The Best Marketing Assets: Presenting Your Core Brand to the World!
Your core brand is more than just a logo—it's the face of your business, and every asset you create plays a vital role in telling your story. In this episode of “Between Two Creeks,” James, Erica, and Teresa from Twin Creek Media share their expertise on building a brand’s essential marketing assets. Whether it’s designing a logo pack, creating business cards, or developing digital assets, they explain the importance of consistency in showcasing your brand across every touchpoint. With decades of experience, they break down the process, offering tips on how to effectively align your assets to reflect your brand’s true identity.
It’s time to dive into the good parts!
James: Hi, everyone. it's James from Twin Creek Media. Today, we have a show that's all about marketing assets, why they're important, what you need, and how to get rolling on that. So, we have some special guests today: Teresa and Erica. They’re our Account Managers. Tell us a little bit about yourselves.
Erica: I’m Erica, Account Manager and Art Director, and I'm going on to my ninth year in Twin Creek Media, I believe, I came from a pharmaceutical advertising background before Twin Creek Media and haven't looked back.
Teresa: I'm Teresa, and I'm also an Account Manager here. I've been with Twin Creek for about three years now, and I have lots of experience in the digital field, communications, and storytelling. So, I know that assets are vital in telling your story.
James: Yeah, we’ve got decades of knowledge in the room here today, so we should have some good ideas, some good tips for people that work in marketing that own companies, and that are marketing directors. We have three stages at Twin Creek Media: We start with strategy, often with a marketing road map, there are lots of pieces of that, and then we move on to stage two, which is design, and design is all about the assets we're going to be talking about today. After that stage is the last one, which is monthly advertising. There are lots of pieces out there, but we're going to talk about the middle one — design — today.
The middle one is all about the design and the assets, so we're going to run through our checklist, and maybe we'll even have some checklists for you to download after this video, be sure to look for the link at the end, but this video is a really interesting one because we're talking about very different pieces of assets. The first category of assets is what we call the core brand, and we’re going to walk you through what are the components of the core brand and why are they important, Erica, do you want to start with this one?
Erica: I'm glad you asked James. The logo pack and brand handbook are the number one assets. We have business cards, stationery, email signatures, and signage vehicles. Those are just what we believe is a good start, and then there are always some extras that you can add.
James: Why is core branding important? I mean, we're talking about assets, so these are like 101 assets, but what’s the essence of it?
Erica: Yeah, it's your brand’s overall look, how you're presenting yourself to your consumers, making sure that you have that right feel and that style out there.
It's your persona and who you are as a company, so it's really important to be consistent. 100% consistency is the biggest thing;
So it's really important to have that nicely packaged and ready to go for all assets.
James: Yep, exactly. The next big category we have with assets is digital, and there are lots of pieces under that umbrella. Teresa, can you talk about some of the digital pieces that we commonly come across?
Teresa: Yeah, first, I would just want to say that I find the assets part the fun part. This is when people typically get to see the first bit of pretty, so you get to see the design, ad concepts, marketing messages, and all of that take shape. So, this is my favourite part of any kind of project.
Basically, when we look at digital assets, we want to look at those things that set us up for success. So, it involves things like story books, calendars, planning the flow of assets, setting up optimization and making sure your digital spaces are all set up and telling the same story. So, we want to take that first set, that brand, the core brand and then take it across to all digital spaces and messaging tools that we use, making sure that that's consistently set up. Basically, if you laid it all out, it should be saying the same thing, in maybe in a few different ways, but you don't want that one-off where you're like, whoa…what was that about? We've all experienced that, where you see an ad or something and go, oh, they do that?!
James: Yeah, it doesn't match, it's not on brand, or they simply don’t have the profiles created. A lot of the stuff is templates and social media profiles, account setups, email templates, etc.; like different tools you're going to use for advertising when we get to that stage, but they don't have anything there or what they have is so different in different places that it just ends up being all over the place, and not consistent which is what we aim for.
