BUILDING YOUR HARDWARE BRAND

Rob ConeybeerShasta Ventures@robconeybeer

BRANDING Branding is a marketing strategy that involves creating a differentiated name and image in order to establish a presence in the consumer's mind and attract and keep customers.

CHARACTERISTICSOF GREAT BRANDS Great brands are crafted hand-in-hand with design. Great brands differentiate. Great brands make word-of-mouth easier. Great brands create a strong positive emotional connection with customers.

BRANDING CHECKLIST1. Start with deep research.

Understand your customer and perform your own primary research.Research competitive products (or alternatives) and how they brand themselves.

BRANDING CHECKLIST2. Pick the right name. Avoid being descriptive.3. Develop a distinctive visual brand in the product.4. Create a great logo. Place it everywhere.5. Develop a tagline.6. Design templates and brand standards for your marketing

materials.

BRANDING CHECKLIST7. Write down the brand attributes & key messages.8. Share the brand attributes with the entire team. Get team buy-

in, and then enforce consistency.9. Get legal protection for both your trademark, visual branding,

and any distinctive phrases you use to describe your product.10.Apply your branding to everything: product, packaging, web

presence, and marketing materials.

WHAT’S DIFFERENT ABOUTBRANDING HARDWARE?

HARDWARE BRANDINGSTARTS WITH DESIGN Visual, tactile, and aural identities are integral to building great hardware brands.

DESIGN STARTS WITH CUSTOMER UNDERSTANDING

DESIGN SUCCESS CAN BE MEASURED

“How likely is it that you would recommend [brand] to a friend or

colleague?”

DESIGN FOR NPS

HELP YOUR CUSTOMERS HELP YOU1. Pick the right name.2. Create emotionally appealing visual, tactile & aural identities.

NAMING Naming is for your customers. Naming is not for you. Make the brand name “easy” for your customers. Use a name that is easy to pronounce, easy to spell, easy to remember.

NAMING

NAMING

VISUAL, TACTILE, & AURAL IDENTITIES Design the product with photography & social media in mind. Aim for iconic, memorable, photograph-friendly, & pleasantly tactile design.

Think about pleasing the customers senses.

VISUAL, TACTILE, & AURAL IDENTITIES

VISUAL, TACTILE, & AURAL IDENTITIES

FORM FACTOR

WORD OF MOUTH The most effective & lowest cost form of customer acquisition is “word of mouth.”

Your brand and design should make it easy for your users to promote your product.

Social media is effectively user-generated advertising.

WORD OF MOUTH

WORD OF MOUTH

WORD OF MOUTH

WORD OF MOUTH

SOFTWARE CAN HELP BUILD A HARDWARE BRAND STORY Don’t incorporate all of the features at once. Use Internet connectivity to upgrade your product’s functionality over time.

Aim to increase your Net Promoter Score over time, with high value (usually free) software enhancements.

THE HARDWAREBRANDING FORMULADesign yourproduct for

maximum NPS

Continuous & freesoftware upgrades+

=

+Help your customers

help you(naming & identities)

FINAL THOUGHTS It’s all about building a strong positive emotional attachment to your customer.

Simple. Consistent. Authentic.

@robconeybeer shastaventures.com

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