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The journey of branding is not an easy one. While it's true that most businesses are able to get their brand off the ground with relative ease, there still remains this tedious process which oftentimes leaves many companies feeling frustrated and giving up before they even start!

1- How do you begin the life of a brand?

No, brands do not arrive on the beak of a stork, nor do they grow in laboratories. Brands get the life we give them and are made out of some hours of market analysis and intense work in partnership with the client. But before all this process starts, we need a briefing. The briefing is everything that is asked of the agency and the most important starting point. It is a kind of guide that will help us stay on course.

The briefing must include, in detail, the goals that the client has for his brand. Not rarely, the client doesn't know exactly what he wants, and it's up to us, Vitamina, to help them find what that might be. In this phase, we must be in accordance with timings, budget, how the client's business works, the target audience the brand wants to reach and who knows even the personal preferences of our client.

2- Looking beyond to know what the brand is going to be

The success of a brand often depends on how different it is from the competition. Sometimes the product is nothing new, but what will make it unique is the way we communicate it. And this is all part of the branding process. Before we start, we have to look at the "supermarket shelf" and understand where our product/service is going to be. Understanding the strengths and weaknesses of the competition helps us identify the challenge and point of differentiation of our brand.

‍After all this is identified, we look again at our target audience and we will scrutinize what they have to tell us: what do the people who are going to buy our brand like? What do they do? What do they identify with? Where do they live? What is their lifestyle? How old are they? What desires do they have? What do they aspire to be... and so many other questions can be asked, depending on the complexity of our offering.  It is also a good practice to look at examples and references of what our brand wants to become. We all have an idol in music. What about brands? Who is/will be our idol brand?

3- Looking inward to define who our brand is

The third phase is the so-called "introspection time". Have you ever thought how nice it would be if, before we were born, someone gave us the opportunity to define exactly what we want to be? In the world of branding, this is possible and helps a lot in the definition of brand identity.

At Vitamina, we follow the framework suggested by Simon Sinek in his TED Talk "Start with Why". The Golden Circle model is an inspiring way to challenge the tax and find the essence of brands.

It translates into three levels of perception, with different goals, which in the end will complete each other. The "Why", the "How" and the "What". In essence, our purpose, our process, and the result.

If you think of a simple example, namely Nike, you can easily understand the importance of these three points.

‍Why: Nike's main purpose is to overcome the limits of the human being through sports.

‍How: To do this, it develops high performance technological solutions for a very specific result.

‍What: Sportswear that helps us overcome more and more challenges. This is a super interesting exercise to do at home with other well-known brands like Coca-Cola, Apple, Adidas, etc. A successful brand must have an authentic purpose. After all, this is where its true essence is found!

4- Define the pillars that will always guide us

In a fourth phase, it is necessary to define the pillars that will guide our brand now and, who knows, for all time. And here comes the Mission, Vision, Brand Personality, and Positioning. This all sounds far-fetched, but if the work in the previous point has been done well, defining these four points is easy! In short, having a Mission is fundamental and goes far beyond the ultimate goal of the business which, we all know, will always be to sell. The Mission is like an extra motivation when things go less well and should be remembered and shared by all the people involved in the company's business. The Vision is the ultimate goal. It is the maximum distance we want to go and should be translated into a simple sentence.

5- What are the main traits of our personality and what message do we want to convey?

Finally, the brand has its own personality that must be reflected in the main element, the logo, but not only. It must be reflected in all communication supports. So let's go back to the initial point of this article: comparing brands to people. There are all kinds of people. There are the shy ones, the brave and rebellious ones. There are the mysterious ones and the funny ones. What personality will our brand have?

This will also be the key moment to define what message we want to convey: brand positioning is the place that the brand occupies, before the competition and in the consumer's mind. It is the result of our essence, our pillars, and our personality that we want to keep always present. And the more differentiating it is, the better!

6- And finally, the logo!

What a long branding process it is! Finally, the logo. This is the most important element of our brand and the one that will convey all of the above points simply and clearly. The logo is the most visible element and the one that will distinguish us from all the competition. In visual terms, the logo must be perceptible, and adaptable to the different media where the brand will live, it must be differentiating and unique. And finally, in terms of chromatic amplitude and shapes, the logo must transmit all the work that was previously defined for the brand.

Excited? Let's start a new branding process together!

