What is Branding?

In today’s world, we throw around the term “branding” with careless irreverence to the meaning of the word. Most companies and people alike do not understand what branding is or the importance of branding to the success or failure of products, companies and people. 

To understand branding, you must go back thousands of years to the beginning. The practice of branding begun with the ancient Egyptians. Branding was used to differentiate one person’s cattle from another's by means of a distinctive symbol burned into the animal’s skin with a hot branding iron. The mark of the brand was a clear, distinctive identification of who owned the cow.

Today, the term branding is used to give strategic personality for a product, company or person, suggesting the values and promises that are perceived. 

Branding is a set of marketing and communication methods that help to distinguish a person, company or products from competitors, aiming to create a lasting impression.

The key components of branding:

There is often little to no difference between people, company and products in the 21st century, making branding one of a few remaining forms of product differentiation.

A brand is a promise to its customers of what they can expect from products and may include emotional as well as functional benefits. Effective branding can result in higher sales of not only one product, but of other products associated with that brand. If you love Apple’s Mac Computers and trust the quality, you are more likely to buy other Apple products, like the iPhone. This is called brand development.

A brand name is the part of a brand that can be spoken or written and identifies a product, service or company and sets it apart from other comparable products within a category. A brand name may include words, phrases, signs, symbols, designs, or any combination of these elements. For consumers, a brand name is a convenient way to remember preferred product choices. A brand name is not to be confused with a trademark which refers to the brand name or part of a brand that is legally protected, like the M in MacDonald’s or the signature font for the Walt Disney company.

Brand identity is a set of individual components, such as a name, a design, a set of images, a slogan, a vision, a design, writing style, a particular font or a symbol etc. which sets the brand aside from others. For a company to project a strong sense of brand identity, it must have an in depth understanding of its target market, competitors and the surrounding business environment.  Brand identity includes both the core identity and the extended identity. The core identity reflects consistent long-term associations with the brand; whereas the extended identity involves the intricate details of the brand that help generate a constant theme.

There are many other components to branding like brand personality, brand awareness, brand recognition and brand recall. For purposes of this article, I will stop here.

Branding provides an identify to a person, product or company, while at the same time conveys a story of quality, convenience, value, style, community, benefit, consistency, innovation, technology, attributes and personality. When you think of Apple products, most people want to be part of the unique Apple community, in addition, you think of quality, benefits, style and technology. For McDonald’s, you think value, convenience, consistency and french fries.

Most companies/people do not deliver a consistent message needed for brand identity. There are several reasons for this. The biggest reason for brand failure is lack of common vision. Most people develop a product and then identify their market. Successful brands start with the target customer to develop a vision and then create a product or company. What comes first; the product or the customer? Successful companies start with the customer and end with the product.

Another reason for brand failure is trying make their product fit the broad market, not a target market. This fails for several reasons, including generation gaps, socioeconomics, culture, gender, education level, values etc.… Within each of these factors are multiple identifiable groups and each group will have different motivations. Very seldom does a one size fit all. Each group, in each category will have a common tread of motivational reasoning. Which means each group will tend to purchase the same category of product for a similar reason. For instance, young people will buy a certain product, while more mature people will buy another. Same with socioeconomics, rich people buy different products than middle class people. 

Many brands fail, because they have not defined, identified and targeted a specific market and/or have not created a product from the ground up to fit that market’s demands.

Brand failure can also be attributed to not having a consistent message. All to often businesses are too quick change, add to or take away from their message or worse convey multiple simultaneous message to gain quick fixes. Branding takes time, patience, consistency and hard work. Like they say, Rome was not built in a day and neither are any well-known brands. Companies spend years building and growing their brands. Consider Apple, who has been around for 46 years, Google 21 years, Microsoft 47 years, Coca Cola 137 years, Disney 96 years, Amazon 25 years, Facebook 15 years, MacDonald’s 79 years. Not what you call overnight successes. What these companies have in common is knowing their target markets, who their customer is, what their customers want/need and delivering products to satisfy them, using a simple consistent message.

Another reason for failure is changing a successful brand. Re-branding is not simply expanding a brand or making subtle marketing changes. This is a result of the brand evolution. Re-branding represents a total overhaul of the brand or company. Re-branding should be only be used a last stitch effort to survive a catastrophic business disaster. Re-branding is tricky and more often than not will fail.

A good example of a company trying to change it’s branding was back in the 1985 when Coca Cola introduced the New Coke formula to taste more like their leading competitor, Pepsi and at the same time discontinuing the original formula. Two days after the launch of New Coke, the company hotline received 31,600 complaint calls. 79 days after the launch of New Coke, Coca Cola executives announce the return of the original formula. The cost of New Coke and the damage to the Coca Cola brand was immeasurable, costing the company hundreds of millions of dollars. This is a cautionary tale against tampering with a well-established and successful brand. Fortunately, for Coke, they were able to re-brand, their re-branding and came up with “Coke - the real thing”. In the following years, Coca Cola discontinued New Coke. Today, Coke leads the market with the original Coke.

Very few companies could survive a catastrophic fail like Coca Cola. Because of their market share, loyal customers and immense resources, Coke was able to survive, where other companies would have folded.

Another reason for brand failure is the inability to get the branding message to the public. Much branding is done through advertising. In years past advertising include television, radio, billboard signs, newspapers, etc... Because of the considerable expense, many companies cannot afford to invest in advertising.

Today, advertising in conventional ways is still expensive, but there are more effective and less expensive ways to get your message out. With Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Snapchat and others, advertising can be more strategic and more easily cover your target market. In addition, social media advertising is a fraction of the cost of other forms of advertising. 

Smaller companies should be creative about building their brand. Being creative is time consuming and is a painfully slow process, but in the end can be the most effective way to build a brand. Some creative ideas include celebrity endorsements, charity work, producing or participating in local events, giveaway programs, etc.…

Nine times out of ten, brands will fail. Understanding the branding process, identifying and understanding your customers and developing a product that solve problems or fill needs will give you a significantly better chance at success.

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