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Web Page Design Look & Branding

Once you have profiled your customers and created your spidergram (website design content plan), it's time to think about branding.

Sadly, a lot of marketing moguls brandishing the buzzword don't seem to have the faintest clue what it really means. For starters, they confuse "branding" with "brand image"

Let's take Campbells Soup as an example. Do you automatically think of the red and white can on your grocer's shelf? The scrolling script font that says Campbell's on every can? Those are their brand image.

But what do you think of Cambells Soup? Perhaps you think "mmmm -- home made, quick and easy." Perhaps it brings memories of being a child having hot soup on a cold day. Or, perhaps you just think think "Icky." What you think of when I say "Campbells Soup" is their "brand" in your mind.

Back in 1904, Russian scientist Ivan Pavlov won the Nobel Prize for his work regarding "associative response" - aka branding.

Day after day after day, Pavlov would ring a bell and then feed meat to hungry dogs. Eventually, when he rang the bell, the dogs began to salivate. To the dogs, the bell meant meat.

Corporations spend mountains of cash to find and enforce a brand message in the mind of the consumer. Tide gets whites whiter. Cheer is safe for colors. Coke is the real thing. Pepsi is for the new generation.

What does that have to do with your web page design?

While branding is a whole issue unto itself, you need to consider your branding when you design your website.

The Campbells Soup website should have the familiar look of their brand image (the red and white can and their logo), and it should also focus on their brand message (hot healthy soup, fast). And so should yours.

Point to Remember;
People remember 70% of the visual images that they see and 30% of the text they read. So, while excellent copywriting will help you sell... your brand image and web page design will help you make (and reinforce) that ever-important first impression.

Next; Webpage Design Checklist

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