Being an experienced creative studio, we can confidently say that branding is a crucial aspect of any successful business.
Oftentimes, it’s the key factor separating companies offering similar services within a competitive industry.
Traditionally, branding has been a human-driven process, with marketers and brand strategists using their knowledge and intuition to develop successful branding campaigns that tap into their core demographic’s emotions and values.
However, with the rise of artificial intelligence (AI), there has been a growing interest in its potential role in branding – but there are mixed feelings about the introduction of this technology within the sector.
Some are excited at the prospect of increased efficiency and cost savings, while others fear it may diminish the human touch and emotional connection often associated with branding.
But can AI be used to give your branding efforts a competitive advantage?
Well, let’s explore that question.
What Makes Effective Branding?
Branding is more than just a logo or a slogan; it’s the embodiment of a company’s values, beliefs, and purpose.
A strong brand is what sets a company apart from its competitors and creates an emotional connection with consumers that builds loyalty over time.
To achieve genuine brand loyalty, companies must consistently tap into the emotional and psychological needs of their target audience, backing each rebranding decision with careful consideration, research, and strategy.
From visual communication to a brand’s tone of voice, every aspect has to be carefully crafted to evoke a specific emotional response from consumers.
This is where the human touch comes into play, as it takes empathy and understanding to truly connect with an audience on a deeper level.
Simply put, without an effective brand that resonates with a specific target audience, companies struggle to stand out in a crowded marketplace and connect with their target audience.
How Can AI in Branding Give You a Competitive Advantage
We’ve been around long enough and seen enough new technology be introduced to the space to know that it’s not a matter of if AI will enter the branding industry, but when and how it will be utilised.
But AI doesn’t have to be a bad thing for branding.
Similar to other sectors using AI technology, we believe that embracing AI within the branding process can give companies a competitive advantage in today’s fast-paced digital landscape – but only if it’s used correctly.
Executing a modern branding strategy with AI technology is like walking a tightrope.
On one hand, too much reliance on AI and your brand will lose its human touch.
While on the other, being ignorant of the development of AI tools could leave your brand trailing behind your competitors.
You might be asking yourself, ‘How does this give my business a competitive advantage?’
It’s very much a best-of-both-worlds approach. Let us explain.
Countless companies have already doubled down on AI for their branding efforts with varying results, stating that “this is the future!”.
While they may feel like pioneers within the sector, we have discovered companies where AI use is highly noticeable within their brand. In turn, this slowly starts to erode any human touch and emotional connection with their audience.
At the same time, I’m sure you know businesses within your sector that are reluctant to embrace change.
Much like those who would rather send mail by carrier pigeon rather than email, businesses that don’t somewhat embrace AI could be left in the past with their inefficient business practices.
By walking that tightrope perfectly down the middle, you can combine the advantages of AI technology with human understanding and empathy to create an impactful branding strategy.
Advantages of Using AI for Branding
We mentioned earlier about AI being used ‘correctly’.
And by this, we mean responsibly.
There are a wealth of benefits to using AI in branding (which we will explore in just a moment), but overdoing it can have seriously negative consequences.
We’ll discuss the key issue with AI in branding later on in the post, but first, let’s talk about the advantages of AI for branding.
Data-Driven Insights
An effective tailored artificial intelligence-driven branding strategy has the benefit of detailed analytics and insights on consumers that would otherwise take months of research and testing.
When using AI tools, like Google Analytics 4 (GA4), businesses can gather valuable customer data to inform their branding and digital marketing decisions.
This allows brands to gain a deeper understanding of their target audience, including their demographics, interests, behaviours and interactions with the brand.
With this information, brands can tailor their branding and marketing strategies to better connect with their target audience on an emotional level.
A Cost-Effective, Time-Saving and Scalable Solution
Another key benefit of using AI in branding is its ability to save both time and money (when done correctly, that is).
