Many businesses think a logo or a tagline is their brand, but brand is more than that. Simply stated, brand is what identifies your product, service or organization and how it relates to your customers and employees.
You can control certain brand elements like consistent use of a logo to make identifying your brand easier, but how your customers and employees relate with your brand is a lot harder to control.
Here are some of your brand elements you can control:
Brand Promise is what your brand stands for and builds over a period of time; it usually focuses on key concepts like Quality, Value or Performance.
Brand Identity is the outward expression of your brand, including its name, logo, trademark, communications and visual appearance. Your brand identity should focus on authentic qualities of your brand promise.
Brand Personality thinks of your brand as a living being, identifying characteristics of your brand in human terms to shape how your brand should speak, act and conduct business.
Brand Experience is perhaps the most important element, summing up all points of contact with your brand.
Now the scary part for many businesses… here are the elements that your customers control:
Brand Image is what people think of your brand. It wraps up all the thoughts, feelings, perceptions, images, beliefs, attitudes, information and expectations associated with your product, service or your organization. You can guide their perception, but in the end your brand image is not in your control.
Brand Awareness is your customers’ ability to recognize and recall your brand under different conditions and link your logo, tagline, etc. to your brand. It doesn’t matter what you say about your brand if it isn’t memorable.
Branding can be challenging, but you don’t have to do it alone. Look for a marketing partner to help you analyze the current state of your brand and create a strategy for where your brand needs to go. Fresh Creative has helped organizations of all sizes to build and implement brand strategies. Call us today at 717-274-0292 to get started.
