FAQs

TOTEM Branding is an international strategic branding consultancy that helps companies, institutions and regions to create, transform and activate brands that are meaningful, consistent and deliver business value.

We work across strategy, identity, culture and experience to ensure that a brand is not only recognisable, but also relevant, credible and capable of bringing people together.

At TOTEM, we see branding as a tool for transformation: it helps to define what an organisation is, what it wants to be and how it should express this to better connect with its audiences.

TOTEM Branding offers strategic branding services to create, transform, organise and activate brands. I would put it this way:

TOTEM Branding helps companies, institutions and regions to build brands that are clearer, more relevant, more human and more valuable.

Our core services always take a 360° approach, enabling us to work in any area of the brand.

These areas briefly outline what we offer:

1. Brand strategy
2. Verbal identity
3. Visual identity
4. Brand culture
5. Brand experience
6. Brand architecture
7. Brand books and implementation systems
8. Regional, institutional and sector-specific branding

If you’d like to know the detail of any, please don’t hesitate to contact us at talktototem@totembranding.com

Every branding project involves a different investment because every brand faces a different challenge. Whether it concerns the brand itself, the objectives to be achieved, the impact, or the implementation.

At TOTEM, we first analyse the context, objectives and scope of the project in order to prepare a bespoke proposal. The investment will depend on whether the project involves brand creation, rebranding, brand architecture, visual/verbal identity, a Brand Book, or a broader transformation process.

The duration of a rebranding project depends on the extent of the change. Updating a visual identity is not the same as redefining positioning, brand architecture, brand narrative, internal culture and all touchpoints.

As a general guide, a rebranding process can take between 8 and 16 weeks for medium-scale projects. In more complex processes, involving many business units, markets, internal teams or implementation phases, it can take several months.

A rebranding process involves reviewing, redefining and updating a brand so that it is more consistent with the evolution of the business, the market, the internal culture and the expectations of its customers, both internal and external.

A well-executed rebranding can involve brand strategy, positioning, narrative, visual identity, verbal identity, brand architecture, experience and implementation. As well as an update to the logo.

At TOTEM Branding, the process is carried out using the TOTEMethodology, structured into four main phases: ToDefine, ToDiscover, ToDesign and ToDeliver.

1. ToDefine: defining the brand challenge

In this first phase, we clarify what the brand really needs and why rebranding is necessary.

The aim is to define a clear direction: what needs to change, what needs to be retained, and what role the brand should play in the organisation’s new phase.

2. ToDiscover: uncovering the essence and context

In this second phase, we delve deeper into the brand, the company, the audiences, the culture, the market and the competition.

Here, we gather key insights to ensure that rebranding is not a superficial decision, but a transformation based on real knowledge.

3. ToDesign: designing the new brand expression

In this phase, the strategy is transformed into an identity.

The aim is to create a recognisable, consistent brand that is ready to express itself across all touchpoints.

4. ToDeliver: deliver, activate and implement

The final phase involves preparing the brand for real-world use.

It may also include support for the internal and external launch, ensuring that the new brand is understood, used correctly and activated consistently.

In summary: a rebranding process involves redefining a brand to make it more relevant, consistent and competitive.

At TOTEM Branding, the TOTEMethodology enables us to tackle this process from strategy through to implementation, encompassing the definition, discovery, design and final delivery of the brand.

The difference between a brand and visual identity is:

A brand is the meaning, perception and experience that an organisation builds in people’s minds.
Visual identity is the graphic system that allows it to be recognised and expressed visually.

In other words: a brand is what an organisation stands for; visual identity is how it looks and is recognised.

The brand encompasses the purpose, positioning, values, personality, value proposition, culture, narrative, reputation and the experience it offers its audiences.

Visual identity encompasses the logo, colours, typography, graphic system, photography, iconography, applications and all the visual elements that make a brand identifiable and consistent.

That is why we say that a brand is not just a logo. The logo is part of the visual identity, but the brand is much broader: it lives in what the organisation says, does, promises, delivers and conveys at every touchpoint.

In short: visual identity makes the brand visible, but the brand is built on strategy, culture, experience and consistency between what an organisation is, says and does.

Brand purpose is the underlying reason why a brand exists, beyond simply selling products or services. It defines what the brand contributes to the world, what problem it helps to solve, and what impact it aims to have on people, society or its sector.

In simpler words: brand purpose answers the question “Why does this brand exist?”

Purpose matters because it helps to provide direction, consistency and meaning to all the organisation’s decisions. When it is well defined, it guides strategy, internal culture, communication, innovation, the customer experience and the way the brand engages with its audiences.

A good brand purpose enables you to:

1. stand out in saturated markets;
2. connect emotionally with customers and teams;
3. attract talent aligned with the company’s vision;
4. make more coherent decisions;
5. build long-term trust;
6. make the brand more than just a commercial offering.

