Brand: What it is and what it is not

As the saying by Aesop goes that "Every truth has two sides; it is as well to look at both, before we commit ourselves to either." I am glad to tell you that BRANDING is not an exception. This is why we will be talking about the topic of Branding: What it is and what it is not.

To know what a brand is not, we will have to look at what a brand is. A Brand can be defined as the sum total of experiences of your customers when they come in contact with you. It is the collection of perceptions about you (your business) in the mind of the customer. It involves what you represent to your customers and what they think of you, ranging from the way you respond to their mails, the music they hear when on hold on the phone, your tweets, your logo and so on. For example, when I think of 7up, I automatically think of a quick soothing feeling and when I think of Veleta, I think of Enjoyment…shey you get?

Now that we know what brand is, let us look at what brand is not. Please don’t forget to send in your questions in the comment session.

1.      Your brand is NOT YOUR LOGO

A lot of people make that error of thinking that their Logo is their brand. As I mentioned in my third post about logo, you can click here to read the full post, logo is a GRAPHICAL REPRESENTATION of your brand. Your logo only covers the picture part of your brand. So, what of others? You see why your logo is not your brand but a component of your brand? Let’s move on.

2.      Your brand is NOT YOUR NAME

Your brand is not your name just like YOU are NOT YOUR NAME. Of course, your business name is a major component of your brand, it determines if your customers, especially first timers will even look at your logo or want to experience what you have packaged for them by buying.

 

3.      Your brand is NOT YOUR TAGLINE

Do You know what a tagline is? It is a short, written promise to your customer. For example, my company, Light Designs and Prints’ tagline is ‘We Labour to Satisfy you’. You see, it is a promise that we won’t stop until you are satisfied and I bet you have been satisfied from reading this blog. Your tagline promises your customer what to expect from you.

 

4.      Your brand is NOT YOUR WEBSITE

Do You have a website? Awesome! But it is not your brand, take due note of that, it is only part of your brand.

 

5.   Your brand is NOT YOUR COLOUR, BUSINESS CARD, PACKAGING METHOD, CUSTOMER REPRESENTATIVE APPROACH, MARKETING APPROACH etc.

All these are only important parts of your brand, not majorly your brand.

 

So, what am I driving at? All these mentioned above, all come together to create a brand (A collection of experiences).

Let us go practical. A customer sees your advert- MARKETING APPROACH- hears your NAME and loves it, he or she goes online to see what you promised in the advert, then sees your LOGO and TAGLINE, through the logo, he is able to see that uhm, this company will be dependable and will give me quality stuff. He/She then decides, let me check the WEBSITE. On getting to your website, he falls in love, easy to navigate, succinct, expressive and beautiful- COLOUR- he/she checks out your products and decides to buy. And then his/her questions are answered well- CUSTOMER REPRESENTATIVE. He/she makes an order and gets a doorstep delivery with nice packaging- PACKAGING METHOD. This experience that you have given the customer, starting from the Marketing approach to delivery is YOUR BRAND.

 

In conclusion, to have a brand, you need to meet up with your promises. You can’t afford to make a promise to your customers and then under deliver. In my next post, I will be talking on ways to build a successful brand. Watch out!

 

A big shout out to everyone that have been reading and also giving their comments, it means a whole lot to me. Don’t forget to send in your questions, your opinions and your ideas to me. I would really love to hear from you. To get me to talk about a topic? Send a mail to me on olamipoada2@gmail.com

 

See ya!