Brand is the aftermath of your actions
written by Allan on March 30, 2010
Forget your logo, that's not your brand.
There's no longer such thing as branding. You can absolutely have a brand, but no one can perform "branding." For the same reason when you build a house they don't call it "housing," they call it roofing, plumbing, flooring etc. A brand has ingredients, many moving parts, which can consist of the following:
- quality of your product or service
- the speed you deliver it
- the support you give your existing customers
- the tone/look/feel of your product and advertising
Your brand is a byproduct of your actions. All these ingredients are equally important as the other. If you have a great support, great speed to deliver and your product is crap then your brand suffers.
And if you think that because you're a service based business this doesn't apply to you? You're wrong, you've got a brand too. How fast do you return emails? How soon do you engaged a potential customer? Do your customers feel like you have their best interest in mind? That's all a part of your brand.
In years past "branding" meant to come up with a logo, business card, letterhead, color guide etc. At that time "branding" was very important, it's what your customers and potential customers would see. But now, we live in dark times, your brand is less about the font on your logo and more about the important things. I know, it's scary to think you can't hire a designer and wham, you're branded. But that doesn't work because building and maintain a brand never stops, it's a constantly changing animal.
There is nothing more vital to your success than your brand. But it's impossible to focus on "branding" you must focus on all the moving pieces, the ingredients of your brand.
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Allan loves his family more than breathing. He lives in Panama City, Florida & grew up washing cars at his family's car washes. Oh and Allan hasn't worn underwear since 2004.
4 Comments
Great post, Allan!! This line in particular resonated “Your brand is a byproduct of your actions”. Very well said, and in this evolving landscape more companies need to absorb this message.
AJ
The best thing a brand can do is to stop worrying about branding. Like you said, actions speak louder than words, and while the visuals and copy are important, it’s the quality of interaction with people and the quality of the product that will really tell the story. If you have all the moving parts, the brand will sort of come together by itself.
The other day a bud of mine jokingly tweeted: “I need to stop focusing on personality and start focusing on my personal brand.” I loled.
I think this post is dead-on, but I would point out that the visual and textual elements that the customer interacts with are part of the brand along with service, product, etc.
IMO branding is: making sure that everything the consumer touches that is identifiable as part of your business comes together to create a coherent and consistent mental model of your business (i.e. Brand Image) that works to increase the success of your business.
A brand as I define it is a set of expectations and beliefs held by your customers and potential customers, which can be manipulated in a wide variety of ways. These ways include service, product, time to delivery, price, channel, etc. They also include your graphic design elements and any copy you present to the consumer.
That is a long way of saying that I think design is important too, although it would, as you note, be a grievous mistake to take a logotype or webpage to be “the brand”.
Absolutely spot on, though unfortunately, not universally accepted.
Many of those I’ve met at the C-level focus on “branding” to motivate those beneath them to convey a uniform message. A brand identity.
Without this established brand identity, I think most employees would convey whatever their interpretation of the brand is. And I know from experience, it really sucks for a business when all the business-people do their own thing, rather than maintain a uniform message or uniform vision.
Ultimately, though, your point is that actions speak louder than words and all we’re hearing nowadays is silence. That – believe me – I can absolutely jive with.
- Glenn