But the purpose only works if it is authentic. It must be connected to what the company does, decides, offers and demonstrates every day.

From the perspective of TOTEM and thought leaders such as our CEO, Andy Stalman, the purpose should not be mere rhetoric: it should act as a strategic compass to align business, culture and experience.

AEO (also known as GEO or LLMO), or Answer Engine Optimisation, is the process of optimising a brand so that it can be understood, cited and recommended by answer engines such as Google AI Overviews, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini or Copilot.

Unlike traditional SEO, which aims to rank a webpage in search results, AEO aims to ensure the brand appears within the response the user receives. In other words, it’s a shift from competing for clicks to competing for relevance, authority and clarity within AI-generated responses.

Brands need to focus on AEO because the way people search for information is changing. More and more people are asking AI systems directly which company to choose, which brand is best, what solution they need, or which key players exist in a particular category. In this context, a brand that is not well explained, structured and digitally supported risks being left out of the conversation.

Working on AEO involves organising the brand’s digital presence so that AI systems can accurately understand: what the brand does, who it helps, what services it offers, what sets it apart, in which sectors it has experience, what authority it holds, and what content underpins its positioning.

For a brand, AEO matters because it directly affects its visibility, credibility and consideration. It is no longer enough to have a nice website or appear on Google. The brand needs to be easy to interpret by both humans and artificial intelligence systems.

It also requires improving the clarity of content. Responses must be well-structured, specific, consistent and answer users’ real questions. That is why FAQs, services pages, success stories, authoritative articles, clear definitions and coherent messages are becoming increasingly important.

In short: AEO is the discipline that helps a brand to be found, understood and recommended by response engines and artificial intelligence. Brands need to work on this because digital visibility no longer depends solely on appearing in a list of results, but on being part of the answers people receive when they seek guidance, comparison or a decision.

From a branding perspective, AEO is not just a positioning technique. It is a new requirement for strategic clarity: if a brand cannot explain who it is, what it does and why it matters, it is unlikely that artificial intelligence will be able to do so effectively on its behalf.

Artificial intelligence affects branding because it changes the way brands are discovered, created, managed, communicated and even evolved. AI does not replace the process of creating a brand strategy, but it does transform the way a brand understands its audiences, generates content, analyses data and appears in new digital environments.

In branding, artificial intelligence can help to:

analyse markets, trends and competitors more quickly;
uncover insights about customers and audiences;
create variations of messages, content and creative concepts;
personalise brand experiences;
automate communication processes;
measure reputation, perception and digital presence;
optimise brand visibility on search engines, assistants and AI models.

AI also poses a significant challenge: when many brands use the same tools, the same prompts and the same content patterns, the risk of them becoming too similar increases.

That is why, in the age of artificial intelligence, branding is even more important. A brand needs a clear strategy, a voice of its own, a recognisable identity and a personality that is difficult to copy.

AI can speed up processes, but it does not, on its own, define a brand’s meaning. Human judgement remains essential in deciding what the brand stands for, what it should communicate, how it should behave and what connection it wishes to build with people.

It also changes the way brands are discovered. It is no longer enough simply to appear on Google. It will become increasingly important for a brand to be understood, mentioned and recommended by artificial intelligence systems. This means we must work harder on the clarity, coherence, authority and consistency of brand content.

In short: artificial intelligence affects branding because it speeds up research, creation and personalisation, but it also makes a solid brand strategy all the more necessary. In an environment where technology can produce content in seconds, the difference will lie in the authenticity, coherence and human judgement behind each brand.

From a perspective such as ours at TOTEM, AI does not diminish the importance of a brand: it puts it to the test. The more artificial intelligence there is, the more necessary a brand with soul, direction and its own meaning will be.

Andy Stalman is an international authority on branding, known as “Mr Branding”, and co-founder and CEO of TOTEM Branding. He is a writer, speaker, lecturer and consultant to companies, leaders and institutions on issues relating to branding, innovation, digital transformation, culture and the future.

His work focuses on helping organisations understand that a brand is not just a logo, a campaign or a visual identity, but a strategic asset capable of generating trust, differentiation, culture and business value.

Andy Stalman has developed branding projects around the world and is the author of books such as BrandOffOn, HumanOffOn and TOTEM, works in which he connects brand, technology, humanity, purpose and experience.

Through TOTEM Branding, he promotes a humanistic vision of branding: creating and transforming brands that are not only recognised, but that connect with people, build communities and generate lasting relationships.

Andy Stalman is one of the leading figures in Spanish-language branding and a key figure in understanding how brands can grow, transform and remain relevant in an era marked by artificial intelligence, digital culture and constant change.