Grand designs

Richard Charnley of design agency The Ground Floor discussed the importance of good branding if you want to stand out from the crowd in the lab equipment market.

EVERY company has an identity - a personality - and laboratory equipment businesses of all sizes are no different. Whether your customers see you as a solid, no-frills testing services entity or a super-slick international that’s the ne plus ultra of tissue culture products, you will already have a ‘brand’ as such – and your actual branding activity needs to reflect that and capitalise on it.

So how far do your visuals – your letterheads, business cards, brochures, newsletters and trade show materials as well as websites and product catalogues - reflect that image, or the image you really want?

A brief in-house ‘brand audit’, looking at the materials you have, including your website, should be able to tell you whether the way you present your company actually represents its values and personality well or not.

Some of the most dynamic players in this sector pay scant attention to branding, a fact which is evident at any given trade show, where products from beakers to bungs are left to fend for themselves without great visuals. This has always been a bit of a mystery to me. Good branding – and this categorically isn’t the same thing as expensive branding – can add real value to your bottom line, as well as making a vast difference to your performance at trade exhibitions.

Branding can particularly help in the laboratory sector because in the area of lab equipment, companies that may have been your loyal customers for years - even decades - often remain totally unaware of the full extent of your product offering, and certainly of your business’s standing in the sector. “We’ve always bought our test tubes from company T and pipettes from company P” may show customer loyalty, but you could be missing real opportunities to sell other products from your range. One of our clients converted their 300th best customer into their best customer after simple design changes to their product brochures and website made it easier to navigate product offerings, while reinforcing the message that their products were the best.

If you’re excited and passionate about your products and your sector, you should be showing it in your branding. Unappealing messages communicated through packaging, logos, websites and literature can devalue your products and your company’s reputation – so use branding to your advantage.

Exhibitions, whether here in the UK or the big shows overseas, are the ideal arena for good branding; this is where you can really make your mark in your sector, attracting new customers, impressing old customers and making your competitors jealous of your great brand, with your stand visible across the hall and a good, clean brand visible right across the stand, literature and post-show on the web. I’ve often been astonished at what I call the ‘communication gap’ between, for instance, a well-dressed (and expensive) exhibition stand and a poorly-designed corporate brochure and company website which are supposed to back it up. Consistent design really stands out in the lab products sector because so few people are doing it properly.

If you’re already spending money on showing at trade exhibitions, you should think seriously about maximising your efforts through good branding and design. It needn’t increase your show budget too much – good branding is an exercise that can easily be translated into show materials without huge expense.

Sometimes companies spend money on the design of marketing materials when the design and brand have grown from what I call ‘rotten roots’ – where bad decisions were taken by a general manager or marketing manager some years ago, which has left the company with a design that doesn’t ‘fit’. In other cases, the branding and design may well have been right for the company twenty years ago, but certainly not now – logos and other design could be tired, hackneyed or simply not reflective of the company’s growth or developments since that time. Is your company’s branding right for where your company is now – and, crucially, where it wants to be - or is it a ghost from the past?

Good branding gives you good, strong, healthy roots for your design materials across the board, and even with company changes should last years.

“We’re showing at ChemBio in six weeks’ time and we need everything
re-done – brochures, website, business cards and stand. But how can we do that in six weeks?”

Six weeks, surprisingly, is ample time for a good design agency to come up with a fresh brand. Although a longer lead time would be ideal, prioritising can mean getting a new brand quickly and effectively. In many cases, the client already has all the required wording for the materials, which can be dropped in to the new designs, so it doesn’t need to take forever.

I believe there are three core values that need to be brought into play when discussing branding. These are impact, targeted communication and budget.

We’re all bombarded with hundreds of marketing messages every day, so your branding has to make an impact. Analyse your competition’s brands, and make sure your designers do the same! Your branding also has to be consistent, with every promotion you do as a business communicating the same positive message – and any branding you decide upon should also be easily scaleable into other marketing materials. Although endoscopes as products look pretty similar to most other endoscopes, great branding can make yours stand out in the crowd.

Define your target audience and only then think about a design brief aimed at them. The colours, visuals and message will need to communicate your message in their verbal and visual language. In addition, make sure you communicate your brief clearly to your chosen designers.

Finally, good branding should see your company right for at least the next five years, so budget accordingly. Remember that good branding needn’t cost the earth, and that good design helps your company message be heard alongside much larger brands. The price you’re quoted should, of course, be the price you’ll pay. This system may especially be suitable for you if it’s the first time you’re using a design agency.

By Richard Charnley. Richard's agency, The Ground Floor, heas developed a reputation for bringing innovative brand-led design