The Elusive Brand

Products are easy to identify. You touch them, buy, and use them. They’re everywhere, in your garage, shower, and kitchen cabinets.

Services are a bit different, a benefit provided by people like real estate brokers, travel agents, or doctors. Intangible, services aren’t something you pull off a shelf (though a carpenter building that shelf is providing a service). Still, services have tangible results.

But what about brands? What exactly are they, and how do they benefit companies?

For over a decade, brand has been the buzzword of the advertising and marketing industries. The term’s definition is vague to most people who hear it. It’s even vague to a lot of the people who bandy it about. That’s why it’s become a catch-all phrase for nearly anything and everything, which means companies are often spending fistfuls of money on initiatives that ineffectively build brands.

So what exactly is a brand? Simply put, brand is the perception that a person has of a company, service, product, organization or individual. It's the collection of feelings, knowledge, memories of experiences and even misconceptions that a person has for a particular entity. Apple’s brand is about imagination, design and innovation. It’s even been argued that without its brand, Apple is nothing.

When building Apple into a powerhouse in the late ’80s and early ’90s, former Apple CEO John Scully stated, “People talk about technology, but Apple was a marketing company. It was the marketing company of the decade.”

What was Apple marketing? Brand perception. Other companies offered similar, if not better, products. But Apple differentiated themselves—and their products—through branding.

It’s interesting to note that a company doesn’t own its brand, the people do. But as Apple has clearly shown, that doesn’t mean a company can’t influence its brand. Every point of interaction a person has with a company or product affects the brand. This includes:

Customer service experiences
Retail experiences
Website
Advertising
Direct mail
Signage
Logo
Expressed opinions from friends, colleagues, family and peers
Online reviews and conversations
Sponsorships and endorsements
Culture (employees have a perception of a company too, and that perception is communicated outside the corporate walls)
And more

These interaction points effect how a company influences and shapes its brand. They are the assets a company can control to develop a brand that engages people, compels them to buy, and inspires loyalty.

More on building a brand.

http://www.brandingstrategyinsider.com/2010/09/what-is-a-brand.html
http://www.entrepreneur.com/marketing/branding/imageandbrandingcolumnistjohnwilliams/article77408.html
http://www.fastcompany.com/1691641/two-branding-gurus-tell-their-side-of-the-story-part-1

Next up.
Luxury or must-have. Are brands necessary to build the bottom line?