A brand guide, your brand on paper, is the most important basis for a solid brand. Your logo, brand colors, tone of voice and written concept form the skeleton of your company. How does the branding of a hospitality business differ from any other company? The human being.
The hospitality industry is a wonderful profession. Always on the move, expressive, challenging, satisfying, frustrating, emotional, welcoming, loving, optimistic. The reason it's so versatile is because you're dealing with people, with experiences. The latter is therefore what you sell. But all those emotions and experiences are different every day. With you as well as your staff and your guests. It all affects how guests experience your business. Your story, your brand, should therefore stand like a house. Your branding is your company's only stable factor, the cornerstone. The one thing you, your staff, and your guests can always fall back on.
Stand out through branding
Why would people travel hours, sometimes days, to visit you? Not because they have nothing around, or because they have no choice. There are plenty of them in 2023. There is a café or restaurant on every street corner and several cities stop at hotels. Not for nothing. Consumers are therefore more aware than ever about what to spend their hard-earned money on, and that choice is based on the experience they can expect somewhere. An experience that belongs to a particular brand. Branding helps guests determine whether you can meet those expectations and remember your company if that experience works out well.
Brandguide as a handbook
Several studies indicate that reliability is the most important factor in consumers' buying decisions, and that decision is not based on logic but on emotion. Your staff creates that trust in the first place and they can only convince if they can identify with your brand. The better they can do this, the more passion and pride it takes, so they not only stay with you longer, but can also convey this to your guests. A strong and complete brand guide acts as their handbook.
Source of inspiration
A well-thought-out and developed brand is not only noticeable in the communication from your staff. You can also see it in, for example, interior and marketing communications. A brand guide makes it possible to translate your brand into all aspects that make up your guests' experience. You do this by eliminating factors that do not match the overall feeling and purpose of your company. A brand guide is there to design or name rooms, menus, event spaces and staff clothing. It's also an assurance that your vision won't disappear if there is a change in the management team or other staff, or is lost in the endless creativity of your marketing team.
Strong brand, clear promises
People are visually oriented and the hospitality industry is also about “what meets the eye”. Quality visuals, an aesthetic interior, carefully designed aminitions, are an important part of the overall experience. Clear branding ensures that together they form a homogeneous whole, namely your brand. The branding ensures that guests come back and recommend your business to their environment, or online. By investing in an engaging experience at the brand level, you're also investing in creating ambassadors. Strong brands communicate simple and clear promises to their guests, so they know exactly where they stand every time they visit you. Because don't forget: people are more loyal to brands than to products. And the hospitality industry is ideal for creating a strong brand that is steeped in stories and emotion.
Do you want to, but you don't know how? Then contact us for an informal conversation about Brandchef's options.
Related Post
Brandchef is een zusterbedrijf van Typhoon Hospitality, een pr- en marketingbureau dat is gespecialiseerd in marketing, communicatie en social media voor de horeca.
© Brandchef