Branding is Confusing
Branding is a confusing topic. Just consider the words; brand, branding & identity. Can you accurately define what each of these mean? What are the differences? To help my clients understand the difference, here is how I explain it. Let’s first start at defining, what they are not…
What Brand, Branding & Brand Identity Are Not
Many people, when they start thinking about branding for their business, it usually comes at a point where a colleague or friend, recommends that they put some time and money into their brand identity and build their brand online to help grow their business.
If you do a Google search for “brand”, you’ll easily pull up more than nine billion (yes, billion) results for “brand”. It’s no wonder then that many people have more questions than answers:
- Does branding mean having a professional logo?
- What does branding mean and how do I do it?
When you look at the words “brand, branding, identity, even logo“, they all describe essentially the same thing, don’t they?
In essence, yes and no.
Like many major companies, it’s all related to how the business & brand is managed.
Think of some of the biggest names out there: Apple, Microsoft, Facebook, Coca-Cola, and their logo comes into your mind almost immediately and just as quickly, you have an association with any of these brands regardless of whether they are good or bad, you have an emotional response when you see it.
Your logo is not your brand or your identity.
In fact, your logo is less than 10% of your brand.
That can be hard for people to wrap their head around but all three aspects have their role in the process and together build the image of the business that is perceived by consumers. By understanding what each term means can we start to grasp the unlimited potential each one has.
What is Brand, Branding, Brand Identity?
Here is the simplest way to describe each…
- Brand – The meaning that people attach to your organisation, product or service.
- Branding – The management of a brand’s meaning.
- Identity – The sensory elements that are used to identify a brand.
- Logo – A mark or icon that identifies the business in its simplest form.
Stay tuned for more on branding.
Source: Jacob Cass