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Tag: branding

How Lighting and Color Impacts Your Brand Photography, for Better or Worse

The visual appeal of photographs, encompassing factors such as lighting and color schemes, holds substantial sway over consumers. This underscores the critical importance for small business owners to meticulously consider color and lighting when crafting their branding strategies and visual identities. Maintaining a consistent visual aesthetic not only fortifies a brand but also elevates its overall appearance, fosters coherence and trust, and more.

READ: How to Utilize Color Psychology to Boost Your Digital Marketing Efforts

The weight of lighting and color

Both lighting and color wield considerable influence on individuals. Colors, with their inherent meanings, play a pivotal role in shaping the perception of a business. Here are the symbolic representations of some common colors:

  • Orange: Warmth, confidence
  • White: Calmness, cleanliness
  • Green: Health, positivity
  • Blue: Corporations, trustworthiness
  • Pink: Femininity
  • Brown: Earthy, natural, stable, neutral
  • Yellow: Energetic, optimistic
  • Purple: Wisdom, royalty
  • Black: Sophistication

While these interpretations are broadly applicable in the U.S., small businesses with global aspirations or those catering to specific demographics must consider cultural nuances in color symbolism. For instance, red signifies luck in China, whereas in the U.S. it may convey power, boldness, or even danger.

Once a brand selects its colors, the subsequent consideration involves the role of lighting in photographs. Lighting dictates the mood, and balanced lighting can yield clear, corporate-style images, while dimly lit settings may evoke a moodier or darker atmosphere. Businesses must deliberate on the mood they wish to convey, deciding whether the imagery should exude brightness and cheerfulness or carry a sense of mystery.

READ: 3 Ways to Incorporate Branding in Your Packaging

Crafting a unified visual identity

Following the establishment of brand colors and lighting preferences, small business owners must focus on forging a cohesive visual identity.

The process is straightforward. Once a brand commits to specific colors, those exact hues should permeate all marketing materials, maintaining consistency through the use of precise hex color codes. However, a brand’s identity extends beyond color alone; it necessitates a distinctive logo, brand-specific fonts and a unique vibe

Determining whether the brand will project a professional, fun, lighthearted, or serious image is crucial, and this sentiment should resonate across all marketing materials.

Elevating brand perception through light and color

Color enables a brand to carve out its distinctive identity, while lighting contributes to the overall “feel” of the brand.

Ambient lighting, providing even illumination, is ideal for product photography, accentuating merchandise clearly. On the other hand, neon lights or darker mood lighting create a distinctly different ambiance. The choice depends on the desired mood — clear, bright images for trustworthiness and straightforward sales or exceptions that may require discussion with a commercial lifestyle photographer.

Tips for small businesses

Empowering small businesses to build a compelling brand that propels growth entails adhering to five key tips:

  1. Establish brand guidelines early on to maintain consistency in decision-making. Guidelines may encompass logos, colors, mission statements, typography, photography preferences, and brand voice.
  2. Define the brand identity by selecting colors and visuals that align with the business’s goals, origin story, and products.
  3. Develop visuals and marketing materials with a focus on consistency, a professional website featuring high-quality photographs, effective color utilization and a strong logo.
  4. Understand the target audience to create a visual identity that resonates with them, facilitating the creation of personalized content.
  5. Set the business apart by embracing uniqueness. Standing out in a competitive landscape can involve choosing unconventional colors or approaches that differentiate the business from its peers.

READ: Don’t be an “Average” Company — The Power of Prioritizing Team Happiness

Harness light and color to forge robust brands

Small businesses hold the advantage of crafting a potent brand from the ground up. Initiating this journey with a visually compelling identity is key. The selection of appropriate colors and lighting options represents just one facet of the process, yet it is instrumental in reaching and engaging the target audience while establishing a trustworthy and professional brand.

 

Jonathan Young of Jonathan Young Photography is a Los Angeles-based commercial photographer who creates clean and inviting images of people, food, and products that help to position them at the top of their genres.

How to Design a Dispensary: Budget-Friendly Tips for a Memorable Consumer Experience

Customers across industries have more choices than ever before, making it increasingly crucial for brands to excel and stand out. Cannabis brands are no exception — cannabis retailers around the United States need to ensure that they make informed, careful decisions from the very onset of their dispensary plans. From maximizing the budget to keeping accessibility at the forefront, dispensaries can perfect the science of retail design. 

READ: Opening a Dispensary Business — Everything You Need to Know

Thoughtful branding at all budgets

Thoughtful, innovative dispensary design can be achieved at any budget, whether a company can spend hundreds or thousands of dollars. Utilizing turnkey solutions can provide the flexibility to adjust to any budget, keeping the project on schedule while still leveraging the resources for quality, custom work. 