Google Partner certification for agencies generates many benefits, and these are based on three main areas: Education and Statistics, Access and Technical Support, and Recognition and Awards.

What is the Partners Program?

Google Partner is a marketing program aimed at advertising agencies or third parties that manage Google Ads accounts on behalf of other brands or companies. The Google Partners Program is active in over 60 countries and is available in 43 languages.‍

Vitamina. renewed its Google Partner status for 2021, thus acknowledging its good work in managing Google Ads campaigns.

This seal of quality and qualifications awarded by Google brings numerous advantages, both for agencies and for their clients. However, to obtain this certification it’s necessary to fulfill certain requirements.

What are the requirements to be a Google Partner?

• Configure and display effectively and optimally Google Ads campaigns in order to achieve the best results for customers. The manager account registered with Google Partners must have a minimum optimization score of 70%;

• Minimum advertising investment of USD 10,000 (approx. €8482) in the last 90 days;

• Prove the knowledge of the strategists, namely by passing the Skillshop Google certification exams.

What are the benefits of working with a Google Partner?

• Exclusive support, with personalized service;

• Constant updating of knowledge, through exclusive trainings;

• Initial contractual discounts for your customers;

• Guaranteed a good performance of the ads.

If your goal is to boost your business and your company appears in the first results of the search engine, work with a Google Partner agency.

‍Get in touch with us.

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Written by: Rita Pereira

With over 2 billion worldwide users, TikTok is one of the fastest growing social networks since 2019 and promises continue this year.

‍TikTok is one of the fastest-growing social networks since 2019 and promises to keep doing so. The app already adds up to over 1.5 billion downloads, as well as over 500 million monthly active users. This platform consists of short 15 to 60-second videos recorded by the user themselves, allowing them to edit the content directly in the app.

‍Even though the predominant age group for this application is mostly young, between 16 and 24 years old, TikTok has huge potential to be considered in communication, marketing, and advertising strategy, even for companies!

In order to take advantage of this potential, TikTok created TikTok for Business, inviting companies to make TikToks instead of ads. This service uses an ad management tool within TikTok, with four simple steps, from defining the campaign objective and target audience to designing the ad. In addition, TikTok for Business also allows you to generate custom reports to analyze ad performance and offers a kit of video templates, making it easy to create your own content.

Before you start using

Explore the app

‍The main difference between this social network and others is that it's primarily for entertainment, so users can interact with their followers in creative ways.

‍Create videos

‍As mentioned before, videos have a maximum of 60 seconds and the application offers the possibility of editing directly on the platform, where music can be added (in most cases the content is presented synchronized to the chosen music), filters, effects, text, and stickers.

‍Explore hashtags

‍Hashtags on TikTok can be used in many ways, but one of the most popular uses for them is to find content related specifically to your search. This way you won't have any wasted time watching videos that don’t interest or match what we're looking for!

Now what?

When planning the type of content you want to publish, keep in mind that on Tik Tok videos are more spontaneous, allowing you to use only your cell phone. A video is not supposed to be too elaborate, because if the content is presented explicitly in an ad format it is likely not to work on this platform.

Brands are taking advantage of the relaxed atmosphere in social media to show their lighter side. For example, they can participate in hashtag challenges or create competition with branded hashtags that get people talking about them! A very particular feature of this social network is that many of the videos "recycle" existing content, for example, users post videos with the same music, doing certain dance steps, but they add their own stamp. This can also happen with a video posted by a company, either by adding the product to the choreography or by its employees being part of the dance.

Now that you are more familiar with the platform, it is important to think about what kind of content suits the brand and the product, be it behind the scenes, tutorials or new product launches. One thing is for sure, TikTok is here to stay, reinforcing the importance of video marketing, so it is always worth trying this platform.

Adega Cooperativa de Borba is one of the oldest wineries in Portugal, being an important reference not only in Alentejo but also throughout the country. For its success, it was crucial the commitment of all the associates and the sustainable practices that were adopted to turn the production process more environmentally friendly.

The challenge

Sometimes we struggle with projects in which collecting and producing information is a hard challenge. Although, Adega Cooperativa de Borba gave us a completely different mission: incorporate almost a century of history into the new institutional website.The million-dollar question: how to make it visually appealing, readable, and interesting? To find the answer we asked our copywriting and software development teams to work side by side in order to achieve the best content balance possible.

