What Is A Brand Guide? (And Why You Need One!)
What is a brand guide?
A brand guide (also called brand standards) is a document created to do just that, guide your brand. Brand guidelines are a tool designed to strengthen your brand identity through consistency. They ensure correct usage of all branding elements like logos, icons, colors, fonts and photography.
They are used as a reference and a rulebook that explains how your company should be presented to the world. It contains the “do’s and don’ts” to keep your brand on track.
They have the ability to be very basic (1 page) or very specific depending on client needs. Some include mission, vision, and emotional structures to guide the verbal tones along with the visual (for example, “creative”, “fun” or “bold”).
It is a guide that everyone in a company can use to understand how to represent their brand correctly and create a united, cohesive appearance that in turn adds value to your brand.
Why do you need one?
Brand Recognition – Your brand is how the world recognizes you. It is what builds trust in your clients.
Brand Consistency – Inconsistency will confuse clients, give your brand a low quality association and is a MAJOR turn off.
Brand Value – Following a guide will allow your brand to appear more professional and reliable. It will give your brand the power to level up in your industry.
Established Tool – You work hard on your brand, don’t let it go to waste! Provide all employees and designers with the tools to keep your brand a success with a strict brand guide.
Whether your brand is new or established, it is never too late to create a guide and gain that strength.
Click here to view Big Bunny Creative’s brand guide as an example and click through below to see some recognizable brand guides.
Shazam Brand Guide
Uber Brand Guide
Starbucks Brand Guide
Feeling sold? We are ready to support your brand goals! Contact us to get started on creating a stronger brand.
Promo Ideas for Your Small Scale Campaign
Have a campaign with a low budget or a smaller reach? We have promo for that!
No matter what the marketing goal or event size, we believe that a target audience should NEVER be left without a branded takeaway item.
Promotional products let your brand linger in your clients’ mind, reminds them of the positive experience interacting with your brand and keeps you top of mind when it is time for them to make a purchase. They are conversation pieces and encourage business referrals.
While some might think promo is only for more large scale events such as trade shows, a small client interaction (luncheons, small private classes or events, meeting for coffee etc.) has a more significant, meaningful and intimate impact. Take advantage of this focus and put your brand front and center.
With ability to order as low as 12 items in quantity, there are several promotional products we collected HERE that allow you to take advantage of the power of promo without such a large inventory investment or commitment.
MARKETING TIP: Use low quantity benefits to your advantage by offering exclusive, limited edition pieces.
Click here or below to check out some of our favorite low quantity promo items to get pricing, ideas and inspiration!
Support Breast Cancer with PINK Promo!
An issue close to so many hearts, we want to celebrate the lives of our women affected by breast cancer. For the loved ones lost and the survivors, we know this fight is never easy.
Big Bunny Creative is donating 20% of proceeds from all pink colored items sold now through November 1 to Susan G. Komen Houston. Check out this inspiring cause HERE to read their inspiring stories, get involved or to donate directly online.
Support your women clients and employees with education, access to healthcare and appointments and awareness gifts that give back! We put our 10 favorite pink promo items HERE. Get shopping!
5 Tasks to Accomplish During a Hurricane
With a hurricane looming over Houston and surrounding areas, we hope everyone is getting prepared to stay safe.
Whatever your situation, we put together a list of tasks to keep your time hunkering down productive (with or without power)!
- Learn or refresh a skill with YouTube tutorials
- Listen to an industry specific podcast
- Read a motivational book
- Create a mood board or mind map of some brand goals you want to achieve
- Nap! Take advantage of the dark skies to recharge
Let us know which activities you find the most inspiring! Enjoy and please be safe.
5 Reasons To Brand Your Apparel
Wearables are one of the most powerful promotional products when done correctly.
Check out our branding tips below and access our screen print pricing calculator to get started!
Why decorate your apparel?
BRAND VISIBILITY – Spread awareness and increase recognition, recall, impressions AND reach with each garment.
BRAND LOYALTY – Create a sense of community and corporate culture with garments that represent team, unity, and relationships. Gifting an experience to your clients through apparel will keep you top of mind for their next purchase.
How to make it count:
Invest in high quality. Convey success with garments made of quality material for a comfy, tailored item people WANT to wear. You will NOT get repeat impressions with poor quality, uncomfortable garments. This has an effect on the outcome of print processes as well.
Use professional designs. Inspire interest and add value by creating an emotional, memorable connection through eye catching design that puts your brand on a walking billboard. COST EFFECTIVE TIP: Use this design across multiple promotional products to create a branded experience for a cohesive campaign.
