Week 3 Part B: Developing a Brand

 My brand is actually a family business with me and my husband managing it. We are still creating it, but is very interesting to use this class to improve our ideas. Gabriel is a professional athlete of Jiu Jitsu (that's the reason I usually post things related to this area), and we work on his image over instagram and other platforms in order to have more visibility and attract more sponsors. 

Recently we have been doing some research to open our own gym, which will be Gabriel Almeida Checkmat - the name of the team filiation we will open. One of the sponsors (Just Roll) tried to create a personalized logo, but we felt that the jobs wasn't done right since it was a not original logo so now we are working on a new logo. We want to do something clear with Gabriel's name and a picture of a "Kimono", or a black belt around it. It has to be something small and circular or rectangular, that way we can stamp them on the Kimono's and produce some clothing as well. 

The colors are also something that we have to give some thoughts, but the think about dark gray with black and white. It's important that the colors are neutral because like i said, we plan to add on Kimonos and usually they are black and whit so it has to be a color that can be stamped on both. One choice as well is to create two different color choice for the students to decide what they want.

The visual identity is very important for our brand since we will be promoting in lots of platforms, also he is usually on TV and main streamings for fights. So we definitely want to create something unique and powerful, that the audience will relate the image with him. 

Right now we only have his instagram page (with 10k followers) and the Facebook page (which we haven't been posting a lot). We are working on the management of the Instagram to have daily stories and posts. The content is something very important to think as well. Right now we are providing infos about his fights, how does he do, curiosity of his routine and exercises. But once we have our gym more solid, we want to create a new Instagram page, a website, Facebook and Yelp page and the content can very a lot. We can share his personal techniques that only our gym provides, student feedbacks, announcements, dates for competitions, our schedule, photos and videos of the trainings. 

Attracting sponsors is something that can bring a lot of visibility for his image and the image of the gym, since people can relate the bigger brand with him. For example, he currently has a brand of kimono that provides him all gear he needs. In order to do that, he cannot wear other type of brands while he is training or fighting. His students and general people buy this brand thinking "that's Gabriel's brand". If we keep apply that with our brand and him not being only the athlete but also the company, I think we can attract more followers, students, buyers... 

It has been an interesting journey to work on a brand related to a person, instead of a company or product. It has some difficulties, but it has been worth it for us. Working on his image now is crucial for us to have success with our gym since his name can be really strong now in the Jiu Jitsu world.