What is a Brand?
If I were to admit anything about spending twenty years in marketing, it was honestly that I didn’t fully comprehend the impact of a brand across all of the marketing efforts. While that may sound like a ridiculous statement, it’s because the nuance of crafting a brand or the incredible effort in adjusting the perception of a brand is far more difficult than I ever imagined.
To draw an analogy, the equivalent would be a carpenter that works on the home. The carpenter may understand how to build walls, install cabinetry, edge and trim, install a roof, and basically build a house from the foundation up. But if the foundation was off-center or cracked, he’d know something was wrong but not understand how to actually correct the problem. And that problem will impact everything he works on.
What is a Brand?
The experience and perception of a product or company with a particular name, as provided through its identifying logos, subsequent designs, and the voices that represent it.
It’s why we often bring brand consultants into our engagements nowadays when we ask a few questions and can’t get clear answers before we begin developing marketing strategies for clients:
- How is the visual representation of your brand perceived by your prospects and customers?
- Who is the target customer and decision-maker for doing business with your brand?
- What sets you apart from your competitors? How are you perceived in comparison to your competitors?
- What is the tone of your content and designs used to effectively communicate to your prospects and customers?
If you look closely to those questions, it’s far less about what you wish to create and more about how what you create is perceived. As the video states, it’s what people think of you on an emotional level.
This video from Borshoff asks and answers the question in this video from a few years ago when they went through a rebranding, What’s in a Brand?
With the mass adoption of digital media – encompassing social media, testimonials, and unlimited content – brands have a far more difficult time maintaining their reputation, repairing their reputation, or making adjustments to their brand. Everything that you produce or that is produced by someone else about your products, services, company, and people impacts your brand.