What is a Brand?

What is a Brand? is a question that gets asked out loud infrequently — but one that I suspect is often on people’s minds, but they are too embarrassed to ask. So, I thought I’d take a few moments on this post to answer the unasked question.

There are lots of answers to this question, Wikipedia attempts to answer the question What is a Brand? with this statement:

A brand is a “Name, term, design, symbol, or any other feature that identifies one seller’s good or service as distinct from those of other sellers.” Branding began as a way to tell one person’s cattle from another by means of a hot iron stamp. A modern example of a brand is Coca Cola which belongs to the Coca-Cola Company.

photo credit charliecurve via flickr

Branding is about creating an instant recognition in the consumer’s mind for your brand. It can be something as simple as a voice, a graphic, or a phrase. But while Wikipedia’s definition is partially accurate, it fails to fully communicate the answer to the question, What is a Brand? Because branding is more than just a name, term, design, or symbol there’s something more, an emotional component inherent in branding.

Consulting Daryl Travis, the author of Emotional Branding, gets us a little closer to the answer to the question What is a Brand? “A brand isn’t a brand to you until it develops an emotional connection with you.” He’s right, at it’s heart, branding is about creating an emotional resonance with a brand — ideally a positive emotional resonance. (I’ve discussed positive emotional response to a brand before here.) A strong brand should invoke instant, favorable, emotion. Marty Neumeier, the author of The Brand Gap, goes on to explain that “A brand is a person’s gut feeling about a product, service, or company.” Now we’re getting closer to the real answer to the question, What is a Brand?

But there is still something more to a brand. Perhaps my favorite answer to the question What is a Brand? comes from Fred Burt of Siegel+Gale, who answered “A brand is a reason to choose.”

That’s it — it’s so simple, yet so complex.

What is a Brand? “A brand is a reason to choose.”

That’s why branding is so important in marketing. Branding gives people a reason to choose…

to choose your product over your competition’s
to choose your business over the business down the street
to choose to invest themselves in your success

Your brand has the capacity to ensure your business’ success or lack thereof. So pay attention to it. Build it. And most of all, share the story every chance you get. That’s my answer to the question What is a Brand?