It may be too late for Branding

If you think you don't need to work on your brand, the sad part is when you realize you do, it might be too late.

This is a story for both ends of the brand spectrum. Whether you are an established player or an up-and-coming one, you need to navigate the delicate balance of branding. Building a brand goes far beyond just designing a logo. It involves ensuring that all touchpoints reflect the values your company stands for.

“Branding is like growing a fruit tree. It takes time, effort, and patience. But if you do it right, you can enjoy the fruits of your labor for years to come.” —Mark Ritson (et all)

A visual identity, like a logo, is a part of your brand, but it's just the surface. Consider Nike's Swoosh logo—a simple shape, yet its power lies in what it represents: Phil Knight's vision, the athletes who embody excellence, the employees and all the way to its ad campaigns. A brand is built through consistent excellence over time.

Clients may ask for a "Nike-like" logo, hoping it'll instantly conveys value. But symbols gain meaning over years of excellence or failure. A brand isn't just a logo; it's what it stands for—a culmination of shared experiences.

A quick note: Nowadays, branding seems to be entering a dangerous phase, much like Marketing* in the 80s when it became a generic term. We throw around without truly understanding its scope.

*Being relegated to just Promotion. Marketing encompasses much more—a lengthy process of exploration, diagnosis, strategy, and tactics. Unfortunately, we lost this battle and relevance in the org chart.

"Will you stop talking about branding already? That's LinkedIn BS." Or is it? Let's consider Company A at its peak, focused on selling well with each new launch and commanding a beautiful chunk of the market share. They seem too busy to care about building a brand.

Meanwhile, Company C over there doesn't seem to mean much; they are too small. However, they have a strong positioning, and all their customers love their product and swift customer support. It's a brand they want to support, even though you can count those customers with your fingers.

Until the inflection point happens!

However, this doesn't mean the work is done; it just means you have a broader playing field and more levers to pull in order to attract customers. The reason I say the work is never done can be examplified recently by this WSJ episode about Disney. "Bob Chapek was a numbers guy. He prioritized ways of getting as much income out of every business Disney's in… he lost sight of what makes Disney a really special company 'We should have the most magical storytelling at this company.'"

Even an iconic brand like Disney still has to nurture the elements that make it special for its audience. Imagine then how difficult it will be for a brand that is only a product. Every launch the conversation needs to restart from scratch, and you need to convince a new audience why your product is special. With Disney, at least, once the brand is strong again, all the other IPs under it get enhanced by the same magic.

Building a brand is both planned and by chance

Nike, Sony, Apple, Ford, all these remarkable brands started with an almost empty roadmap. They are now the source of most marketing case studies because they were allowed to grow, and most importantly, they earned their place organically, as we like to say nowadays. And what I mean by that is, their culture happened naturally because it's wasn't outsourced to a third-party.

There wasn't this proliferation of business cases, 'best of' logotype books, and creativity awards hampering their actions. A new company is often forced to artificially create a new (established) brand. Values cannot be manufactured, and this can be dangerous because it creates a false culture. It's like copying someone else's behavior.

"Company culture doesn't exist apart from the company itself. A startup is a team of people on a mission, and a good culture is just what that looks like on the inside." —Peter Thiel, Zero to One

Companies start, and they already have a 90-page brand book, endless guidelines, and a rigid identity manual. But how?! You literally just started. Your brand is a marriage between your vision and the audience; it needs time to grow.

Every design decision, product extension, or messaging you decide to advertise will feel forced and inauthentic, because it comes from a book someone else made for you, or even if it's done in-house, if those principles are not grounded in reality, they will be nothing more than a list of ideals recorded for the purpose of the book.

It doesn't mean you need to mold yourself after every customer feedback either; perhaps you will have to endure 2 years, or even 8 years before claiming something as part of your culture.

It's precisely the endurance, the thickening of your skin, that will shape your culture, your principles. Not that beautifully designed tome you created before even shipping a product.

Have guides, principles. But allow the market and your instincts to fill in the rest.