In brief: Brand building is sustained work to ensure people recognise a brand, associate it with a certain value, and have a reason to trust it. It arises from the combined effect of the product, communication, sales, and post-purchase experience.
How I use brand building in practice
With brand building, I start with the visitor's task, not the designer's idea. I go through the journey on a small mobile screen, with a keyboard, and on a slow connection, then watch where a person hesitates or makes mistakes. Every change should have a reason, a measurable signal, and the smallest possible intervention, so that its impact can be identified.
What to watch out for
The most common mistake is changing several things at once without a baseline. It then becomes impossible to tell whether brand building actually helped. A metric alone, without observation, also cannot explain why people hesitate or leave.
Questions for the decision
- What task does a person want to complete on the page?
- Where might they hesitate, make a mistake, or lose context?
- Does the solution work on mobile, with a keyboard, and on a slow network?
- Which signal will show that the change genuinely helped?