Modern customers are looking towards intangible values and abstract branding.
The new decade offers new chances for startups to change the world. In recent years, disruptive companies like Tesla and Stripe have taken the lead from old industry giants and become trendsetters. These companies not only offered new products and services that transformed traditional industries but also used a forward-thinking branding strategy that helped them become well-known names.
As time moves forward, audience demographics and tastes are shifting. Gen Z’s and younger millennials are pulling buying power away from older generations. As such, you must modernize the branding of your startup to meet the new wave of audience preferences.
Here are 5 surfacing branding trends that businesses should look for if they’d like to stay ahead of the curve.
1. Abstract visuals and animations captivate audiences
The strongest brands of today emphasize their values and ideals over their offerings of products and services. Following this shift, modern visual branding has gravitated towards abstract imagery.
Abstract imagery uses simple shapes and stylized, unrealistic pictures in order to encourage audiences to consider the core messaging of the brand as opposed to specific details or selling points.
The unusual shapes, fun colors, and puzzling post-modern designs from these brands remind us of an artist’s sketchbook. Stock photos and overly corporate images make brands seem distant and out of touch, which can hurt them in a time when customers want genuine and personal connections. In contrast, a unique style makes a brand appear daring, bold, and innovative. Customers are drawn to brands that use creative, playful imagery.
Etsy, an online marketplace focused on vintage and handmade goods, uses eccentric imagery to portray its brand as unique, vibrant, and independent. The picture book-like aesthetic, with its simplistic and flat illustrations, makes the brand appear humane and down-to-earth.
Additionally, the dominance of GIFs on social media is a testament to how audiences are looking past static imagery and towards movement and animation. Using pop culture GIFs as part of your website or social media has become overused and generic, however.
Still, audiences want web pages that feel bouncy and dynamic, as they feel animations and movement give brands more pronounced personalities. With appealing (but not distracting) website animations, brands can present themselves as vibrant and energetic. While it can be difficult balancing flashy animations with a usable UI, users see websites with tasteful animation as pleasant and kinetic.
Genesis is a plant-based fast-casual restaurant whose website uses simplistic, hand-drawn animations to emphasize the brand’s organic theming. The stripped-down and minimalistic animations play to the brand’s offerings of healthy natural foods. The animations not only make navigating Genesis’s webpage an inviting experience, they make it an intriguing one.
2. Socially progressive and mission-based branding show audiences that you care
Research by Core Communications has shown that 70% of millennials are willing to spend more money on brands that support charitable or socially progressive causes. The importance of socially conscious causes such as diversity and sustainability to the brand choices of millennial audiences cannot be overstated. It should be noted that startups, unlike established companies, have an innate advantage on this front because they don’t have decades of problematic baggage to hide away from or make up for.
A recent example is the explosively successful plant-based meat substitute startup Beyond Meat. The company bases its brand on causes like feeding the world sustainable plant-based foods, avoiding factory farming, and limiting the greenhouse emissions caused by the meat industry. Millennials responded fantastically to the brand’s core message, and the company’s shares soared as high as six times their initial public offering. Having a progressive mission statement can score brands major points in the eyes of modern audiences.
3. Striking brand names stay with customers
In almost all cases, a customer’s first interaction with a brand is learning its name. Because this first impression is so lasting and important, brand names must be very carefully chosen. A company’s name should subtly encapsulate all of its brand’s most important values. Having a name that’s memorable and easily recalled is vital towards surviving in today’s fast-paced digital environments, so it’s not an exaggeration to say that a name can make or break a brand.
Naming has followed other branding trends in that it’s becoming more jarring, surprising, and disruptive. The workplace communication platform Slack has a short and memorable name that focuses on strong consonant sounds. Where Slack particularly excels is in its bold use of a word that means laziness. This ironic name appeals to customers’ senses of curiosity and humor, showcasing Slack as a disruptive technology that isn’t afraid to march to the beat of its own drum. Other brands, like the mattress company Purple, use offbeat names in traditionally safe or even “boring” industries. This unconventional name entices audiences with its quirkiness, standing out immediately among a sea of generic mattress names. While an eccentric name that’s poorly executed can potentially alienate customers, when they work they stick to customer minds like glue. At Squadhelp, we recommend brands should undergo careful audience testing in order to make sure their offbeat name actually holds its intended appeal.
4. Emphasize authenticity and the human connection
In the age of social media, brands now connect and talk directly with consumers, which has had dramatic and unprecedented consequences on the way modern audiences perceive brands. Younger audiences have grown up in a world where communication is instantaneous and can be done with anyone, anywhere. This more approachable model of communication has led millennials to prefer brands that are more personal and humanized. Corporate jargon and PR-speak are despised by modern audiences, as millennials prefer branding that is humble, transparent, and down-to-earth.
Flavored sparkling water brand LaCroix has gained a cult following in recent years for its organic and relatable branding. The company forgoes television commercials (which are seen by many millennials as excessively corporate) and focuses on engaging audiences with their brand on millennial-focused platforms like Instagram. The fizzy water brand engages with anyone who tags them, even if they have a low follower count, appealing to modern senses of relatability and authenticity.
Brands that emphasize personalized experiences are also highly appealing to modern audiences. By showing customers how they have engaged with their brand on an individual level, companies can encourage brand loyalty and personal connections within their user base.
One of the most popular recent examples of this is Spotify Wrapped, an annual report that shows Spotify users their listening habits and go-to artists, albums, and genres over the past year. Every year, the feature is highly anticipated by users who go on to share their Wrapped over social media, displaying their musical personality through Spotify’s technology and branding.
5. Interactive experiences encourage audiences to engage with your content
Traditional direct advertising bores modern audiences, who are seeking futuristic and immersive new ways to interact with their favorite brands. Technologies like augmented and virtual reality are inherently exciting, and when companies utilize them that excitement is transferred towards their brands. Gen Z’s and millennials view brands that embrace these sorts of cutting-edge technologies as forward-thinking.
Digital sneaker marketplace startup GOAT has recently introduced an augmented reality feature that lets customers use their smartphone cameras to “try on” sneakers before actually buying them. By letting customers try on expensive or exclusive shoes from the comfort and convenience of their homes, GOAT is building connections between audiences and its shoe brands. The AR feature makes these brands more accessible and personal to customers, increasing their engagement. Technologies like AR and VR allow companies to immerse customers in the world of their brands while also integrating themselves in their customers’ daily lives.
Audiences are searching for the right intangibles
All of these branding trends point towards one central theme: intangibles. Audiences today are much less focused on the products and services brands offer. Instead, they find value in a brand’s personality, messaging, imagery, and core beliefs. Social media has bridged the communication gap between brands and their customers, letting them speak directly and freely with one another. This is what causes modern customers to evaluate brands as they would potential friends or colleagues. They gravitate to brands with ideologies and personalities that complement their own, just as they would to new people who come into their lives. In order for a brand to become that cool new friend, they must be unmistakable yet down-to-earth, socially conscious but still relatable, and abstract but striking.