Building a brand that can stand the test of time and be relevant for years to come is no easy task, and when you throw kids and their constantly changing tastes and interests as they grow older into the fold… Well, that just makes things extra challenging - thankfully, it’s a rather fun challenge to solve!
Even though kids' interests change like the wind, there will always be a foundation a brand can be built upon to ensure longevity and memorability with kids as they grow older.
When building a brand, you need to find a balance between a wide variety of touch points, otherwise the story your brand communicates will be confusing and won't have the desired connection with your audience. You need to understand your audience - Who are they? What do they like? What do they do? What did they eat for lunch? (Ok maybe not that far in detail, but I guess it couldn’t hurt).
And that brings me to the first building block:
Share your story
Developing the story of your brand allows you to form the backbone of how your brand connects to your audience – and no, I’m not talking about who the owners are and how much blood, sweat and tears went into building the business. I’m talking about how your brand makes people feel, what you want to tell them about yourself - are you fun, boring, serious, cool, kinda weird? (also an accurate description of me fyi). Defining your story right at the start allows you to bring it to life with the visual style, tone and words of the brand.
Now that you’ve gotten a fantastic brand story developed, you need to bring it to life.
Freshen it up
It’s best to avoid a visual style that is trendy, or reminiscent of a brand kids are already interacting with, because as soon as those brands fall out of relevancy, yours may get dragged along with it. Of course it’s good to not look completely bonkers and far removed from the brands that they are familiar with, but don’t let these elements be the defining elements of your brand but I’ll talk a little more about flexibility later.
Developing a visual style that amplifies what makes your brand unique and builds a strong connection with your audience is key. For example, is your brand all about lets say… socks (groundbreaking), what do your audience love about socks? maybe it’s because they’re soft, so let’s make the brand look soft (a rogue example but you get the idea).
Creating a fresh visual style, which feels both familiar and new will help your brand be more memorable - if your brand feels completely alien, it’ll take a bit more time for your audience to feel comfortable with it. Having a touch of nostalgia and things they are used to ensures they will engage with your brand from the start. How you say? Take a step into the wonderful world of the next essential building blocks.
Easy to remember
If it were easy to make your brand memorable, we’d have a much harder time fighting through the crowd. Luckily, being memorable is often mistaken for just looking cool or doing something crazy with your marketing, to get people going “oh yeah didn’t that brand launch a rocket into space full of toes”. You want to be remembered for what makes you unique and relatable, not something you’ve done as a one-off.
So why don’t we have more memorable brands? Because a key mistake brands make is that they are not reflective of their audience, what connects them, what is their reason to keep coming back to your brand if they see nothing for themselves in what you are presenting to them?
This brings us to the next point, which ties in nicely with memorability:
Familiar feeling
Now, I know I said don’t do what everyone else is doing, I’m not saying make your brand look like Fornite and Roblox, but what they do very well is draw upon familiarity to help their audience relate to their brand. They do this by using similar language that their audience and putting themselves in where they already are, they speak to them like their friends do, seeing this bright new flashy brand is going to feel easy for them to engage with. If you jump in to flip the switch and break the mould, you are just going to alienate your audience and stand out for the wrong reasons.
Let’s talk a little bit more about being their friend, which conveniently is the next step on our whistle stop tour of building a successful brand!
Don’t treat them like kids, treat them like friends.
Kids like making friends, they like meeting new people and learning from them, and they especially love being talked to like a friend, not a young kid who needs everything simplified. Kids are always aspiring and emulating the older ones around them, that’s one of the fundamental ways they learn. As they get older, their thoughts become more and more independent, and if you keep speaking to them like they're still learning to walk, they are going to move on from your brand quickly. Friends are reflective, they grow together and share the same interests - be that friend for your audience, use their language, laugh at the same jokes and emulate their interests.
So how can you be their friend? Simple:
Show your personality
Don’t just be a wall of colours, shapes, patterns and images encasing your product or service. Speak to your audience – show the special spark that defines your brand's personality, bring this to life through your brand, in how it moves, how you write, your content.
Showing your personality allows you to be more relatable, and not just another business trying to get a user’s attention. This is particularly evident in the last decade on social media, where brands have opted for a much more casual and fun side to their tone when engaging with their audience. Of course kids aren’t on social media (sure lol) and we aren’t going to show our personality there, but brands are much easier to engage with when your audience knows who you are and how you speak, you become familiar and easier to listen to when you have something you want to share.
Prepare to be flexible
And finally - flexibility (I did say I’d talk about it later!). As important as all of the other building blocks I’ve mentioned are, you have to be prepared to be flexible and adapt to your audience’s interests. Again, that doesn’t mean changing your brand to reflect the next new exciting game or movie that blows up – it all comes down to how you communicate your unique brand elements to them. This’ll help keep your brand fresh, engaging and at the forefront of all other emerging brands, as you and your audience grow together.
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Remember, a brand is more than just a logo and a colour palette, it’s how you connect with your audience, how you can fit seamlessly into their world, their interests and stay their friend so you can grow with them.
