Branding for the media: 5 important aspects to consider
Today, Ukrainian media is not only a way to inform the public, but also an effective weapon against Russian propaganda and disinformation. We are witnessing the creation of new media, a change of focus among established publications, the growth of niche media products, and various collaborations. But why does professional media branding matter? We tell you.
1. Competition
Ukraine’s media market continues to grow, and it is necessary to compete for the interest and trust of the audience. Branding will allow the media to at least get their own attributes that will further distinguish the publication from others.
It will be easier for readers or viewers who are new to the product to navigate and associate the news or product with a specific author. Colors, fonts, visual presentation – all of this plays a role in the oversaturated information space.
It’s just not on the surface.
2. Audience
We’re back to the oversaturated information space: hundreds of Telegram channels, social media feeds, online publications, video reports, all in one place. The Ukrainian audience is becoming more demanding of content, and content makers are following the trends: the main information in the first 10 seconds of a short video, a short synopsis of a long interview, an eye-catching photo…
In addition to these basic rules, professional materials also need attractive packaging. Packaged content performs several functions at once: it attracts attention, makes it stand out from the crowd, and also increases trust in the author. After all, the product looks professional, emphasizing its background and the fact that a team of specialists is behind it.
3. Value
Media is a business that operates in two segments: B2B, when it comes to advertising, and B2C, when it comes to the end audience (listeners, readers, viewers, etc.). So why should the audience choose this particular media?
The basis of branding is a unique value that is inherent in a business and is its advantage. For the media, this can be, for example, prompt coverage from the scene of an event — when they are the first to tell the audience about important news. In this case, the value for a person will be that he or she is on the same wavelength as the rapidly changing world.
Another example is when the media has fact-checkers and guarantees the audience that with their content, readers can always be sure that it really happened, everything has already been checked for them.
Therefore, to create a brand identity, it is first and foremost significant to realize your value, which will be clearly communicated through emotion, metaphor, or association. Read more about branding and rebranding here.
4. Unification
Many media outlets do not stop at a single product, but develop their activities in several directions. Television launches news sites, news sites move to YouTube, and there you can divide video products into separate headings and categories, which can further confuse viewers. By the way, Ukrainian YouTube is developing at a frantic pace, so when we talk about it, we are again returning to the issue of competition and the struggle for audience attention.
In this case, branding unites all media products under one umbrella, giving each product its own unique style that is part of a single design system.
For example, here’s what we at Gram Family did for SEBTO.media, which produces and produces a podcast, develops social media, and also populates its own website.
First of all, we emphasized Sebto’s value — knowledge — by putting it in the foreground. The design is minimalist, so that nothing distracts from the main thing — information.
To make the design system easier to use, we have created a clear grid in which all graphic and text elements should be placed. This allows the Sebto team to unify their own materials (of different topics and content), but at the same time not to go beyond their own style.
As for Sebto’s products, namely podcasts, we have prepared covers for them that are also different from each other, but visually part of a single whole. So now, when a listener stops listening to a podcast, they know exactly who the publisher is, even though the authors may be different.
5. Scaling
This point combines all the previous ones and emphasizes the importance of branding.
When scaling media, it’s important to stay competitive, retain your audience, convey your value to them, and at the same time keep all your products and projects under a single brand umbrella.
Branding allows the media to scale in a structured and reasonable way. For example, if an online media outlet decides to launch a side project for a specific target audience segment, a consistent design system helps to create a design that is harmoniously combined with all products and continues to convey brand value. Or, if the geography changes and instead of one region, the radio broadcasts to three, each of them can be given its own identity.
To summarize, we can say that content consumption depends on algorithms much more than on design and branding. Nevertheless, high-quality visual design in media adds value both in general and for individual media products.
We want the Ukrainian information space to be of high quality both in terms of content and visual appearance. Therefore, we recommend that media managers take the design component into account, and we at Gram Family will be happy to help develop it.
