Branding Print Media and the Web

Many companies have a disjointed brand between their print and web presence. Some companies didn’t care to embrace the nature of the digital arena and simply copy and pasted their brand online. Others simply didn’t think that the Internet consisted of a different audience and thought the same offline approach would work online. If you are in a similar situation, it’s important that you update your brand and make sure that it works for both the print and web.

It’s important to understand that the digital world isn’t just a medium for you to put your online brochure up. Branding also isn’t about talking about yourself in the best positive light. In print, the objective is to burn an image of your brand in the brain of your audience with your core message. In the digital world, the objective is to connect with your audience and get them to engage with your brand.

If you look around, you’ll see that brands are all about creating great content and engaging with their audience through channels like blogs, forums, and social media. Brands that only focus on themselves get ignored in this medium. Users are making split-second decisions and if you’re not appealing to their interests, they’ll go elsewhere with a single click of the mouse.

To launch an effective branding campaign for your company, you need to start by going back to the drawing board. It might very well be the case that your brand is outdated. This can be easily observable by studying the competition, looking at your financials, and seeing how your audience is reacting to you. In most cases, the brand simply needs to be tweaked to fit both print media and the web.

For example, the logo design of the brand may not suit the digital world. Using a dark and shadowy logo is completely opposite of what the web is about. People on the Internet are looking to do business with companies that are approachable and transparent. While a cold and dark logo may reflect professionalism and pedigree in an industry, it can also come off as distant and cold.

That’s not to say that the logo of the brand needs to be completely revamped. All it may need is to be use a different shade, style or simple graphic adjustment. It’s important to really connect your presentation in print and the web because of how consumers behave nowadays. If somebody sees your print ad, then it’s very likely that they’ll take out their smartphone and search for you online.

The presentation of your web design is very important to your branding as well. It cannot model your offline catalog and brochures as the approach does not work online unless it’s an eCommerce site. The presentation needs to engage users while also integrating elements of your brand. Many companies have been using visual storytelling and multimedia to really get their audience to connect with their brand. It’s up to you to figure out how to use your website to support your brand.

The big takeaway here is that the presentation in your print campaigns and web properties need to be in sync. You’ll have to revamp, update, or tweak your brand image depending on where you stand. Same applies for startups – think about branding right from the start.