How does the brand work for an enterprise?

We are aware of several of them along with the product, service, and corporate brands with which we are all familiar. Many old marketing textbooks talk about brands versus commodities (no-name products), but in today’s world very few true commodities are left. Even basic foodstuffs have some sort of identifier on them, whether it is a private-label store brand.

Brands help people make a choice and the choices are increasing. The number of brands are multiplying...some growing...some dying!

The purpose of branding is to ensure that your product or service is the preferred choice in the minds of your key audiences (whether customers, consumers, employees, prospective employees, fans, donors, or voters). The way in which the brand affects business performance is illustrated in figure 1.

Business performance is based on the behavior of customers, whether they choose to buy a particular product or service. And that behavior is based a great deal on customer perception's: on how relevant it is to them and how differentiated it is from the other brands in the same category.

 And customers derive their perceptions from brand interactions.

Finally, that customer experience, ideally, is informed by a brand idea–what the brand stands for: the promise it is willing to make and keep in the marketplace. If the first part of this chain of cause and effect is indistinct or irrelevant to customers, there is little chance the rest of the chain will work, and the brand will not affect the business’ bottom line. Yet, despite the proliferation of brands and their inextricable link to business performance, it is not easy to define what a brand is, along with how to create, manage, and value it.

The difference between a brand and branding

Most define a brand in one of two ways.

The first set focuses on some of the elements that make up a brand:

“The intangible sum of a product’s attributes: its name, packaging, and price, its history, its reputation, and the way it’s advertised.”2

“A name, sign, or symbol used to identify items or services of the seller(s) and to differentiate them from goods of competitors.”3

The second describes the brand associations that come to mind when people think about a brand:

“Products are made in the factory, but brands are created in the mind.”4.

“A brand is a person’s gut feeling about a product, service, or company…It’s a person’s gut feeling, because in the end the brand is defined by individuals, not by companies, markets, or the so-called general public. Each person creates his or her own version of it.5

What do we mean by “created in the mind”?

When we think of Coke, we may think of the time we went to Disney World years ago. It was an incredibly hot day, and we drank an ice-cold Coke from the iconic glass Coke bottle and there was nothing more refreshing. When we think about the can, we might think red. Today perhaps we think of American Idol (and wonder whether they are really drinking Coke in those plastic cups). We think of how that Christmas polar bear ad made us smile. Those of us who are old enough may remember the “I’d like to teach the world to sing” commercial. These personal Coke brand associations are neither positive nor negative, they just come to mind. Coke has worked incredibly hard at implanting some of these brand associations in our minds: The idea and delivery of refreshment (and the supply management and distribution that are behind this), product placement, the color red, the association with a popular TV program, and the advertising all make us feel good about the brand. Coke has not controlled the buildup of these associations, but it has tried, at every stage of our experience with the brand, to positively influence them. Every one now associates red with Coke...however, Pepsi owns blue, but has not been able to do much in terms of brand recollect with the colour compared with Coke.

Citroën

It can take more than a year for a well-managed brand like Citroën to implement a refreshed brand across all customer touch points.

Accepting the second set of definitions poses more of a challenge. The first definition suggests that the brand is the purview of the marketing department–just get the name, logo, design, and advertising right and you have your brand. The second shows how the brand is inextricably linked to the business. The creation of the brand may begin in the marketing department, but the experience of the brand has to be driven through all parts of the organization. Every interaction, or touch point, in a customer’s experience of a brand makes a difference.

If you consider Apple, the quintessential brand success story, the most powerful parts of the customers’ experience of the brand are not confined to traditional brand elements, such as the logo, the name, or the advertising. It is the environment of the Apple stores that encourages you to stay and explore (and upgrade) and interact with its products and its genius bar. It is iTunes as much as the iPod, the applications as much as the iPhone. It is Apple’s customer service and tone of voice that are seamless, from the instruction manuals to the real-time chat in the support section of the online store. The brand is driven throughout this whole experience, throughout every interaction.

Good Co.

Good Co's Coffee’s brand voice uses clever, lighthearted parody to brighten the day of the overstressed corporate coffee drinker.

But if a brand exists in an individual’s mind, and if it is delivered by the business, what is the role of branding? Branding cannot control what people think of a brand, it can only influence. A brand can put some of the elements in place that will help people understand why they should choose or prefer a particular good, service, organization, or idea over another. Branding, and the related marketing disciplines can help influence and explain how many of these associations in our minds have been built, and whether they were built through advertising, PR, employee behavior, supply chain management, and so on.

“Branding is about signals–the signals people use to determine what you stand for as a brand. Signals create associations.”

The process that determines the foundational signals of a brand: what a brand stands for (the brand idea); the attitude it projects (the brand personality); its name and how it talks (the verbal identity); what it looks like (the visual identity); and what it feels and sounds like (the sensory identity). Creating these foundational signals is the core business of a branding agency.

Preem

Adopting a female-focused strategy, Preem’s petrol and convenience stores added more relevant merchandise and turned its toilet facilities into a genuine point of differentiation, giving women something to tell their friends about.

Before foundational signals are created, however, a certain amount of groundwork needs to be done to ensure that the best conditions for success are in place. Firstly, we must get into this essential preparation. Next we create the foundational signals. And finally focus on what to do next with these foundational signals once they have been created, looking at delivery of the brand experience, managing the brand, and measuring the performance and value of brands.

The difference between a brand and branding

Start a branding project with the right reason, commitment and business strategy.

Analyze the brand’s equity, uncover insights, identify opportunities and focus-customers (20:80 model).

Far a brand strategy, defining the brand idea, the brand architecture, brand personality an produce an apt creative brief.

Work with your team in creating the brand experience, crafting the verbal identity, designing and testing the visual and sensory identities, and delivering the brand experience.

Then comes the key area of managing the brand, measuring the performance of a brand, tracking brand strength, and measuring brand value and delivering the brand promise.