Hoot Design Company’s Kristen Brown on the Importance - and Meaning - of Branding

Branding, according to Kristen Brown, the force of nature founder behind Hoot Design Company, is not about logos or taglines; it's an embodiment of a company's core values, ethos, and its reason for existing.  

“People often think we're just talking about visuals,” says Brown. “But we're talking about so much more. We're talking about a framework for decision making and communication. So it really is about, who are we? What do we believe? What are we doing here, and why? And how do we behave? That’s brand, and brand creates culture”. 

Hoot’s proprietary four-stage “The Brand Guide” process is a culmination of over a decade’s experience, going from designing wedding invitations, to marketing strategies, to niching down to being a brand agency, which Brown calls her team’s “zone of genius.” 

When clients approach Hoot, they are led through “The Brand Guide” process by the agency’s team. The four-phase approach ensures that brands not only speak to internal and external audiences but also become catalysts for significant revenue growth by utilizing psychology, messaging, and visuals that inspire and align teams.  

In the initial phase, called "Brand Heart," the focus is on establishing a clear vision, purpose, and values, which will serve as a compass for all future business decisions. The company partners with an organizational psychologist to ensure the process is executed effectively, aligning the brand direction in a way that resonates with both the team and the customer. This phase is pivotal in forming a foundational understanding and alignment of what the brand aims to represent and achieve. 

Transitioning to the second phase, "Positioning," the brand heart is translated into words that attract the desired clients. This involves clarifying the brand's point of difference, belief statement, and target market, utilizing the power of storytelling to humanize the target and enable the brand to scale. The brand's value proposition, audience identification, and a detailed understanding of the target’s motivations, problems, and solutions are developed, forming a narrative that is compelling and relatable to the intended audience. 

The third phase, "Personality," crafts a design system and tone that creates instant attraction for the right client. Recognizing visuals as the silent ambassador of a brand, this phase ensures that, when used in conjunction with the right voice, a brand perspective emerges that speaks to the ideal customer and employee. Elements like the brand tension point, voice traits, vision board, and a comprehensive visual identity system, including logo family, font palette, color palette, and design elements, are developed to ensure consistency and resonance in every customer interaction. 

Lastly, the "Integration" phase harnesses and extends the Brand Heart, Positioning, and Personality to the team through experiential brand training. This phase leverages the momentum of the new or refreshed brand work with a memorable event to launch the brand to the internal team, ensuring that every team member is aligned with and can accurately represent the brand in their roles. This not only involves experiential brand training but also includes integration workshops and brand launch support, ensuring that the brand is not only launched externally but is also deeply integrated and understood internally. 

Hoot’s model has two key offerings and audiences: firstly, owner-managed businesses in the $2 to $10 million revenue bracket, where a founder-led brand is being diluted because clients and employees have less (or no) access to the founder. For these clients, Hoot takes their years of experience running and growing the company and puts into a document that can be shared and communicated - it’s a brand that can scale beyond the owner-manager of the business. 

Secondly, Hoot manages employee campaigns and experiences for larger organizations with 500 to 5,000 employees. 

Kristen practices what she preaches: “We live and breathe our brand values at Hoot, in how we educate our clients, and empower our employees to be vulnerable every day. And we love helping clients our clients do the same”.