Minimum Viable Branding (MVB)—a Lean Branding Process for Startups and Corporate Initiatives
Startups, product and corporate initiatives need strong, visible brands to be successful. This is where our lean branding approach of the minimal viable brand comes in. The cost-effective and scalable minimal version of a corporate identity allows young companies and organizations to quickly define their brand while keeping it flexible and scalable. At the same time, the brand process helps clarify corporate cultural issues and sharpen the image of the company. An MVB also illustrates and explains what a brand stands for. This is vital when it comes to convincing stakeholders, future employees, and investors.
The Starting Point: the Brand Personality
In the initial workshop, we develop the brand personality with the company founders. We define the brand’s behavior towards customers and employees, examine its role in the market on the basis of brand archetypes, and work out its aesthetic positioning. At this stage, we take a pragmatic approach, because analysis and strategy only represent one moment in the development of a company in this early phase.
A central component of the strategy is to derive the brand’s behavior from the brand personality. To do this, we explore in the workshop how the brand would behave as a person. We later group the characteristics and attributes of this brand personality into clusters and transfer them to brand filters.
From Mood Board to MVB
The brand filters serve as the basis for various mood boards—visual collages that match the strategic target position in different ways. With the mood boards, we synchronize with the client and thus involve founders and initiators in the process of creating the appearance of their brand from the very beginning. Next, we define colors, typography, logo and, if necessary, style of illustration and test them at selected touch points. Only then do we define the rules and create specific applications such as a landing page, an app or PowerPoint slides for the startup pitch deck, depending on the client’s wishes.
Want to Keep it Simple and Scalable?
We have already developed some 40 MVBs for startups, medium-sized companies and DAX corporations.
Find out about our prices and details on our MVB packages for startups and corporate initiatives by e-mail now!
