Even
though we are in the naming business, we are the first to say
a name is not a brand. And we continue to be frustrated by all
the small design agencies who say they do branding, when all they
really do is corporate or product identity. Similarly for an agency
that really only does advertising and claims they are doing branding.
A
Brand is?
-
A
name. 
-
A
logo.
-
A
mark or symbol.
-
A
famous company or product.
-
-
A
name and logo.
-
An
advertised product.
-
An
identity.
-
An
image in someone's brain.
-
One's
perceptions and feelings about a product.
When
I ask a group of students or non-marketeers what a Brand is, these
are the typical kind of answers I hear. If you read a lot of fancy
consumer books on the subject, they so often take a different
tack and produce high brow quotes like: "The sum total of all
the buyers impressions and values associated with a product".
However,
if you are the marketer of the product, the answer is very simple:
A
Brand is a Promise
To
clarify a brand even further, a promise of what? Well, that is also
simple to summarize:
A
Brand is a Promise of an Experience
A
brand exists solely in the customer's mind. It cuts through the
clutter of marketing and product messages and carries an implicit
and powerful message of differentiation. The experience of this
brand promise creates loyalty. This is both an emotional and factual
bond between you and your customers, however technical the products
or services.
Creating
and preserving a brand is a process that requires consistency.
To keep everyone focused on doing the best they can for the brand,
remind all employees:
Your
brand is the Golden Thread that runs through all your
product, business, and customer actions.
[This
article is a short extract from Brighter Branding: Branding
for the Average Propeller Head. Please see www.FodenPress.com
for full details.]
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