What's a brand anyway?

Branding is one of those words that gets used a lot in all the wrong ways. If you ask ten people, what's branding? or what's a brand? You will end up will 10 different anwsers.

Let's do a fun exercise, if we are struggling to define what a brand is, let's define what a brand isn't.

• Your company isn't your brand
• Your product isn't your brand
• Your mission isn't your brand
• Your logo isn't your brand
• Your values aren't your brand
• Your vision isn't your brand
• Your packaging isn't your brand
• Your visual identity isn't your brand
• Your verbal identity isn't your brand

Your brand is all of those things, it's everything tangible and intagible.

All of those things work as a support for your brand, they aren't your brand, they do make your brand but they are not your brand.

In other words we may say that:

• Your brand is a gut feeling that people get when they think about you while you aren't in the room.
• Your brand is a mental image in the mind of a customer.
• Your brand is relative to the person.

We can say that a brand is a perception, and in a way it's a relative perception.

Let's give examples to make this simple, Pepsi had a better product than Coca-Cola but Coca-Cola outperformed Pepsi. Why? They had a better brand, there is a lot of factors that plays into this, it's hard to pinpoint one element

• Memorable brand name
• Memorable script wordmark
• One memorable product (one product, easy to remember)
• A product that could become associated with Cola (Like Sharpie for pens)
• One strong brand color
• The product was associated with sharing moments or experiences, and happiness.

It's way easier for people to remember your brand when you make it easy for them. Don't make it hard for your audience to remember you, they can't talk about you if they don't remember you.