Differentiate & stand out. Use unique decoration locations and techniques to create fashion forward and more upscale pieces. Remember, how you market yourself is a direct reflection of how you want people to perceive your brand. Don’t be basic!
Click here for our full pricing list and contact us with any questions!
TRENDING NOW: Tie Dye!
Unless you've been living under a rock during quarantine, you know that tie dye is IT.
We love the idea of using this trend on branded promotional products. We suggest two ways to participate in the craze:
- Adding a subtle design to a pre-dyed garment or promo piece OR
- Gifting the ultimate customer experience - branded white tees with DIY tie dye kits!
Get the "creative juices" flowing with silicone wine glasses or stand out on your virtual meetings with branded apparel that will be sure to catch eyes. The possibilities are endless with apparel that comes in tons of color ways to match your brand.
This hits all our requirements for a promo win - usable, visible, quality and most importantly MEMORABLE. Does this marketing concept align with your brand? Let us know if you want to create a positive branding experience your clients will never forget - check out our favorite tie dye and white promo items HERE for details and pricing.
6 Reasons Why You Should Invest in Branded Holiday Gifts
It may only be July, but we suggest to start planning your holiday gift strategy NOW. Let's get creative, make an impact and end your marketing year with a bang!
Whether you give to your top five clients or everyone on your contact list, branded holiday gifts will add value in a few ways:
- 2020 has been ROUGH. Make your clients feel appreciated and special.
- Reward client loyalty during the pandemic and secure future business.
- Increase referrals by gifting a usable conversation piece.
- Ensure brand recall with a positive and memorable gift experience.
- Keep your brand top of mind for future purchases with increased visibility.
- Gain FREE additional impressions by encouraging social media unboxings.
Now you know WHY you need to include holiday gifts in your marketing strategy. Here's HOW - access our top ten gift ideas for 2020 and to learn how your brand value will increase by leveraging promo items during the holidays!
5 Characteristics of a Successful Promotional Product
Imagine this: You have decided to sponsor a large event that your target audience will be attending. You spend months curating the ideal customer experience for them to learn all about your brand, build awareness and gain their trust and loyalty. Your goal is to present your brand and gain new clients. The next question is, how will you get them to remember the brand experience once the event is over? How do you stand out among the other sponsors as a brand the attendees will purchase from?
This is where promotional products come in. Reserve part of your marketing budget to be dedicated to a promo item that will serve a purpose far past the event day and extend the shelf life of the event efforts.
To ensure your promotional product item selection is a success, make sure it has each of these 5 qualities:
Usability
We like to call this "no-throw promo". In a nutshell, you do not want to select and spend marketing dollars on an item that will be taken straight to the trash can. Not only is it a waste of your time and money, it is bad for the environment! Spend time researching what your target audience cares about, what their values are and where their time is spent. This will narrow down your list and allow you to creatively determine a promo item you can be sure your clients will use and love.
Visibility
Promo is all about IMPRESSIONS. This is the number of times your brand will be seen. Wether it is seen by the same person every day when they sit down at their desk, seen by others who come in contact with your client who is wearing your t-shirt running errands, or seen by tons of people at a festival where your brand is on a party-goers phone accessory, choose something that will be out and about, displayed prominently on a body or desktop and SEEN!
Quality
Impress your clients by presenting them with an item that makes them feel special and cared about. Gifting quality promotional products reflects the quality of your brand and creates a connection between you, your client and high perceived value. WIN!
Alignment
This is a 2 part characteristic - the promotional product needs to not only align with your brand but align with the event or campaign as well. For example, if your brand values eco-friendly practices, ensure that your items and their factories do too. Communicate this to your recipients to deepen the connection with them. This is brand alignment. Event/campaign alignment comes in the form of choosing an item that will be used by its recipient AND in choosing a design to imprint and brand the item with that makes sense. An easy way to think of this is to pick a theme, then make sure that theme is something your brand can be proud of.
Memorability
Promo item selection should have a strong emphasis on customer experience - present the items creatively to etch the positive feeling into the recipients memory and the promo will pay for itself in a happy, loyal customer! That is VALUE.
With all of these attributes checked off, your target audience will have gone home from this event with a branded item they will hang on to, be proud of, show off and use. It will give them all the feelz when they whip it out and remind them to always turn to your company when the time comes for them to purchase. Your marketing campaign and promotional product was a success!
Creating success stories like these are our passion. Let us know how we can support your next promo campaign!