When working within the framework of a budget, businesses and their turnkey designers need to find the balance between generating ideas that highlight the brand, give it its own life and echo the vision while aligning with financial considerations. Fortunately, when a brand prioritizes its needs and level sets, it can achieve its dream results at the right price.

Initially, brands can share inspiration boards and images of their ideas for the turnkey provider to build upon, providing a baseline language to guide the project. From there, designers can select the best materials and systems within the budget to maximize success. As long as the turnkey provider is strongly committed to quality design and attention to detail, the approach to the build will be the same regardless of the price. 

READ: 4 Tips for Rebranding Your Business – And What It Reminds Us About Entrepreneurship

Strategic choices that keep consumers coming back

Brands that prioritize accessibility and overall experience will keep consumers coming back. Ultimately, consumers have a choice in where they want to shop — a dispensary with excellent prices and an accessible location will encourage consumers to return for their future cannabis purchases.

Designers can do anything with any space, but they cannot change the site of the store or the population it serves, making location perhaps the most important decision that a brand can make. Retailers should select real estate on a main road in a populous town with ample parking and even walking access when possible. 

When it comes to cultivating the physical retail space, focusing on creating a welcoming, memorable consumer experience is essential. It’s just like trying a restaurant for the first time: if the atmosphere is great but the food is subpar, you are not going to come back for seconds. When you go to a bar, you go where you feel comfortable and have fun, not just the place with the lowest-priced drink. Dispensaries are much the same.

Retail environments, like those of a dispensary, should be inviting and friendly, complete with knowledgeable staff members who guide a consumer through their experience. The most successful stores reflect the environment of their average user and consumer, and dispensaries should do the same.

The FireFlower Craft Cannabis dispensary in Albuquerque, New Mexico, is a prime example of combining budget, accessibility and consumer experience to create a beautiful retail location. Situated in the “Land of Enchantment,” FireFlower invites users to “explore an enchanted state” with its warm, desert-inspired colors and artistic branding. Located conveniently in downtown Albuquerque, FireFlower is a lesson on accessibility in location, allowing consumers to easily drive or walk to pick up their products. 

The bottom line

From working within the budget to developing an ideal consumer experience, there is much to consider when it comes to designing a dispensary. When a brand gets it right, often through strategic teamwork with a turnkey solution provider, consumers will stay loyal and keep returning to purchase their favorite products. Looking towards the future, dispensaries can take notes from fellow retail brands or even other gathering places, like bars, to innovate upon the consumer experience.

Increasingly experiential activations may be on the horizon for dispensaries — hosting real, social experiences that encourage consumers to spend time in the location may be the next frontier of cannabis, akin to a bar hosting special events. For now, dispensaries can amplify their designs through informed financial choices and thoughtful accessibility decisions to cultivate the finest retail experiences. 

 

As urban-gro’s Executive Vice President of Business Developments, Sam Andras brings decades of architectural and engineering design experience to the urban-gro executive team. Previously, Mr. Andras was the senior principal and partner at MJ12 Design Studio, Inc. and 2WR + Partners prior to the firms’ acquisition by urban-gro in 2021. 

The Power of Professionalism: Why Company Uniforms Matter

There are so many aspects of running a business, so many big calls to make and decisions to weigh up. Well, one of the decisions that any business owner might like to consider is whether or not to have company uniforms. 

Are uniforms needed? Can they have a positive or negative impact in the workplace? And what are some of the key factors to consider if you do decide to go ahead with company uniforms? This guide will aim to answer all of those key questions.

READ: How to Craft an Ideal Employee Experience Strategy — 6 Easy Steps

Importance of company uniforms in business

So, how much do uniforms really matter in the world of business? Well, more than you might think! A huge number of businesses elect to have their own company uniforms, and uniforms are mandatory in many industries, from hospitality to healthcare.

The history of workplace uniforms also goes back through the ages, with simple uniforms, badges and accessories first introduced many centuries ago to make it easier for workers to prove their legitimacy and authority.

Those same benefits are still valid today, and modern-day company uniforms can also offer a range of additional advantages. Here are just some of the benefits that business uniforms may provide:

Establishing an image of professionalism

First and foremost, a uniform is a symbol of professionalism. Picture yourself in a working environment, faced with two workers. One is wearing a professional uniform, bearing some sort of brand slogan, logo or color scheme and fitting in seamlessly with their colleagues. The other is wearing a simple everyday outfit of casual wear. Which seems more professional?

Naturally, we inherently tend to associate professionalism with the person in uniform. Just like in those bygone days, when badges were used to prove legitimacy, modern company uniforms are a visual symbol that a person can be trusted in their role.

