6 Steps Science of Branding

In this blog post, we’re going to talk about the six steps of the science of branding.

There’s a misconception that branding is basically an aesthetic exercise, that it’s based on the emotional, the qualitative, and that it’s an inexact process. When actually, branding really sits at the intersection of science and art. The art of it is in design, it’s emotional and the feelings, the gut, the variable, the qualitative. The science is the practical part, the cerebral, the static, the consistent, or the quantitative. Successful branding really combines these two. So let’s look at how strategic branding uses scientific methodology. There are essentially six steps in any scientific project, and those six steps can also be used to describe any kind of branding project. So let’s take a look at the steps.

In science there’s, the first step is asking a question. The second is doing research. And then you hypothesize. Number four is your experiment. Five, you analyze. And then six, you make your conclusion.

In branding, you start off with a brief, a creative brief. Then you do an audit of your brand and other brands. You strategize, you explore, you test, and then you implement. Six steps in science and six steps in branding.

1: Ask a question: In branding, you have a brief or creative brief. That is, what is the project? What’s the problem? What needs to be solved? Do you want X or do you want Y?

2: Research: In branding, you do an audit. So what is your own brand doing? So auditing your own brand, auditing the brands of the competition, gathering market inspiration and information.

3: Hypothesize or in branding to strategize: What is the brand’s direction? What are the market solutions? What are the product solutions? What if we tried this? What if we tried that?

4: Experiment: In branding it explores. So you iterate, you develop solutions, you design variations, you try different approaches.

5: Analyze: In branding, you critique a design. You do qualitative and quantitative testing. You do SurveyMonkey, you do focus groups, you get input. You do use case scenarios. So you refine and you change and evolve your solution.

6: Conclude: In branding you implement. So you evaluate that solution, you finalize it, and then you create the output or you implement it in the market.