Setting Your Brand Apart – People and Personality

I love incorporating the personality and passion of the people who work for a business into a brand story. It’s so important – especially when you need to set a brand apart in a tricky market.

In the case of RightsZone (a rights licensing system for the publishing industry), this really was crucial. Their market was tight, with strong and established competitors. They needed to make sure their identity and brand story helped them to stand out. They knew their software was great, but how to get a foot in the door and let prospective clients know? That’s where I joined the project, brought in to craft their brand story and reinforce it with a bespoke design style and tone of voice.

The really stellar USP for RightsZone was always going to be how they delivered their service – the specialised and hands-on expertise that had gone into building the software and would support clients as they implemented it. As with every project I run, I started with a workshop with the team. It’s so important to really understand a business and who the people are. And this team is a total dream – a creative, lovely bunch of rights evangelists – and absolute authorities in their field. My job was clear: make sure this personality is infused in every detail of the RightsZone brand.

Drawing from the insights of the workshop and conversations with the team, I created the mission, vision and values* – the foundation of their brand.

The values are key here. As I’ve said, how the team delivers the service is where they showcase their USPs. Here’s where we landed:

• Clear. We don’t over complicate, we are straight-talking, logical, and don’t use jargon where it’s not needed.
• Authoritative. We aren’t shy about demonstrating and communicating our expertise.
• Friendly. Our strength is in the people who make up our team, and we speak with personality, care and warmth.
• Passionate. We get excited! Our language reflects how strongly we believe in what we do, as champions of rights work.

*More on Mission, Vision and Values and what they are/do is in my post on the building blocks of a brand.

Tone of voice guidance followed – meaning every piece of messaging and marketing has the RightsZone voice. Then, a visual brand to perfectly complement their story, built out of the brand’s foundations. A strong, confident logotype, bright and captivating colour palette and a clear and accessible typeface.

RightsZone looks nothing like its competitors, sounds nothing like its competitors, and the experience clients will get is exactly the one you’d expect if you read their website, follow their social pages or speak with the team.

With templates and user-friendly guidelines, all their materials and messaging were kept consistent throughout the growth of the business, and I’ve continued to add assets and templates to the brand pack as RightsZone’s needs change. Consistency is what reinforces a new brand, and ensures that the compelling RightsZone narrative was clear at every opportunity. 

If you take a look at their website, you’ll see RightsZone already has an impressive roster of clients who have made the decision to switch over to use their software, and since brand expectation matches brand experience, they can feel confident that things will continue to grow.

I love to work with new businesses and establish the right brand framework to tell their story. If that’s something I can help you with, please get in touch!