READ: Unlocking Brand Loyalty — Enhancing Customer Experience in the Digital Age

Easy to identify staff

Another very simple but still significant benefit of wearing company uniforms is that it makes it easy to spot staff quickly and tell them apart from customers, clients or the general public. This may not always be relevant in all industries, but can be absolutely crucial in certain fields, like the worlds of retail, tourism, restaurants, and hospitality, for example.

Picture a typical retail store. A customer enters and wants to find a member of staff to ask them for a product recommendation. If every staff member simply wears casual clothes or their own outfits, the customer will quickly feel lost and confused. One of the big advantages of uniform branding is that customers can easily spot staff members and ask for help. 

Logo and color representation

Branding is more important than ever before, and many companies work hard to establish a clear identity or persona for their brand. This goes right down to the company logo and colors. From Amazon to McDonald’s, the one thing that the world’s most famous companies have in common is clear and successful visual branding, with logos and colors everyone knows.

Well, company uniforms have a part to play in all of that, too. Let’s say that a new retail store chain is trying to boost brand awareness, for example. The store has a black and green logo, and wants to spread it around. Well, adding that logo to some graphic tees for workers, and making their outfits black and green in color, is a very effective way to start.

READ: How to Utilize Color Psychology to Boost Your Digital Marketing Efforts

Improving customer trust and confidence

Ultimately, the main goals of any business are to inspire customer trust, get people to invest their time and money in your brand and choose your company over all the other options that are available. Once again, working uniforms can have a big part to play in that. 

We talked earlier about howcompany  uniforms can boost professionalism, and that doesn’t just apply to the individual in uniform. It applies to the whole business. When people see businesses where the workers are all dressed up neatly and in sync with one another, they tend to feel that those businesses are more professional and thereby more trustworthy than others.

Employee comfort and safety

Of course, when picking out company uniforms, it’s important to keep employee comfort and safety in mind. Here are a few key tips and factors to focus on:

Choosing appropriate fabrics and designs

It’s vital to choose fabrics and designs that are appropriate for your specific working environment. Restaurant workers, for instance, need outfits that allow them to move around comfortably and freely, while still being professional. Those working outdoors need outfits that can keep them warm and comfortable, even in bad weather.

Consideration for different roles

You also need to think about how outfits apply to different roles and responsibilities. Those in more junior-level positions could wear simpler and more casual outfits, while those in higher positions of responsibility may require more professional uniform choices.

Compliance with safety regulations

Finally, depending on the industry you’re operating in, you also need to make sure that whatever uniforms you use comply with all relevant safety rules. This is especially relevant for businesses that may be in fields with strict safety standards, like healthcare or food and drink.

 

Frank Derby is a Las Vegas-based PR and communications expert working with GoldenMFG. With a background in traditional marketing, Frank covers everything you need to know about offline promotions, PR, trade shows, and more. His passion now translates into articles where he shares his expertise, experience, and just random thoughts.

3 Ways to Incorporate Branding in Your Packaging 

Consumers expect more from brands today than ever before. Not only does your company have to be accessible and inclusive, but it also has to be sustainable, support good causes, and help folks from all walks of life lead better, more fulfilled lifestyles.  

Meeting today’s expectations is a tall order and it’s little wonder that some brands have turned to deceitful tactics like greenwashing in an attempt to stand out from the crowd.  

However, before your company turns to the dark arts of marketing, it’s worth considering an often underutilized space: packaging.  

Benefits of Branded Packaging 

Branded packaging can strengthen your company’s brand image and improve customer loyalty. Customers have already decided to buy from you, and, in doing so, have effectively invited your brand into their homes.  

You can take advantage of this unique position by including thank you notes, freebies, and distinctly sustainable packaging, which may set your parcels apart from others. These tactics leave a lasting impression on consumers and ensure that the next time they are thinking about buying protein powder or a new t-shirt, they will remember your business and purchase from you again.  

Branding your packaging also gives you a chance to get your product in front of additional eyes. There’s nothing better than jealous neighbors eyeing up your company’s packaging, and seeing advertising material in the “real world” often stands out more than digital marketing materials. This works in your favor and is a great way to boost your company’s branding.  

Sustainable Packaging 

Being sustainable is top among many consumers’ priorities at the moment. However, as tempting as it may be, you should avoid greenwashing — a term used to falsely advertise or oversell your commitment to climate change. Inevitably, your audience will discover your true intentions and run from your business.  

A great way to prove your commitment to sustainability is to align with a packaging supplier that is authentically green and uses recycled materials for your boxing, taping, and insulation. 

Beyond using recycled materials, you can also design your packaging to be carbon neutral. Carbon neutral packaging might sound a little odd at first, but you can greatly reduce the carbon emissions needed for shipping and packaging by:  

  • Use the correct dimensions for each product in your package (cubes, telescopic, multi-height, etc.).  
  • Utilize sustainable raw materials like cardboards over plastics.
  • Partner with like-minded eco-friendly brands.
  • Remove excess layers from your packaging.
  • Try to recycle carbon-neutral packaging for future filler and tertiary packaging.  

