What Is Branding? 4 Minute Crash Course.
Summary
TLDRIn this insightful transcript, Marty clarifies the misconceptions around branding, emphasizing it is not a logo, product, or promise, but rather a customer's perception of a company. He explains that branding is a result, a collective gut feeling that forms in the minds and hearts of consumers, shaped by every interaction with the company. Marty stresses the importance of understanding this concept to effectively build a brand's reputation, which is a collaborative effort involving every aspect of the business.
Takeaways
- 🔍 Branding is not a logo. A logo is a symbol for the brand, but it does not define it.
- 🛍️ Branding is not a product. It's a perception of a product or service, not the product itself.
- 🗣️ Branding is not solely a company's promise to customers, though it acts as a promise in practice.
- 🎨 Branding is not the sum of all impressions a company makes, but rather a customer's gut feeling about a company.
- ❤️ A brand is a result, formed in the hearts and minds of customers based on their experiences.
- 🌟 Each customer may have a slightly different perception of a brand, creating millions of individual 'brands'.
- 📊 Branding involves a company's reputation, which should be guided to align with the company's goals.
- 📚 Designers often approach branding as storytelling, but the actual brand is the outcome of these efforts.
- 🎯 The success of branding is not in the checklist of branding elements but in the reputation it creates.
- 🏢 Every aspect of a company, including culture and employee behavior, contributes to the brand.
- 💡 Branding is a comprehensive concept that encompasses nearly all business activities, not just marketing.
Q & A
What is the common misconception about branding according to the transcript?
-The common misconception is that branding is synonymous with logo design, identity design, or even typography. People often confuse a brand with a logo, a product, or the sum of all impressions a company makes on an audience.
What does the transcript suggest is the actual definition of a brand?
-A brand is described as a customer's gut feeling about a product, service, or company. It is a result of the customer's perception, which is formed by the raw materials provided by the company.
Why is it incorrect to consider a logo as the brand itself?
-A logo is a symbol for the brand, but it is not the brand. It is a tool for a business, representing the brand visually but not encompassing the full essence of what the brand stands for.
How does the transcript differentiate between a brand and a product?
-The transcript clarifies that a brand is not a product. When people refer to buying a brand, they are actually talking about purchasing a specific product from that brand.
What role does the customer play in the creation of a brand according to the transcript?
-The customer plays a crucial role as they are the ones who create the brand in their minds based on the information and experiences they have with the company's offerings.
Why is it important to understand that a brand is a result rather than an action?
-Understanding that a brand is a result helps to focus on the ultimate goal of shaping customer perception and building a positive reputation, rather than just executing marketing actions.
What does the transcript suggest about the relationship between branding and a company's reputation?
-The transcript suggests that a brand is closely tied to a company's reputation. It is the collective perception of the company by its customers, which can vary from person to person.
How does the transcript describe the impact of a company's culture on its brand?
-The transcript implies that a company's culture, including how employees behave, can significantly affect the brand's reputation and the way it is perceived by customers.
What does the transcript suggest is the role of advertising in shaping a brand?
-While advertising can contribute to the impressions a company makes on an audience, the transcript emphasizes that the brand is more than just advertising—it is the overall perception formed in the minds of customers.
Why is it a mistake for a company to consider their branding efforts complete once they have a logo, tagline, and ad campaigns?
-The transcript indicates that these elements are tools and actions, not the brand itself. The true brand is the result of how all these elements, along with the company's culture and behavior, come together in the minds of the customers.
What does the transcript imply about the involvement of various departments within a company in shaping the brand?
-The transcript implies that almost everyone in a company affects the brand in some way, whether they are directly involved in marketing or not, as the brand encompasses the entire customer experience and company reputation.
Outlines
🔍 Understanding Branding Misconceptions
This paragraph clarifies common misconceptions about branding. Marty emphasizes that branding is not merely a logo, product, or a promise made by a company to its customers. Instead, it's the collective perception that customers have about a company's offerings. Marty argues that branding is a result, a customer's gut feeling about a business, which is shaped by various factors including the company's culture, employee behavior, and the overall messaging and design of its products. The paragraph highlights the importance of understanding that a brand is not something a company creates in isolation but rather a perception that is individually formed in the minds of its customers.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Branding
💡Logo
💡Identity Design
💡Typography
💡Product
💡Promise
💡Impressions
💡Reputation
💡Storytelling
💡Customer Perception
💡Corporate Culture
Highlights
Branding is often confused with logo design, identity design, and typography, but it's essential to clarify what branding truly is.