Teresa: So, a lot of this has actually been kind of the behind-the-scenes of making sure that we're set up so that as we move forward, it's effective and efficient and that we're all pulling information from the same place. A lot of assets are ones that live for years and years, and you can continually go back and source them to create pieces of content, so that's a good way to look at it as well.
Traditional Assets
James: Yeah, exactly. So, another category of assets that we call traditional assets, which is really the opposite of the digital stuff, is the stuff that lives offline but doesn't have anything to do with a website or the Internet. That being said, traditional assets are still important; they're still used these days. Depending on what sort of business you are, they could be very important or not so much. We don't always build these outright for companies and clients, it depends on the industry. So, Erica, what are some of the pieces that we build for traditional assets?
Erica: I guess I’m taking this one, we’ve done folders, brochures, business cards, direct mail and lots more, but it really depends on the company and their needs. Traditional assets are not as popular, especially since digital assets have taken up a lot of space, but they can still be very complimentary for asset planning or a package for a company, just to make sure you have those supporting materials, whether you're going to trade shows or events where you need to be able to give someone a sell sheet.
So, it really depends on that, it's one of those things in the Marketing Roadmap that we analyze to see if that's a need, and we check the main needs off, and if it's not a necessity, then we keep moving and planning ahead for what would suit the clients business and goals best.
James: Yeah, that's a good point. I'd probably guess that at any given point, any given company only does about 25% of these assets because they're just not necessary. It all depends on who your customers are and where they are, and then building the tools needed for them. Your customer is your main priority, so it's important to consider what’s really needed. Sometimes people think they need to do it all, pull out all the stops, but they really don’t need to.
Teresa: I was going to say that. A lot of people think that, ‘Yep, this is a list and I should do this because it has been done in the past,’ or it's kind of grandfathered in or is part of the overall concept. But,
you should always ask the main questions: Why or how is this going to be used? Who's using it? What's the purpose of it?
Because, traditional media can actually be quite expensive when it comes to cost, especially in terms of placement. So, just understanding what the whole purpose is and what your goals are in terms of utility is important. As your extended marketing department, we're going to ask those questions, and you should be asking those questions too. If you've always had brochures, that’s great, but if nobody's using them and you're not handing them out, then you're actually just recycling them every year and having to update them. This means you're spending thousands and thousands of dollars when maybe a digital version is better and traditional assets are just not warranted anymore.
James: Yeah, I was about to say that, there have been times when we’ve done brochures, but the client didn’t actually need to print them.
Erica: When we create a brochure, we often include a digital version on the website for PDF download or even sharing over email, but printing is a huge cost. So, the bigger thing is just really trying to be effective with your dollars.
James: Sometimes companies have the option of a downloadable brochure, and they get thousands of downloads a year, but they only end up handing out 50 physical or hard copies, and the opposite could also hold true if they're at a show or they're out and about, or need the rack cards to place at various consumer touch-points, or they’re in tourism. For example, we have a client that still orders 5,000 10,000 rack cards and puts them all over the city because that's important.
It works for their Zipline company and makes sense for them. So, it all depends on your company, the industry you’re in, and where your clients are.
Video & Photography
James: We’ve shared some great points on traditional assets. Next, there’s an asset class that we call ‘media’ as an umbrella term, but it's video and photography specifically, which I think has become even more important and popular over the last 10 years. What sort of pieces are we talking about when we talk about video and photography? You guys can share this one if you want…
Teresa: I want to talk about photography because it's one of the challenges that many companies face. There are some great resources out there for stock photography, but having authentic and live photography, such as capturing your team, your work, your place of business, and how you do business, is essential. Having that real set of photographs and images to pull from, whether it's for your website, social media, or even any of your brochures, is just super important. You want it done well because, if you do it well, you only have to do it once, and it's got longevity.
The process can be a lot of fun too, and sometimes it's very candid; our website is an excellent example. We did some really great photo shoots just to capture the essence of our team and work culture, and we wanted to be able to actually show who we were and how we work, and I think you can get a true sense of that via shots that are genuine and reflect your organization, rather than having stock photography of Bob, Sue, and Jane that are probably on every other corporate website.