10 Branded Apparel Facts You Should Know
We are in the era of a new business casual - sweats, pajamas and (for my ladies) no bra! Due to work from home orders, branded apparel has taken on a whole new value, and even as some of us slowly return back to the office place, work apparel doesn't have to suck or be boring and uncomfortable.
Branded apparel can internally give your team a sense of comfort, unity, purpose and company pride (especially during such an isolating situation like Covid-19). Externally, branded apparel can effectively promote your brand and heighten the perceived value of your brand when the appropriate quality garments are used. It should reflect your brand story and be consistent with how you want people to describe your brand (clients/customers and employees alike). All of this being said, the importance of these pieces is way more than slapping a logo on a polo and calling it a day.
We had the pleasure of taking the Fashion Apparel Masterclass (FAM) put on by Bella+Canvas, one of our favorite apparel brands. It goes into detail on fabric composition, identifying industry trends, branding, differentiation methods and selling techniques.
Read below for our top 10 takeaways from the class and let us know if you are ready to implement these methods into your next apparel order. We can guide every step of the way to ensure success!
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- C.O.E. (Carded Open Ended) fabrics are what most of the inexpensive garments offered for promo are made of. But guess what? Major retail stores have BANNED this fabric from being sold in their stores for years. Cheap is not always a positive!
- Quality garments have the ability to get a sharper, more defined imprint because the tight knit in the fabrics prevent ink from bleeding.
- Millennials buy from companies who have shared values. They will spend extra money on items that are environmentally and socially responsible and ethical. Bella+Canvas is one of those brands!
- What people wear effects their mood. When it comes to apparel, consumers experience the whole shirt, not just the design on it. How they FEEL when they wear the garment will evoke an emotion that in turn gets attached to your brand. Make it a good one!
- BIG BUNNY ADVANTAGE! We were thrilled to hear these facts from the experts: creative decoration enhances final goods. Not only do we specialize in graphic design, we also have the expertise to skillfully recommend complimentary color combinations, unique decoration techniques and creative design placement. We got that retail vibe! Our favorites are tone-on-tone, puff ink and mixed media.
- End users want QUALITY and associate negativity with poorly made garments. Align your high quality brand that you work so hard on with apparel of equal quality. Don't devalue your brand with a cheap piece.
- Apparel is largely psychological - we learned that our customers need to see and physically feel in order to make a connection and justify paying more for a quality piece. Virtual mockups and physical samples are available to make this easier on our clients.
- Bella+Canvas has a line called Fast Fashion that creates new styles monthly in limited quantities in order to keep up with demand of retail trends.
- Bella+Canvas has another winning differentiator: fabric type and color selection. With literally hundreds of options to choose from, this brand will have something to fit any promo goal.
- Cost per impression is lower on a more expensive piece. You read that correctly. This class explained wonderfully the case of added value when a quality piece is used for promo apparel, even if it is more expensive initially. You are investing in more impressions with a garment that will get worn and seen multiple times (have you heard the term "walking billboard"?) versus investing in a garment that will get trashed and not supply you with the impressions you thought you were paying for. Make the most of your branding efforts!
We may be nerding out over all of the info we have absorbed during this course but it was too good not to share! Check out pricing on some of our favorite apparel pieces below. Let us know if you have questions!
Earth Day - No Throw Promo!
No Throw Promo - (noun) Promotional products that don't suck, that people want to keep, hang onto for years, use regularly and DON'T THROW AWAY!
The beginning of spring weather (and quarantine) should give us all an appreciation for Mother Nature. Earth day is April 22, and while promo is the last thing on most of our minds, we still wanted to honor the day by sharing a sampling of our favorite eco-friendly products.
1. Apparel
Made from organic cotton and using sustainable production, these super comfy options for apparel are Earth Day approved.
2. RPET Cooling Towels
RPET stands for recycled polyethylene terephthalate...meaning these towels are made out of recycled plastic bottles! So COOL!
3. Recycled Paper Journals
Exactly what it sounds like - journals make from recycled paper! Fun fact: paper can be recycled up to 7 times before the fibers lose stability.
4. Multi-Use Food Items
Meaning anything that is NOT a single use, landfill item! Points for non-plastic materials like silicone, glass, bamboo and our newest obsession - wheat straw.
5. Planters
Bring some green into your office space with a desk sized planter and enjoy the extra oxygen and mood boost.
These items are more eco-friendly, not more expensive. Check out our top picks with special pricing HERE and contact us with any questions on how to get your brand on them in time for Earth Day!