A logo is a symbol for the brand, but it is not the brand itself.
Branding is not a product; when people refer to buying a brand, they are actually referring to a specific product.
While branding can act as a promise, it is not inherently a promise made by the company to customers.
Branding is not merely the sum of impressions a company makes on an audience, which is a common misconception in advertising.
A brand is a result, specifically the customer's gut feeling about a product, service, or company.
Customers create their own version of the brand based on the raw materials provided by the company.
A brand is akin to a reputation, which can vary slightly among different customers.
The brand's reputation should be mostly aligned with the company's desired image and be beneficial to the business.
Designers often view branding as telling a story or making a pitch, but the brand is actually the result of these efforts.
Designers should focus on the outcome of their work, which is the brand's reputation in the minds of the audience.
Clients often believe they have completed branding by checking off items like logos and taglines, but this is a misconception.
The true success of branding lies in the reputation created through products, design, messaging, and company culture.
Almost every aspect of a business, including finance, can affect the brand and its reputation.
Everyone in a company is involved with the brand, either by contributing to or potentially harming it.
Marty's unscripted discussion reflects decades of experience and provides a clear understanding of branding.
Transcripts
The term branding people use it
interchangeably with logo design,
identity design, and even sometimes
typography and maybe we need to set the
record straight.
I know you're the best person to tell us
what is branding Marty?
Yes.
So let's start with what branding isn't.
OK.
It's cause it's not a lot of things
people say it is. It's not a logo.
A logo is a very useful tool for a
business, but it's not the brand.
It's a symbol for the brand.
A brand is not a product.
So when people talk about this brand
buying this brand or that brand they're
really talking about buying one product
or another product.
The brand is not that.
People say the brand is a promise the
company makes to customers and there's
some truth in that.
I mean it does end up acting as a
promise, but that's not what it is
either.
Advertising people like to say "well
it's the sum of all the impressions that
a company makes on an audience."
Well you know if you're trying to sell a
lot of impressions I can see where that
might be useful to you.
But from a business point of view why do
they want that? How does that help
creative people understand what they're
doing?
So none of those things are really what
branding is. A brand is a result.
It's a customer's gut feeling about a
product, service, or a company.
It ends up in their heads in their
hearts.
They take whatever raw materials you
throw at them and they make something
out of it, but they're making it.
They're creating it.
And so in a sense when you create a
brand you're not creating one brand,
you're creating millions of brands like
however many customers or people in your
audience.
Each one has a different brand of you.
So a brand has like a reputation.
Right.
So it's your business reputation and
everyone's gonna be a little bit
different about what that reputation is.
And that's OK as long as you have got it
corralled mostly where you want it and
that it's beneficial to the company.
So we tend to look at companies and
designers tend to look at branding as,
from our point of view, like this is
something we're doing. We're telling a
story. We're making a claim. We're you
know making a pitch and that's what we
do.
But that's not what a brand is. The
brand is the result of that.
And if you don't start there, you don't
know what you're doing.
You actually don't know. You think you
know what you're doing but you don't.
So from a designer's point of view I
mean I always tended to be this way it's
like I just had, it was my gut feeling.
Right? About whether this is going to
work or not.
And then I would sell it as hard as I
could to get the client to sign off on
it. From the client's point of view,
they're going off the checklist.
I got the logo, I got the tag line, I
got the ad campaigns. Check! And they
think they're done.
None of that's right.
You know? What's right is what happens
in people's heads. Like what have we
achieved?
What's the reputation that we've created
through the products we're putting out,
and the design of the products, the
messaging we're putting out, the look
and feel of them, our culture. You know?
How does that affect people? How our
employees behave, you know, how is that
affecting our reputation? All that stuff
counts.
So it's a big world.
And it actually takes in almost all of
the business. Not so much finance but
finances involved too because finance
has to greenlight all these things. But
almost everybody in a company is you
know affecting the brand, doing
something with the brand, doing it for
the brand, or hurting the brand.
So you've got to think of it that way.
I didn't want to say one word because
that was perfect and this is unscripted.
Marty is just talking from decades of
experience and writing and articulating
this. It's very clear to me.
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