Branding Season

Branding is personal

Illustration is hugely effective in the area of branding for companies, organisations and individuals across a multitude of applications. Alix-Rose Cowie talks to clients commissioning branding work for identity and packaging and hears from the illustrators with a range of styles responding to those briefs.

Branding is personal. Its role is to convey not only what the product is but who it is. At its core, branding is about establishing an engaging and believable brand personality that people can relate to before adopting the brand into their lives. Successful brands speak to people on a human level. We choose to wear, eat, drink, drive and support brands that connect with how we see ourselves and how we want to be seen by others. With its ability to express human traits, moods and emotion, illustration can inject big personality into branding, and the brands that embrace it ? and do it well ? can create lasting impressions. 

Illustration to make new friends

Perhaps the most direct way to befriend new customers is by creating a character that acts as a brand mascot embodying what the brand is about. We?ve come to expect this from household products like breakfast cereal that appeal to children, but what about with something as serious and adult as wine? Vinelly is a pop up wine shop in Brescia, northern Italy. To best represent their curated selection of artisanal, experimental and independently-made wines, the owner Allessandro Carboni wanted to move away from the stuffiness that often comes with wine branding. ?We looked for something that would help us communicate wine in a simple, fun and very attractive way,? he says. With the help of brother-and-sister team, graphic designer Filippo and illustrator Maria La Duca, they came up with a character called Paul Vinelly.

?As an illustrator, I immediately thought of a character who could represent the client's intentions,? Maria says, ?It had to be sociable, charismatic, friendly, nature-loving but also honest and loyal...basically a dog!? Paul Vinelly is a long-eared, sunglasses-wearing, skateboard-riding, wine-loving hound whose image is used on everything from corporate communication, to event posters for wine-tastings to their social media. ?I have always liked Maria's drawings. I think they are hilarious,? Allessandro says. ?Since we opened, different types of people have come to visit us and they have all appreciated our brand identity: they find it fresh, contemporary and very likeable. I believe that illustration, done in the right way, can appeal to a very wide audience.? What better way to connect with people than through man?s best friend.

Illustration to create emotional bonds

Sometimes a historical brand with a long-established brand personality needs to be introduced somewhere new with a different cultural landscape. Illustration was the hero of a successful expansion of ChongQing Beer (under the Carlsberg group) from Chongqing, where the brand has been rooted for 61 years, to Hunan province in southern China. In the year after they launched there, their market share dropped. As an outsider, ChongQing Beer needed to gain the trust of locals and prove its relevance. To do so, illustrator Handowin Xuan He was commissioned to depict six landscapes of local sites and scenes in Hunan to be used on the beer labels that were redesigned for the province. Used across the packaging, print media and social media, the beautiful scenery ignited local pride and fast-tracked brand acceptance. ?I thought it was a wise decision,? she says, ?Localisation shows a brand's sincerity to get close to the local market. Their efforts are recognized and transferred into good brand awareness.?

Handowin was commissioned by Rocky Y Zhu, a director of marketing at Carlsberg Asia, who says, ?From a marketing person's perspective, illustration is a communication tool with excellent narrative and evocative skills, which is able to immediately resonate with or amaze people and to arouse the observers? emotions.? He credits illustration with the power to create an emotional bond between consumers and brands.

To further inspire association with the brand, the illustrations were based on a traditional Chinese style which Handowin was then free to interpret in her own way. ?The client gave me freedom to develop my ideas and infuse my unique imagination into the creation,? she says. Rocky felt Handowin?s knack for storytelling was an important part of telling the brand story. ?Illustration is perceived as a critical tool to build the brand image of ChongQing Beer,? he says. ?Its artistry and exclusivity appeal to a young au