The process

From the first meeting, we got a clear goal: Adega Cooperativa de Borba’s new digital portal should be must more than an institutional website: a free guided tour to viticulture, to the community, and also to Alentejo.

The historical timeline was essential in this process. Starting with the latest events in the Adega, it goes through different episodes that influenced the vineyard in Borba, and ends with the year 1000BC, when vines were introduced in Alentejo. By using this section, we were able to group relevant information that otherwise would not be used.

On the other hand, to turn the pages less extensive, we focused on the most relevant content, incorporating blocks linked to sections with a broader context of the themes. One of these examples is the Presidents’ chronogram, where we used a more visual approach on the homepage, moving the descriptive text to another area.

Besides that, all the blocks used with iconography and relevant facts were helpful to split the content and to highlight specific numbers and achievements from Adega Cooperativa de Borba.Finally, it wouldn’t make sense to welcome the new visitors without meaningful images representing Adega Cooperativa de Borba’s production, Alentejo, wine varieties, and also the people who had an important role in the winery.

So, we analyzed an image bank with more than 500 photographs. After a thorough selection, we chose the ones that best portrayed the winery in the main sections of the website.

The result

When accessing the new institutional website, we are sure that the visitor will get a clear idea about the size of Adega Cooperativa de Borba, its sustainable practices, its production methods, the way the wines are stored, and the reasons why Borba is one of the Portuguese sub-regions with greater capacity to generate quality wines.

Combined with this immersive experience, it became possible to browse the entire portfolio of Adega Cooperativa de Borba in a simple and intuitive way.

Don’t waste more time, grab your glass, and embrace this wine journey now!

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‍Written by: Diogo Santos

An insight from Jared Spool talk at Mirror Conf 2018 Edition

An insight from Jared Spool talk at Mirror Conf 2018 Edition

Last October, we had the opportunity to attend Mirror Conf, and since it happened in our city, it was a great opportunity to learn something from the best guys in the industry. One of the speakers that I was really looking forward to listening to was Jared Spool. He entitles himself as a Maker of Awesomeness at Center Centre/UIE and gave us an awesome talk about Design, more specifically, the importance of knowing the context about what we are designing, as well as its limitations, how to educate a team of people who are not so sensitive about the topic and its real importance to the success of a project. Here, I’ll break down the main points of Jared’s talk and adapting them to my personal experience.

Design is the Rendering of Intent

When we talk about rendering the intent it does not mean having an idea and start to explore it without knowing the essential information about the project. Even if our intention is the best, we must take a deep breath and analyze the whole thing before action.

The example, in which Jared focused his talk, was the meeting between two designers and their trail of thoughts. Did you ever hear about the Delta Onboarding Passes made by Tyler Thompson? They were inspired by Dustin Curtis work for American Airlines old website, which in his point of view the design was really poor.

Let’s talk about Tyler! After buying his ticket at Delta to fly from New York to Seattle, he received this boarding pass (img 1). Which made him feel instantly mad by the way it was designed.

As you can see why, Tyler was not satisfied with it, and inspired by Dustin’s work, he grabbed his Moleskine and started to do some sketches. While doing it he thought about his trip and how should the information be organized, until he got to this point:

As you can see, this suggestion led to a visually appealing and well-designed boarding pass with great typography, very well structured information and with some nice details to make the experience of buying a boarding pass way better.

What he didn’t think about, were the limitations that the company had to face if they wanted to follow its idea and the logistics that would be necessary to apply his design, including the costs that would come along with it.

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‍SEE ALSO: BUILDING A DESIGN PROCESSIf you look closely, you will notice that to apply the suggested design, Delta would have to:

• Replace more than 10.000 boarding pass printers;
• Change the paper size and add cutting for bleeds;
• Create a new supplied chain for colored inks.

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As Tyler, there are a lot of people who think that can improve something, and at some point, we all think that we are all designers. Aren’t we?

The big difference, in this case, is that when you have great design skills but don’t have the full context of what are you designing for, it can look great, but it can be badly designed at the same time, because the big difference between poor design and great design lays in the render of the designer’s intent.

What causes poor Design?

Poor design is based on the right intention but executed poorly -  a poorly rendered intention! Tyler matches perfectly this example. He had an intention, and it was a good one, but it was executed poorly, not because the design was ugly, but because there was a lack of context when designing.

