Unlocking Success: How Brandly Digital tranforms business with creative Branding and AI
What makes a business successful? Among other things, good branding makes an idea stand out. How you communicate to your customers, the user experience you provide, the way you tell your story – this is the secret. Now imagine the exceptional experience users could get when artificial intelligence (AI) intertwines with human creativity and expertise.
The brand musketeers from Brandly Digital bring a new twist to the concept of branding. With a visionary mission, the managing partners Zlatina Petrova and Nelio de Barros, combine creative spark with an AI-based approach to help businesses find an authentic voice and build unique and sustainable brands.
In an interview for Trending Topics, Zlatina Petrova & Nelio de Barros from Brandly Digital share their expertise and insights on the correlation between a successful business and good branding.
Trending Topics: Can you tell us a bit more about Brandly and what inspired you to create it?
You see, we believe humans are capable of extraordinary things. We can create, explore, and solve challenges more than any other known species. To support these abilities today, we need effective tools. Since the beginning, Brandly has helped organizations make a positive impact with their work by combining advanced technology with human creativity. That way they can develop better products and services for everyone.
So, what is Brandly? Brandly is a group of cool and smart designers, strategists, and developers, passionate about UX design, product design, and branding with the crazy idea in mind to transform digital brands and experiences through design innovation. With our work, we aim to create impactful digital experiences for leading brands and technology startups by integrating design, technology, and AI.
“Brand” has become a buzzword. Can you define it for us? What does a truly successful brand look like and what difference does it make for a business?
A brand is the way a company, organization, or product is perceived by those who experienced it. Essentially, a brand is shaped by people’s perceptions and emotions. For that reason successful brands focus on the emotions they evoke in users and customers, defining them clearly and ensuring that every part of the brand communicates them effectively. A truly successful brand looks like this: it is consistent in its messaging and look across all platforms, connects with its target audience by meeting their needs and aspirations, and upholds a reputation for being reliable and of high quality.
Good branding boosts a company’s visibility and credibility, making it easier to attract and keep customers and also investors. It can also allow a company to charge higher prices because people see the brand as valuable. For startups, branding gives a higher valuation. Additionally, effective branding can lead to better marketing results with the same or less effort. For any business, branding is not just about looking good—it’s an asset.
As an international company, you work with clients in all industries. From your experience, what do businesses overlook most often when it comes to branding & user experience?
At Brandly, we’ve noticed that many companies, particularly startups, tend to miss important aspects of building a strong, unique brand identity that truly connects with their audience. A brand identity is more than just a logo or colors; it represents the brand’s mission, values, and the specific promises it makes to its customers.
One big challenge is standing out. In a world full of new ideas, how can a brand make itself noticeable? The key is to understand not only what your brand is but also what it isn’t. This clarity helps you present your unique value in a way that is clear, engaging, and aligns well with what your audience values and hopes to achieve.
Another issue is consistency. It’s easy to overlook the need to be consistent in every interaction with customers. When a brand isn’t consistent, it can confuse customers, decrease trust, and weaken the brand’s overall impact. Maintaining a consistent brand story across all platforms, from your website to social media to customer service, ensures your brand is seen as reliable and trustworthy.
With Brandly Digital, you stand out from other branding studios with your major focus on AI and its implementation on UX/UI. Can you tell us more about it?
In essence, our biggest differentiator is that we have about 10 years of experience working in the AI / UX space, and also in international projects from different industries, such as tech, transport, education, B2B & Enterprise, Startups & VC, eCommerce, and Fashiontech. Design is no longer a discipline just taking care of visual communication, or user experience in isolation. Products got more complex in the past, and now AI innovation is intertwined with technology in a way that if you don’t understand what the latest machine learning models are capable of doing, you will miss out on the full potential that the next-gen UX can offer to customers. Technology is changing at a pace that sometimes after we code something for 2 weeks, there is a technology update that makes us re-evaluate and adapt to improve our products, and very few design studios can work at the intersection of Design and Code like we have been doing.
In what ways do you believe AI can revolutionize the UX/UI branch?
We see AI as a paradigm changer in web design, and it will probably have more impact than mobile had when Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone. By using generative technologies, we can create more dynamic and personalized websites and apps that adapt over time to each user’s needs. With AI, interfaces can evolve based on user interactions, continuously optimizing the user experience. This capability means that instead of static pages, we can offer interfaces that learn from and react to user behavior, presenting tailored content and layouts that enhance engagement and satisfaction.
On the other hand, AI also allows us to automate many of the tedious aspects of design, from adjusting visual elements to ensuring that layouts are responsive across all devices. This automation speeds up the design process and allows our team to focus more on innovation and creative strategy. Integrating AI into the workflow, and into clients’ products means that we’re not just designing for the moment; we’re building experiences that grow and improve over time, making every interaction more relevant and impactful.
What trends do you foresee in branding & UX/UI in the next few years, and how is Brandly preparing to leverage these trends?
The biggest change in branding and UX/UI design recently has been the use of AI and AI generative tools. We have to keep in mind that AI tools don’t replace our creativity; instead, they enhance it and optimize the creative process – we can generate more ideas faster for example. It also allows us to blend the best of technology with human insights to create messages that truly reflect our values and emotionally connect with our audience. At Brandly, our goal is to show that creating UX for digital products using AI isn’t scary, but it requires a different approach. And we hope soon more and more innovative companies will follow our lead. We see this as shaping the future of digital design, making every interaction as relevant and engaging as possible. This approach not only pushes the field forward but also fits perfectly with our mission.
Finally, what expert advice would you give to startups and young entrepreneurs willing to make a significant impact in their industry? How do they brand their stories in the best way?
It might look very holistic, but we highly recommend that young entrepreneurs reconnect with their core values as founders (not as a team). How to do this? It’s a simple process we usually go through with our clients. All you have to do is look back over the highs and lows of your career and professional life. Each peak and trough helped shape your values. For example, being turned down for funding might have highlighted your determination or adaptability, while the success of a product launch or the positive reactions at presentations might underscore your innovative spirit.
Next, list the values that are most important to you and organize them into categories. Name these categories. These names represent your foundational values, which are crucial for building your brand’s unique message. Because founders are connected with their brands. Always. Then, transform these core values into your brand story, which will help distinguish your brand in the market. At Brandly, our foundational values have truly set us apart in our industry. They include trust, honesty, passion, devotion, mastery, creativity, curiosity, and innovation.
