What It's Really Like to Work with a Branding Agency

You've hired a branding agency. You had a great vibe, liked what they were offering and now you're ready to work together.

‍

But now you realise you've got no real idea what exactly the next few months will involve. If you're a founder, a CEO or a marketing leader after a rebrand, a refresh or some other help with comms or design, this article covers what working with a branding agency looks like from start to finish.

‍

And if this isn't your first time, and the last one didn't go the way you hoped, keep reading. We get into why that happens too.

‍

What does a branding agency do?

Branding is strategy first, before anything visual; a branding agency does not just make you a new logo (or they shouldn't). A comprehensive brand strategy gets into the depths of your brand, it finds out who you are, what you stand for, and why your customers should care. Your brand tone of voice, design, and logo come from the strategy, but you need the behind the scenes stuff first.

‍

Depending on the agency and the project, the work usually covers some or all of this:

• Brand strategy, including positioning, purpose, values and messaging
• Brand audits and competitor analysis
• Audience research and insight
• Naming and tone of voice
• Visual identity, art direction and design systems
• Packaging design
• Campaign concepts and creative direction
• Brand guidelines and a brand book at handover

‍

If you've done this before, that list is a useful gap check. Have a look at what you actually walked away with last time compared to what you were paying for.

There are also different agencies you can work with. A marketing agency focuses on getting your message out and driving sales, while a design studio or creative agency makes things look good. A branding and marketing agency or a full-service agency does both, plus everything in between. A digital branding agency leans into your online presence and web design, while a brand consultancy might do the strategy and hand you off to build it. At I Am Female*, we are a creative brand communications agency, meaning we do everything from the first ideation talk through to launch.

This distinction matters more than it sounds. A lot of branding work that gets written off as disappointing was really just a mismatch. Someone hired a design studio and expected strategy, or hired a consultancy and expected somebody to build the thing at the end.

If you're still working out whether you need external help, or whether to build an in-house team instead, that's a different question, and we've answered it in our article on marketing agency vs in-house here.

‍

Why most people don't know what they're signing up for

At many large agencies, the team who show up to pitch you aren't the team who do your work. And this makes sense; a company founder doesn't usually have the time to adjust eight rounds of font changes. But if you don't meet or even know who you'll be handing over your ideas to, there can be a disconnect between expectations and deliverables.

At IAF*, we're a small team by design. We build relationships with our clients based on trust and take the time to get to know you beyond the project. And we want you to get to know us, too. You'll initially speak to one, or both, of our agency owners, and at the onboarding call you'll meet the rest of our team. You'll speak to our in-house brand designer, our copywriter, and any freelancers who we've brought in for your project, and that's exactly who'll be doing your work. We set clear points of contact and expectations from day one, so you always know where the project is at and who is dealing with it.

Ask any agency you're considering the same question. Who, exactly, will be doing this? Then ask to meet them. How they answer will tell you more than the portfolio does.

‍

If you've hired an agency before and it didn't land

Most branding projects that disappoint don't fail on the creative. They fail on how the project was set up, and usually in one of a handful of ways:

• The pitch team disappeared. You bought senior thinking and got junior execution.
• Nobody owned the decisions. Too many stakeholders, no single voice, endless rounds.
• Strategy got skipped. Design started before anyone agreed what the brand actually stood for.
• The scope moved quietly. Things got added, nothing got renegotiated, everyone got quietly resentful.
• The handover was just a PDF. Guidelines landed, nobody used them, and the brand drifted within a year.

‍

If two or more of those sound familiar, the problem probably wasn't the talent in the room. It was the setup around it. Worth knowing before you brief the next one, because all of it is avoidable.

‍

The branding process

We work with transparency and accountability from the first call through to completion. Every client and project is different, so these stages flex depending on what you need, but this is the outline of our brand agency process.

‍

Discovery

Whether you're starting with a fully-formed brief or a jumble of ideas that need piecing together, this is the starting point. The brand discovery phase involves finding out everything about your brand, through discussions, strategy workshops, and stakeholder interviews to find out your brand values and purpose.

We listen to your goals and realistically advise on how to achieve them. We'll never go along with an idea we don't believe in without questioning the why behind it, and we'll come up with creative solutions to solving problems.

‍

Research

Next, we research. And then we research some more. We get to know your niche and where your brand falls within it. We carry out market research, brand audits, competitor analysis, and get to know your target audience, their pain points, and how your brand can solve them. We compare your brand perception to how you want to be seen. We learn your competitors inside out and find the gap that gives you real differentiation.

Fair warning: the gap between how you think you're seen and how you're actually seen is usually the most uncomfortable slide in the deck. It's also the most useful one.

‍

Strategy

Now we know your goals, we make them happen. We strategise based on what we've found and what you need. Depending on the project, this could mean brand workshop sessions, written plans, or new internal processes. We work with you to set your brand positioning, your brand personality, your brand messaging and your brand proposition, and we'll discuss whether you need a full rebrand or just a refresh. Often it's the latter, and we've written more about that here.

