What's a "Brand?" And What is "Branding?"
There's a lot of confusion about the concepts of "brand" and "branding." This confusion can interfere with our attempts to improve our marketing efforts. Much of this confusion relates to the failure to distinguish among related, but different, uses of these words.
In its broadest sense, a "brand" (used here as a noun) is the total sum of the attributes the marketplace associates with your business (or a particular product, service, or other item). In other words, your brand is what people actually think about your business. If you have an active business, you have a brand of some sort, even if you've made no deliberate attempt to create or influence that brand.
The products or services you provide, their nature and quality, the messages you send, the way that you treat your customers, and many other factors create perceptions about your business that impact your "brand."
"Branding" is the whole process of creating or influencing the marketplace's perception of your business (your "brand"). Branding could seek to broaden knowledge and recognition, to inform more accurately and specifically, to create a more positive association, to undo and rework an unfavorable perception, or influence many other perceptions about your business.
Confusion about the concepts of "brand" and "branding" begins when these words are used in ways that are more narrow than their complete definitions. For example, the word "brand" is often used in a much narrower sense as the perception of the business one seeks to create — the results of an intentional branding effort. When using the word "brand" in this narrower sense we need to be careful not to overlook the broader set of perceptions the marketplace actually has about our business, and how these perceptions came to exist.
Sometimes people try to explain the concept of "brand" through an illustration or metaphor. For example, I've heard "brand" explained as the "promise you make to your customers." To the extent this promise refers to the expectations (or perceptions) the marketplace has about your business, this metaphor may work. However, from the standpoint of the business (the promisor) this explanation is very incomplete. It's even narrower than the "intended brand" discussed above, and may fail to even consider the perceptions of the marketplace, and how they came to exist. For example, the promise you're trying to make may differ significantly from what the marketplace actually thinks about your business.
In other instances the word "brand" may be used in reference to items that represent the business, such as a name, logo, symbol, slogan, or a collection of these items. While these representations are meant to influence perceptions about your business (part of the "branding" process), we're again thinking very narrowly about what's actually a much bigger "brand" concept.
Similarly, the word "branding" is often used to refer only to a deliberate or planned process to influence people's perception about a business. But it's important to remember that your brand is affected by nearly everything you do, not just the components of your intentional branding program. Therefore, you need to consider very carefully the full range of actions you take (or don't take), and messages you send (or don't send), including things that are planned and unplanned, that impact the perceptions others have about you and your business.
To avoid confusion and misunderstanding about your "brand" and the "branding" process, always remember the broad definitions of these terms that are provided above.
And remember that, whatever you may be trying to accomplish with your marketing efforts, it's the actual perceptions held by the marketplace that determine your "brand."
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