The other night, my girlfriend and I were playing a game where she would draw an icon on my back and I would have to guess which brand she was drawing. After she ran out of ideas we would switch and she would take a turn guessing. We probably went back and forth for an hour. Obviously the simpler the icon, the easier it was to guess which brand it was. Icons like the Nike Swoosh or McDonald's Golden Arches instantaneously register in our brains. According to a study conducted by T-Sciences, our brains process visuals 60,000 times faster than text. The simpler the visual, the faster our brains process it, and the faster our brains remember it. Keep in mind the entire purpose of branding is to stand out and stand for something.

What to Learn From Big Brands

The best and brightest brands in the entire world focus on one thing: simplifying customer experience. Google won as a search engine because they knew their users only wanted one thing: to search. So it makes sense that Google differentiated by launching a homepage with a lonely search bar.

Almost every rebranding project is an attempt to simplify. Take a look for yourself.

Starbucks, for example, is almost entirely a branding play. I live in Athens, OH, a small college town with more than 5 local coffee shops within 5 blocks. Yet consumers beg Starbucks to open another shop in the same area. Local businesses are losing to big brands because 2020 consumers make brand-based purchasing decisions. I walk past the same local coffee shops every single day and I can't picture their logos in my head, but my girlfriend draws a woman with long hair on my back and the first thing that comes to my mind is either Starbucks or Wendy's.

How to Simplify Your Brand

Branding is more than just your logo and the process of building a successful brand is the topic for an entire series of books, but let's keep things simple for now, haha!

1) Simplify Your Mission Statement

Why does your business exist in the first place? Pick one thing and have that one thing drive all the decisions you make in your business. The easier it is for consumers to know why you exist, the easier it will be for them to remember you when they are ready to purchase.

2) Simplify Your Logo

Would you be able to guess your own brand if someone was drawing it on your back? Also, your logo doesn't exist to describe what your business offers. If you own a landscaping business, your logo doesn't have to (and arguably shouldn't) include a picture of grass or a lawnmower. Apple doesn't sell apples. Your logo exists for two reasons: to make it easy for consumers to remember you and to help you stand out in a sea of competitors.

3) Pick a Color and Own It

Don't choose a specific shade of green for your logo, a different shade of green for your website, and then go print orange t-shirts because you want to mix it up. Netflix ALWAYS uses the same color red, Spotify ALWAYS uses the same color green, and Lyft ALWAYS uses the same color pink. Why? Because it makes it easy for consumers to recognize and remember them.

Conclusion

Keep it simple stupid. Should you start selling burgers if your mission is to make the world's greatest hotdogs? Probably not. Will it be easier for your customers to remember you if your brand icon is a unique shaped, minimal "H" rather than an image of a hotdog with ketchup and mustard? Probably. Should you have your employees wear orange shirts if your primary brand color is red? Probably not.

Thank you!