‍

Development

Whether we're building your visual identity, your verbal identity, or both, this is the stage where we start to create. From brand identity, naming, art direction, your brand voice, a design system that holds together, packaging design, and the creative concepts for your campaign. We can help you with all or as much as you need. We're always clear about how many rounds of revisions are included in this stage.

If an agency offers you unlimited revisions, that isn't generosity. It usually means nobody has agreed what good looks like, and you'll both find that out the slow way.

‍

Launch

After the creation and the editing, it's time to launch your campaign, website or multi-channel rollout. This is where you see your ideas come to life. We'll hand over your brand guidelines and a brand book so the work stays consistent across all your brand touchpoints long after we're done, whether that's your marketing, your employer branding, or your next brand activation.

A brand book nobody opens is a waste of everyone's time, so we'd rather make ours usable than make it thick.

You can see this whole approach laid out on our how we work page.

‍

How long it takes and what it costs

Every project is different; it's impossible to talk costs or timelines before a discovery call. It's important to note though, that proper branding takes time. Discovery, research, and strategy all have to be implemented before any design happens. If anyone offers you a rebrand in a week, that's a huge red flag. Please don't waste your budget.

The project fee is driven by scope. A focused piece of work obviously costs less than a brand development programme with a website and a launch campaign attached. Some brands work with us on a one-off basis, others move onto a retainer for ongoing brand guardianship once an initial campaign is done. For all projects, we ensure the scope of work and the deliverables are clear before anyone signs anything, so there are no surprises at sign-off.

‍

Beyond scope, the things that really move the number are:

• How many stakeholders and decision makers need to be involved
• How deep the research goes
• How many deliverables you need at the end
• Whether you want ongoing support once the first project wraps

‍

None of that is a reason to avoid asking. Any agency worth hiring will happily walk you through which of those levers is driving your quote, and which ones you could pull to bring it down.

Brand building is a long game; brands should invest in it long-term, not just short-term activation. Strong brand equity is an asset and brands that treat it that way are the ones that grow.

‍

What you bring to the brief

Your project is only as good as what you bring to it. The best work comes from when clients give us access to the people and materials we need, provide real insight, and real discussions and are proactive in making decisions. If nobody can commit to a clear direction, or if there are too many people on sign-off, this is when projects hit problems.

It's almost never the creative that kills a project. It's the committee.

If you've been through a branding project before, you're bringing more than you think. The research that got shelved. The internal arguments about who you actually are. The bits of the last identity that everyone still uses, and the bits nobody has touched since launch. All of that is genuinely useful, including, and maybe especially, the parts that didn't work.

The brands that have the strongest campaigns give their real lived experiences or the experiences of the community they're marketing to. We've talked a lot about the importance of co-creating, and we stand by it for a reason. Our Everything Reminds Me of Her campaign for the sapphic dating app HER is a good example of this. From the ideation and copy, to the photography and design, we built everything from queer ideas; the experiences of the HER team, and our in-house and freelance creative team. The campaign authentically connected with HER's audience, because it was made by them.

‍

How to choose the right branding agency for you

You'll find no shortage of options, especially in the capital. If you're looking for a branding agency, London has plenty of them. Probably more than anywhere else in the UK, all fighting for the title of "best branding agency". Most branding agencies have a sleek website and a smooth pitch, but what matters is the people behind it, their thinking and their strategy. Do their processes work in a way that fits your brand and that's going to get you the best possible outcome for your investment?

‍

A few things worth pinning down before you sign anything:

• Their thinking, not just their work. Ask why they made the calls they made on a case study. If they can only tell you what they made, be careful.
• Who is actually on your project. Meet them first.
• Whether their process fits yours. A brilliant process that clashes with how your team makes decisions will still fail.
• Whether they'll disagree with you. An agency that agrees with everything is expensive and useless.
• Scope, revisions and sign-off, in writing. Before anyone commits.

‍

And if you have hired an agency before, add one more. Tell them honestly what went wrong last time, then watch what they do with it. The good ones will ask a lot of questions, and will be straight with you about which bits were probably your side of the table.

And it helps if you like working with the people you hire! Whether you're a startup, a growing scale-up, an SME, or a bigger brand, the right fit is the one where the onboarding feels easy, and you feel like you're entering into a partnership. When you hire an agency is a different point to consider, but one we've covered in more detail in our article when to hire a brand communications agency.

‍

At I Am Female* we work with brands we genuinely believe in (and ones we'll never bullshit). If you're looking for a small creative team who push the boundaries of what's possible, we might be the agency for you. And though we are based in London, location or time zone are not barriers; we work with clients all over the world. Book a call with us, we'd love to meet you.

‍