By using recycled, carbon-neutral packaging, you show your consumers that your commitment to sustainability is authentic and a part of your entire corporate culture. This will help your climate-conscious consumers feel better about your brand the next time they’re tearing open boxes and will almost always reflect your business positively.  

Thank You Cards 

Although you should avoid filling your packaging with excess material, branded thank you cards go a long way toward improving your company’s image in the hearts and minds of your consumers.  

If you do wish to send a short “thank you” note to your consumers, it’s worth cutting out most/all of the promotional materials you usually send in packages. Not only will this reduce paper waste, but your “thank you” note won’t get lost amongst other advertising materials.   

When designing a business thank you card, try to focus on simplicity and style. Your thank you card should neatly align with your overall brand identity and should do little more than offer an authentic-sounding “thank you.” If you want, you can slip in a promotional code for future purchases to gain repeat customers, but be sure to complete a break-even analysis before you start taking a chunk out of your profit margin.  

Freebies 

Have you ever wondered why protein powder companies send freebies like t-shirts, shakers, and towels with their fitness product? Well, in effect, these extra goodies are free advertising and usually strengthen the company’s brand identity when worn by consumers.   

Even if your business isn’t in the fitness industry, you can still use freebies to strengthen your brand image and create greater loyalty amongst your customer base.  

The exact mechanics of how you offer freebies is largely dependent on context. You’ll need to complete a detailed cost analysis before you start shipping off expensive goods for free, and should try to target customers who are most likely to resonate with your brand image.   

Let’s stick with the fitness industry as an example of how you might use freebies:  If you sell supplements but notice that few of your customers buy your protein bars, then it may be worth packaging a free sample in every order you receive that is over $50. This approach has a few benefits. Folks who were at $48 or $49 will likely find another product to get their free protein bar, and you are more likely to sell additional products to consumers who already buy more expensive items from your business.  

This approach can work in almost any business model where you sell more than one product and is sure to get the attention of consumers. 

So, what did we learn here? We learned that packaging is often regarded as an afterthought amongst marketers and small business owners. But it shouldn’t be. Branded packaging offers an ideal advertising venue that will strengthen your brand identity and produce more repeat customers. Just remember to adjust your break-even analysis if you do go all-in on branded packaging, as you don’t want thank you cards and freebies to cut into your overall profit margin

 

Noah RueNoah Rue is a journalist and content writer, fascinated with the intersection between global health, personal wellness, and modern technology. When he isn’t searching out his next great writing opportunity, Noah likes to shut off his devices and head to the mountains to disconnect.

How to get your business branding right

While your visual identity is crucial, words + actions have a massive role in branding effectively. Here are some reasons why these elements are important for creating successful branding.

Content drives design

A messaging plan is an effective method for producing a brand, campaign, or product rollout. Thinking through and mapping out your content strategy first drives innovation, clarity and robust design.

Simplification is key

We genuinely believe that less is more when getting your message across. The more you try to explain, the harder it is to understand.

In the book “Building A Story Brand,” Donald Miller says it best “when you confuse, you lose.” He says, “clarify your message, so customers will listen.”

Most people are not paying attention to anything longer than 90 seconds to absorb anyway. {I may have already lost you about now…}

Consistency is critical

When you understand your message and the words you want to use as part of your brand, use them repeatedly. The consistency will start to stick and gain traction with your audience. And your message will be easier to share.

Every word matters

Using the wrong words can be detrimental. Use strong positive sound-bytes, both verbally and in written formats.

The proof is in the pudding

Don’t forget about data. Anytime you have facts and figures to back something up, it’s more credible. How many clients have you served? How many people have you helped? How long have you been around? Who has endorsed you?

One concept at a time

Here are some pointers to keep things focused:

  • One idea for one slide
  • One clear intro brand statement on your website’s homepage
  • One goal per campaign
  • One call-to-action
  • One strong message in your tagline
  • One mission
  • One vision
  • One new concept roll-out at a time

 Actions speak louder

Now that you have the words to describe your business, it is time to make sure that your process matches up. While your promotions say one thing, are you genuinely representing that in your actions?

Ensure your customer experience aligns, or you’ll have angry customers and a negative brand experience overall.

Becca Cooper Becca Cooper Leebove is a brand strategist and the founder of ShuBu Creative—a marketing and branding agency in Denver, creating impactful and purposeful brands and compelling marketing strategies by diving deep into people’s motivations, data and trends. Visit www.shubucreative.com or follow Instagram @shubu_creative or Facebook @ShuBuCreative to learn more.