I’ve been spending many, many years working with various sized brands – from huge multi-nationals to smaller scale ups. But one thing I find that holds across whatever size or age of business, is the idea that your brand is proprietary. That the brand is owned by the business.
But this simply isn’t the case.
Your brand isn’t how you look. It’s how people see you.
Your brand isn’t how you sound. It’s how people hear you.
Your brand isn’t what you think. It’s how people feel about you.
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Let’s Rewind A Little
Brand is a complex construct, but at its absolute simplest it can be reduced to two things – identity and meaning. The ways in which you are identified, and once you’re identified what you mean to people.
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Identity
Now, of course, there are aspects of the brand which are owned by the business. When it comes to the identifiable assets of the brand, such as your logo, tagline, website, character, etc, these all need to be distinctive and owned.
Their role is to identify you. So they need to be as unique as possible and they need to be protected legally.
But this is only half of the story of brand. The other half is meaning. And that is where it gets harder.
Meaning
I say harder, because what we are talking about is people’s minds and memories. When you’re talking about what your brand means, it is what it means to people, and not to you.
I’ve seen it time and time again, that businesses get their ‘brand platform’ (or whatever their agency calls it) written, and then it sits in a pdf on someone’s computer and never sees the light of day again. But this is pointless.
Strategy is nothing without application.
But even when the brand platform is applied. Even when the strategy is being applied to various promotional channels via a myriad of techniques, there is still another step that is forgotten.
And at the heart of this is the fundamental misunderstanding of the word ‘communication’.
Communication
Too many people think communication is like having a megaphone. That if you blast out what you want to say about your brand. If you’ve shouted your messages. Then you’ve communicated.
But that’s not communication. Communication means to convey something, and for that to be understood. And this is where a number of businesses simply fail. People don’t check to see whether the brands they are conveying have actually been understood.
If you are trying to mean a certain thing to people, then you have to track whether what you communicated has been understood as you intended.
Brand Is In The Eyes (And Ears) Of The Receiver
How individuals interpret and experience a brand shapes its perception and meaning. This is a fundamental truth about brands, and one that businesses need to learn.
Your brand isn’t what you sent. It’s how people receive you.
Your brand is how you are remembered.
Paul Bailey is Brand Strategy Director at Halo – a brand-first agency in the UK, who, with bold strategy and commercial creativity, improve audience experience and business performance through brand.
At The Blake Project, we help clients worldwide, in all stages of development, define and articulate what makes them competitive at pivotal moments of change. Please email us to learn how we can help you compete differently.
Branding Strategy Insider is a service of The Blake Project: A strategic brand consultancy specializing in Brand Research, Brand Strategy, Brand Growth, and Brand Education
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