Branding requires insight and subtlety, but it’s not magic. We’ll show you how it works.

Our unique, iterative process allows for flexibility, open communication, and avoids surprises at the end of your project. We thrive on collaboration both internally and with you, so get ready to make friends.

Initial branding process

Here are the steps we’ll go through to make your business stand out in a crowd:

1. Discovery workshop: Your stakeholders and subject-matter experts will get together (usually at your business location) with your project team from Forty for this guided discussion. Using an in-depth marketing questionnaire, we’ll talk about your current products and services, company culture, values, business goals, competition, target audiences, customer needs, current positioning, past marketing efforts, technology constraints, and more.
2. Background research: Forty conducts any market research needed to supplement our findings from the discovery workshop. This usually includes competitive research at a minimum, but (depending on project budget and priorities) may also cover customer research, ethnography, focus groups, etc.
3. Persona development: Based on information about customers and other target audiences gathered during the discovery and research stages, Forty segments your audiences and develops fictional “persona” profiles for each one (including names, photos, demographics, needs, goals, etc.), allowing them to be easily remembered and considered during the rest of the project.
4. Brand metaphor generation: Using proprietary exercises, our team discovers and refines a cultural, archetypal, or complex metaphor that accurately evokes major elements of your brand. This metaphor — which is the creative concept or “big idea” from which other elements of the brand are derived — serves as a compass for all future marketing work.
5. Verbal strategy: Based on the brand metaphor, discovery information, and research, Forty develops a verbal strategy that defines the tone, mood, and style of any writing associated with your brand, including specific keywords and phrases to use (as well as others to avoid). This verbal strategy ensures a voice that accurately depicts and differentiates your brand.
6. Name development (optional): If needed, Forty develops a list of new names for your company, product, or service using a variety of brainstorming techniques. These names are measured against the brand metaphor and verbal strategy and provide a unique presence for your brand among your competitors. All names include a preliminary search for competing usage and are presented with explanations and available domain names.
7. Visual strategy: Concurrently with the verbal strategy, our team develops a visual strategy (including typography, color scheme, textures, iconography, symbols, etc.) that evokes the brand metaphor without being heavy-handed. It also creates a distinctive look for the brand that sets you apart from competitors. This visual strategy carries across all public- and customer-facing touchpoints for the brand, and should be used internally as well.
8. Logo design (optional): If appropriate, Forty designs (or redesigns) a logo as part of the visual strategy, with consideration given to the many ways in which it might be used across various platforms and media.
9. Sensory strategy (optional): While the visual and verbal strategies cover the primary needs of most brands, some brands may have additional needs for sensory branding. This could include audio elements (like music), tactile elements (such as product packaging), and more. If needed, Forty develops specific strategies for these senses that are based on the overall brand metaphor.
10. Brand handbook (optional): Upon completion, Forty gathers all relevant artifacts of the process and compiles them into a single hardcover book, which we deliver to you for internal and external reference. This book can easily be handed off to an internal team, another agency, third-party contractors, or others vendors to quickly help them understand and work with your brand.

With a solid brand in place, you’ll be ready to begin developing interaction points that will impress and intrigue your customers.

We’re just getting warmed up…

Once the brand has been solidly established, we’re ready to begin building and promoting your brand experience through whatever media are appropriate: website, print advertising, display advertising, social media campaigns, email campaigns, package design, in-store experience, radio and television, etc.

We’ll craft a single, unified experience for your customers that reinforces what your company is all about, communicating it clearly and vividly to the people you most want to reach.