So in order to improve design, and create something meaningful, we must work on both, the intention and the skills of rendering it in the best way possible and when doing it, there are two things to have to take in consideration, so you must ask yourself:

Are we design activities or experiences?

On his talk, Jared referred Six Flags Mountain theme park vs Disney adventure park as well as the differences between the two. Long story short, let’s get straight to the point.

‍Six Flags Mountain

‍The Six Flags Mountain (img 3) is all about the rides, that come together with as many activities as you want. The main idea of this one is to experience fun and excitement with your chosen ride. Ok, let’s jump to the next until you think we are done for the day.

Disneyworld Magic Kingdom

‍On the other side of the coin, there’s the map of Disneyworld Magic Kingdom. If you notice in the image above, there are no rides represented on, but that’s not because they don’t exist, that’s because Disneyworld wanted it that way.

They want to focus on the experience they can provide to you and to your children, turning your day into a memorable one, a day full of experiences. The day usually starts with the Character Breakfast, then people walk around the park and experience as more activities as they want to, and at the end of the day, there’s a marvelous fireworks display.

Let’s try to adapt this thought to a digital product. When designing for something, what is your main objective? Do you want to lead your user to perform some specific action? Or do you want to tell your user a story about your company, or who knows, explain something about your product and how it can improve your user’s life in some way through storytelling?

If you want to create a great experience, focus on discrete activities, like what your user wants to do? How can you guide them? What will you make through the process to make their experience better? These are some of the questions you can ask yourself in order to create a better experience for your user.

In order to do it, maybe you will need a design process.

Design process - A design process is a designed experience

Like mentioned previously, having a great experience plays an important role on the way that the user think and feel about your product, but if you’re looking forward to create the greatest experience possible, you need a design process and discipline to help you get there.

“Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment.” — Jim Rohn

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‍SEE ALSO: BUILDING A DESIGN PROCESS

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My, yours, our design process

Every time we approach a new project, there’s a process we follow each time to help us to get better results along the way. This process led us to know exactly which are our clients needs, what is the project about and in which context do the clients use our product. With this in mind, we can work in order to solve them.

The business world is shifting gears

Covid has accelerated the growth of the internet. Cloud-based software, services, and solutions are now a staple in our personal and professional life.

Still, many companies, especially B2B ones, have lagged behind due to a series of reasons. They relied heavily on in-person events and personal networking to communicate products and services.

The new paradigm shows that it is also possible to effectively communicate using the internet and acquire new clients even in the most traditional B2B sectors.

To accomplish that, companies should take a deep look into their marketing strategies and assess their brand recognition in order to understand if they’re up to the challenge.

Based on our collective experience at Vitamina. these are some of the main obstacles that brands need to tackle.

Problem: Missing logo manual

Is your logo readable? Is it easy to use on your social media properties? Is it accompanied by unnecessary text like slogans and other mottos?

In many cases, companies do not have a logo book that defines the logo usage including horizontal and vertical or positive and negative versions.

The absence of a coherent framework to use a brand’s logo is a major obstacle to building a coherent presence in the digital world.

Solution: Update your brand and design a logo book.

Problem: Missing brand book

Having a logo manual is quintessential for you and others to properly use your brand but in many cases, that’s not enough. Modern brands also rely on accurate brand books.

This is a document that defines the brand's universe and besides the logo, it gives guidance about your brand tone of voice, iconography, illustrations, colors, typography, and many other visual and conceptual elements.

It’s very hard to build a website from scratch without this document as it increases the number of interactions between client and agency, making the process less effective and therefore more costly in time… and money.

Solution: Make the creation of a brand book a priority.

Problem: Absence of proprietary photography and footage.

It’s nearly impossible to build a modern website without quality content, namely images, illustrations, and video.

The alternative is to use stock photography but that carries a series of potential problems, being the most obvious to display the same images as your competitors on your website, for instance.

In order to build a cracking institutional website, you should have photos and videos of:

• Facilities
• Equipment
• Main projects
• Main stakeholders (people)

Solution: Commission the production of video and photography of your people, facilities, and products.

You need eggs to make an omelet

Vitamina. can help you build a world class brand: be it to redesign your logo, manage your social media properties, define a proper strategy to acquire new clients, or build a lightning fast responsive website. Give us a call.

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Written by: Sérgio Abreu