Your questions are much the same as you asked last winter. This time, you’re asking about a website instead of a logo, but whether a logo, website, or branding for your entire company for an American audience, my concerns are similar to before.
As an American, here’s what might come to mind to a typical American when mentioning Siberia.
- Russia
- Terrible, frigid cold
- Soviet (Communist) labor camps
- Forest
- Tundra
- Huge, vast
- Rugged people
- Exotic
Of course, I don’t have market research of the kind we would have done at the agencies where I’ve worked, but here are my gut instincts based on that experience.
You’re selling barn wood. We already have weathered barn wood in the US. For those wanting barn wood, it’s already here and probably cheaper than wood shipped in from halfway around the world. If we want barn wood from a cold, rugged place, Northern Canada and Alaska are closer.
That being the case, why would we want Siberian barn wood? What about your barn wood makes it different from barn wood already in the United States?
The answer isn’t difficult: IT’S RUSSIAN. IT’S SIBERIAN. IT’S EXOTIC.
If there is something else special about your barn wood other than its origins, you haven’t mentioned it. Yet based on your questions today and last winter, you seemingly want to downplay the Russian and Siberian origins. The text on your website refers to Siberia and its heritage but the visual appearance of the site and its personality contain no sign of that heritage.
Your name is Siberian Heritage, yet you want your branding to look American. In other words, you seem to want to downplay the very thing that would make your wood unique in an American market.
Yes, the branding and personality need to resonate with an American audience, so it can’t look authentically Russian. Still, it should possess the alluring qualities Americans associate with Siberia: vastness, ruggedness, hardiness, which in some ways, your website does already have.
In addition to these qualities, your branding should have a look and character that suggests its origins: Russian Siberia. In other words, your company’s branding and personality in America should look like what a typical American would find exciting and alluring about Siberia.
When looking at your website, there is nothing other than your name and mentions in the text of Siberia or Russia. Instead, the site looks professional but generically American or Canadian or British or German or Swedish. There’s no trace of Russian or Siberian personality anywhere on the site.
Last winter, if I remember correctly, I mentioned reservations I had with your logo. It looked like something out of the American wild west — something that might have come from Deadwood, South Dakota, instead of Omsk or Novosibirsk.
The logo problem is much the same problem I’m finding in your website: it looks too generically American with no visual hint of Russia or Siberia in its personality.
You’re selling Siberian barn wood — you should not downplay the very thing that makes your wood unique from all the other barn wood for sale in the United States. Inject some Russian Siberia’s personality into all of it. In other words, the branding should appeal to Americans but should have the flavor of Siberia.
From what you mentioned last winter, you appear to want to downplay the Russian aspects out of a misconception that Americans negatively view Russia. However, American views are more nuanced than that. Yes, Americans generally have a less-than-positive opinion of Putin and the Russian government. However, Americans do not dislike Russia or Russians. American’s are intrigued by Russians. Americans are intrigued and fascinated by the remoteness and vastness of Siberia. The Siberian origins of your barn wood is a positive attribute, not negative. Don’t downplay it.