Is your physical brand aligned with your digital brand?

With digital becoming such a crucial component of brand identity, it’s no wonder that companies can overlook their brand’s physical presence. However, the way a brand looks and feels in the real world is crucially important for conversion, alignment and consistency, writes Reilly McHugh, Marketing Manager, SignManager.

So, what do brands need to keep in mind about their physical brand presence and how to keep it consistent with their digital brand presence?

Physical spaces are still important

While consumers are spending more time online, the predicted ‘death knell’ of bricks and mortar hasn’t occurred. In fact, bricks and mortar has a renewed relevance in the modern shopper environment. The way consumers interact with brands in-person is evolving as they seek out memorable experiences and direct brand engagement.

There’s a trend at the moment where pure eCommerce companies are opening retail stores in a bid to create an aligned and powerful in-person experience. Some really exciting things are coming such as AI integration, sensory and tactile experiences, and brand activations.

This showcases how physical spaces can support digital experiences and digital spaces can support physical experiences in return.

In these settings, how the brand is presented in the physical world must be a priority. Signage (shopfront, in-store and digital), POS, billboards, collateral and various other forms of physical branding need to capture the same feel as the digital brand.

Even the more simple physical experiences will remain important, such as stores containing cafes, lounges, selfie zones or free WiFi. Again, this integrates and aligns the physical with the digital, by creating a more relaxed and fun shopping experience both online and offline.

Physical branding drives recognition and awareness

When it comes to brand awareness and recognition, physical branding plays an important role. Think about how visible signage is. The McDonald’s arches or the iconic Coca Cola sign keep those brands top of mind and speak to their credibility and reliability in the market.

This has implications for digital as well. By creating additional touch points for the consumer, physical branding improves brand recall and conversion for digital campaigns.

Designing for digital and physical spaces is very different

Designing brand elements for digital spaces is very different from designing for physical spaces.

Firstly, one is in 2D and the other is in 3D. Secondly, the way the consumer perceives a brand digitally versus physically also varies in regard to the scale and intricacy of brand elements. Thirdly, when designing for the physical world, there are more limitations than there are for digital. Branding can evolve more readily in a digital environment, unlike in physical spaces where the costs and logistics are far greater. Designing for the built environment also needs to account for space, practicalities and regulations.

For these reasons, your brand needs to be designed specifically within both environments, rather than applied unilaterally.

Ensure your brand guidelines are up to date

Brand guidelines should factor in physical spaces, store layouts, 3D design and other elements which are important for physical branding. Colours are also different online than physically. These elements can make or break a brand in the physical world.

If the logic behind digital branding is applied in a physical setting, the quality of brand assets can be poor, damaging your brand. It can also blow out costs when your manufacturer has to go back to the drawing board if physical brand elements aren’t up to scratch.

You should also consider how your branding will display on certain materials: Will it fade? How will it age? All of this can significantly impact how your brand is perceived.

Align your experiences

The holy grail when it comes to how customers interact with your brand is to create a seamless brand experience, both online and offline.

For example, often digital promotions aren’t aligned with in-store or POS promotions because different people work on these campaigns. That creates an inconsistent experience for the customer. All promotions and campaigns should be omni-channel to boost results. For example:

• In-store experiences should be shareable on social media.
• Digital campaigns should account for the location-specific, in-store experience.
• Online competitions can be activated in-store.

The opportunities are endless.

Click and Collect is a good example of where digital and physical worlds collide. If the customer has a great online ordering experience but then can’t find the Click and Collect counter in-store, this impacts the quality of the overall experience and the likelihood that the customer will return.

Another example is Australia Post. Following significant investment in its digital presence, customers can track their parcels online in real time, communicate with support, and gain far more visibility. This integration between digital and physical creates a superior customer experience which will be the expectation of customers going forward.

Any brands without a seamless online and offline experience will be the aberration, not the norm.

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