James: Yeah, and with stock photography, I’ve noticed that many times, it obviously does not reflect the company in question; it just doesn't look like them. Sometimes, if it's outdoor photography, for example, you’d be surprised at the number of British Columbia businesses that have weird palm trees in the background, a lake with no mountains or Hillside, or the ocean, looking like their business is in Florida or something, boy oh boy is that not ideal.
Erica: Yeah, the trick is that stock photography can complement your authentic photos, but stock images or videos still have to be carefully selected, even saying that, having your own photography is huge. The same applies to videos. Having your own corporate video footage, whether it's video testimonials, company videos—like our Barenaked Ladies Parody team video, or even just service videos, is great for getting yourself out there. It's definitely taken off in the last 5 to 10 years, so it’s best to leverage that to your business’s advantage.
James: The cool thing about video is that we often produce maybe a three-minute video, but you can get so much life out of that asset in terms of ROI (return on investment). You can put it on your website, it can go on YouTube, cut it up into pieces and scatter it across social media, be it Facebook, Instagram or other social platforms. You could even make little shorts, so yeah, it's just really, really effective and has a lot of value because you can use it so many times.
Teresa: Absolutely, the other thing, too, with both photography and video, is it's a great way to showcase your product and or service because it's in a visual format. It can explain things very well because a quick little 10-second how-to video explaining how to do something is a lot easier than reading pages of instruction, and it's the same with photography.
Having great photos or great imagery of your products can really help sell them, and you can show them exactly the way you want, whether you want them lit well, you want a white background, or anything else. You can do all of that, and you just have to do it once to get tons of use out of it.
Erica: It's huge on social right now, too. I mean, pictures still have merit, but videos are huge, especially video testimonials. We sort of grazed over that one, but that is the ultimate testimonial that you can get, and that's top-shelf in marketing your business.
James: Yep, that's right. Even content production, what we're doing right now, podcasting, the video podcast style, is really popular. Sometimes, this is a lot easier than writing a long-winded article about something that no one's going to read because it's so boring. But the video helps to explain it and gets a message across a lot faster, so we produce podcasts for other companies, too, and they're a lot of fun.
‘Other’ Assets
Moving on, the last bit is just kind of a mixed bag of random assets because they don't have a category in our world—it's called ‘other’. Well, we call it other, which is very informative, so the other assets would be things like…
Teresa: Swag!!
Erica: Yeah! And radio jingles, which I don't think we've done in a while, but we have done a few in the past, as and when they came up.
James: Yeah, for recording radio commercials or audio-related content, it's an asset. Swag is a huge one, too. We actually do a lot of that for companies involving things like clothing, hats and shirts or stationary like pencils and pens.
Teresa: Yeah, that also includes one-offs to leave behind, like branded golf balls.
James: Yes! branded golf balls for tournaments or events is a neat example.
Erica: Adding on to those, Sales Center designs or large-format printing are developments we've created those assets for, and they are also quite popular within some industries.
James: Yeah, real estate developments often need really huge signage on site. We’re talking massive 20-foot signs, so we work with sign shops for those needs.
Teresa: And packaging! Those are significant assets too.
Erica: Which we're working on right now, for one of our clients.
James: That's right—packaging for consumer goods, primarily food and beverage products. Assets are all over the place, and we hope there's some value in this asset list for your business. We'll have a downloadable checklist for you down below, so be sure to check that out and check off all of the relevant boxes to get your business out there. With that, we’ve reached the end of this episode on assets.
A big thanks to Teresa and Erica for sharing their expertise, and we'll see you in our next podcast episode!
Click here for your "Marketing Asset Checklist Extraordinaire"!
Check out our previous episode: Goal Setting for Marketing Departments: Backwards is Best!
“Between Two Creeks” is Twin Creek Media’s weekly podcast series. You can find us on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and Spotify. If you enjoy listening to the latest and wonkiest in marketing every week, don’t forget to hit that subscribe button! If you want us to amp up your marketing, click here to contact us and let’s chat!