of Saatchi and Saatchi, brand and reputation translate directly to cold, hard cash.

“It is the emotional relationship a consumer has with a brand that is the defining factor between success and every other outcome. Brand is a living 24/7 organism that does not sit still… your brand needs to be delivering every minute, every day.”

On reinvigorating products that already exist, Roberts says whatever you sell has got to “do what it says on the can”.

“You must have the basics of respect: authenticity, the right pricing, the right packaging – it’s got to be sustainable in distribution and full of attributes that matter. That’s job one but that’s not enough because in today’s world every brand has got that – all anti-dandruff shampoos get rid of dandruff. So on top of that you must build mystery, sensuality and intimacy for a consumer that is constantly changing.”