Brand, Brand, Brand... Whose Is It Anyway?

The term "brand" is bandied about the hallways and conference rooms of our offices all day long, and rolls off the tongue of the intern like he was born to say it.   But, never has a word that is so important to a company's success been so poorly understood.

The American Marketing Association defines a brand as "a name, term, design, symbol, or any other feature that identifies one seller's good or service as distinct from those of other sellers."  Sounds a little like the definition for cattle brands to me.    Wikipedia defines brand as "the identity of a specific product, service, or business."  Hmmmm, too simplified, but begins to touch on the true concept of brand.

Other sources define brands as names, logos, icons, colors, taglines, jingles and a whole host of things that I call identifiers.  These things help us identify a company, product, or service, but they aren't "the brand."

We cannot effectively define brand without including the customer (which for these purposes includes actual customers, target customers, future customers, and other stakeholders), for they are critical to its existence.

A brand is not a name or a logo or jingle, etc. - it is the impression of the name, logo, jingle - that is held in the mind of the customer.  Brands then, are complex compilations of inputs that are stored in each of our customer's  brains where they are summarized and stored for future use.  Each new input received regarding a product/service/company, if deemed meaningful, can change the customers impression of that brand and therefore their likelihood of buying it.

In today's message-cluttered world, it is more difficult to send meaningful inputs that will be received, considered, cataloged and stored into a customers brand perception.  What's more is that social media has created a platform that allows for meaningful inputs to be received from viral public response to products, services, company activity, and events. 

That, in essence, has put the customer in partial control of both sides of the brand equation - in forming their own perceptions regarding a brand, and now in broadly messaging and influencing others regarding their perceptions of a brand. 

But there are still plenty of opportunities for brand champions to guide their brands, a challenge that is easier achieved with a deep understanding of the concept.