Brand designers using AI can save time on research by digging deep into the data-driven insights some AI tools can provide, they can spend more time focusing on crafting the brand and letting their creative juices flow.
In turn, this allows designers to manage more projects at once without compromising on quality and deliver a more efficient, cost-effective service.
However, that’s not to say you should let AI do all the work for you.
AI is a tool used to aid the creative process, deliver insights and increase efficiency, not replace the human touch entirely.
Understandably, there are some concerns for paying clients and customers when it comes to AI in branding.
These are businesses paying for the professional experience, expertise and time of an industry professional to elevate their brand, not to be served by a robot.
However, when used correctly and ethically, AI can help streamline processes and save both designers and clients time and money without sacrificing the human touch in branding.
Inspire Ideas & Streamline Design Processes
A key benefit of using AI for branding is its ability to quickly construct a large number of design iterations from a single prompt.
As artificial intelligence learns from existing data, it can use its insights to generate tailored brand identities in seconds, considering every possibility until the perfect design is produced.
This method of creativity can produce some genuinely innovative concepts that may not have been thought up by a human designer – which is why many companies are starting to experiment with AI in their branding strategies.
Not only does this technology act as a springboard for the creative process, but it also helps to streamline processes allowing businesses to deliver a faster turnaround time for their branding projects while maintaining high standards of quality.
Consistent Tone of Voice
Artificial Intelligence can also help maintain a consistent tone of voice across all brand communication, but only if they have comprehensive brand guidelines to work with.
By using natural language processing, AI tools can analyse and generate content that aligns with the brand’s established tone of voice, ensuring consistency across all platforms.
This is incredibly beneficial for large companies with multiple branches or global markets where maintaining a consistent brand image and messaging can be challenging.
However, this can only be executed effectively if there is an effective brand ID strategy already in place, as AI can only replicate what it has been programmed to do.
The Biggest Issue with AI in Branding
There are some obvious benefits to using AI technology in your branding strategy, but there’s an elephant in the room that needs to be addressed.
A truly effective brand is born from original ideas that resonate with a specific audience.
No matter how advanced AI may be, it can only bring forward ideas based on pre-existing data and algorithms.
When it comes to branding, consumers crave authenticity and originality.
AI can only regurgitate what it has been fed, meaning it lacks the creativity and emotional intelligence that humans possess.
Over-use of AI in branding poses a threat to the authenticity of a campaign, as the final product may come across as robotic and lack the human touch that resonates with consumers.
It seems that the real challenge for businesses lies in finding the right balance between utilising AI technology and maintaining a unique brand identity that stands out in the marketplace.
This begs the question…
When Can AI Be Used In A Branding Campaign?
Let’s start at the initial research phase of a branding strategy and work our way through the process to gain an in-depth understanding of when AI could be successfully implemented into a branding strategy.
Research
During this process, experts will conduct an in-depth analysis of their client’s business and its target audience, market trends and competitors to inform their branding decisions.
Analytical AI tools can be incredibly useful during this stage, as they can help gather and interpret large amounts of data more efficiently than humans, effectively laying the groundwork for the campaign.
That’s not to say you should rely on only AI for the initial research stage – far from it.
An effective brand resonates not only with a business’s customers but the company’s values, ethos and mission.
That’s why fusing these insights with the lived experience of branding experts and industry leaders can be a dangerous tool (to your competitors), as this synergy of human and AI input can inspire innovative campaigns that truly resonate with a specific target audience.
Strategy
The strategy process involves mapping out who the brand will be targeting, what the key messages are and what the visual style will look like.
Personas are usually created at this stage to help the team fully understand their target audience and speak directly to them in a way that resonates. These are character-esque profiles of the target audience, including their likes, dislikes and motivations.
AI can be a useful tool when mapping these out, but a human may be able to reach a slightly deeper and more emotional level of understanding, which is crucial in forming a brand identity.
Once the target audience is understood, the next step is to consider the messaging.
