Is brand everything? Why brand is important? What are the benefits of good branding?
There are many different definitions of brand.
Bernd Schmitt defines brand as reputation in the marketplace plus promise to the marketplace plus experience of customers.
Marty Neumeier sees brand as a person’s perception of a product, service, experience, or organization; the art and science of brand building.
Jack Trout says brand science is about differentiation.
Philip Kotler says a brand is any label that carries meaning and associations. He further says a great brand does more: It lends coloration and resonance to a product or service.
Prahalad and Ramaswamy say a consistent quality of co-creation experience across multiple channels and multiple events in the experience environment is the brand. Simply put, brand is the totality of co-creating experience.
But then, what is a brand?
Brand is about…
Better than the best…
Relationship building…
Attitude…
Niche…
Differentiation.
The question now is… how to build good brand?
Daryl
Just shows how misunderstood branding is. Reminds me of CRM & CEM.
What is your definition (in a single sentence) of a brand?
Graham Hill
Independent CRM Consultant
Interim CRM Manager
In “traditional” branding, you think of the brand first and the associations second: 1. Volvo 2. Safety.
Reverse Branding is exactly the opposite. Here, associations precede the brand: You first think of “search,” then you think of Google. You initially think of polar bears, then suddenly develop a craving for Coke.
People rarely think of your actual brand first. They think about what they want. Then they decide who, specifically, can fulfill that desire. Being that “who” is the essence of Reverse Branding.
This is part of a blog post by Ryan Karpeles Reverse Branding: What it is and why it matters.
Ryan is on to something and I would like to build on it. Branding strikes me as an “inside-out” process. The company tells the market what they should want and way they should want it. As Ryan and other have pointed out, getting impact from this type of messaging is becoming increasingly difficult.
Why? In an era of abundance and overwhelming choice, customers want and value experiences not things. These sets up for an “outside-in” process where businesses focus on enabling the experience customer seek. I think this is part of what Ryan is getting at with “Reverse Branding.”
Here’s a big issue that needs to be dealt with. In traditional branding companies like Volvo are using the brand association (safety) to sell cars. In the “outside-in” approach that appeals to customers, it is not the purchase that is important but the post-purchase experience.
John I. Todor, Ph.D.
Author of Addicted Customers: How to Get Them Hooked on Your Company.
Hi Daryl,
i found Marty Neumeier’s definition more precise for branding, others were not holistic, i remember i read more hitting and encompassing definitions about branding in books n blogs.
What i found missing in most of it is brand varies based on the segment/ group of stakeholders. when we say a brand it immediately brings an attribute of the product/company/person. Same brand for of a company will produce different image to a supplier than a customer than a employee. It holds true for a user and non user.
Recently in India i bought a motorbike, as a prospective customer i had a very high performance image of it, however that changed after i started using it. i also noticed especially in India that people after becoming buying the product continuously support the wrong image just to make brand of themselves as smart customers. And such behavioral pattern is much used by brand creators.
Asit Lal
CRM Consultant
Graham
“Without my name, I don’t think I have a life.” Jack Sommersby
I define a brand simply as a name. Every firm has to have a name before it starts to operate, but then it needs a good name to survive and sustain growth. The question is not “what is,” but always “how to?”
Daryl Choy, the founder of WisdomBoom and Touchpoint eXperience Management, helps firms make a difference at every touchpoint. Choy can be reached at wisdomboom.blogspot.com.