The client may already know the messages they want to communicate, the real work here is to fine-tune and craft the messages in a way that resonates with the target audience.
This is where the human touch shines.
By utilising AI, businesses run the risk of creating generic, impersonal messages that lack the emotion and authenticity that a human can bring to the table.
But that’s not to say AI is totally useless in this part of the process.
AI can be a great springboard for idea generation, bringing forward new concepts you may not have otherwise considered – especially when thinking of text-based and visual brand campaigns.
But if you get a great suggestion from an AI tool, try thinking that bit deeper and expanding on that to make it your own.
This same thought process applies to the visual style.
AI can help with suggesting visuals and colours based on data, but having human input in the mix can take these concepts to the next level.
Delivering a Personalised Brand ID
Now the concept is in place, the next step is to take it to bring the brand ID to life.
A brand identity covers everything from tone of voice, brand guidelines and content to logo design, brand architecture and visual identity – and the execution of this can make or break a brand.
Each branding studio has its own unique approach to crafting a brand, but at Inc Studio we believe that to deliver a truly personalised brand ID there must be a heavy focus on the business’s values, ethos and purpose.
An effective brand should be a mirror to these three elements and resonate with the target audience on a deeper level – something that can be difficult to execute with AI.
Let’s take tone of voice, for example.
Sure, you can use the websites of competitors and inspirations for guidance, but does this run the risk of inadvertently copying someone else’s identity?
To make it your own, there must be some human intervention to take it beyond what AI can offer.
So, let’s say you handcraft brand guidelines, tone of voice included.
Surely from here, you could use AI to recreate a brand voice for all platforms, right?
Technically, yes.
But you still might be missing that human touch that makes your target audience care about your brand.
This is especially the case if your branded content is plagued with telltale AI buzzwords and image slip-ups.
(We’ve all seen those images of people with 7 fingers because the AI slipped!)
Then comes the argument of originality.
Even if you have crafted specific brand guidelines, AI will still pull data and information from other sources in order to fulfil the prompt you’ve given it.
So at this point, is your brand even personalised to you?
Or are you just using data and algorithms from sources that have already established themselves as successful brands?
Quality Control for AI in Branding
The argument of personalisation is the main debate dominating the marketing space surrounding AI.
We like to call it quality control.
Using AI isn’t necessarily a bad thing, you just need to make sure it doesn’t compromise on the quality.
And if you think you’re relying on AI too much, you’re probably right.
That’s why we believe there are five key questions every creative studio must ask themselves before, during and after using AI for any creative task:
- Is it quality?
- Does it resonate?
- Does it drive revenue?
- Is it backed by real evidence or just a machine’s broad and general understanding?
- Is it truly personalised or just a replica?
These five points are essential for developing a successful brand that actually resonates with your target audience and drives results.
What’s more, if a client is paying your company for a service, wouldn’t they want to know that a real person is involved in the creation of their brand?
That’s not to say AI can’t be a useful tool in branding, but that’s all it is – a tool.
It’s clear that for AI branding implementation to be truly effective, you need to do most of the hard work yourself first.
Yes, AI can make your life easier by automating some tasks, but it’s not a magic solution that can replace human creativity and emotional intelligence in branding.
Beyond the initial research and idea generation, you need to ask yourself, is it really worth using AI for your branding strategy?
AI in Branding: A Conclusion
It’s clear that artificial intelligence can be a highly useful tool in branding, but it comes with its own limitations and risks.
Just because you can streamline the process with AI, doesn’t mean you should sacrifice the human touch and emotional connection that makes a brand truly successful and memorable.
AI can be used as a springboard for inspiration and automation of certain tasks, setting the groundwork for industry experts to expand upon and develop a truly personalised brand identity.
It’s these expert insights from professionals which separate a generic brand from one that truly resonates with its target audience and drives results.
By finding a balance between AI and human input, creative studios can deliver personalised brand identities that truly resonate with their target audience and drive results.