Branding: Almost Everything
Brands are reputations: A brand bundles everything a person knows, perceives, and assumes about an organization and its products. Brands are also promises (or threats): A brand is a symbol in a person’s mind of the expectations s/he has in dealing with an organization or experiencing its products.
Some would say that a brand is “everything”. Clearly this is not so, for the product or service that a brand represents is not the brand. However, it is arguable that successful branding is a key contributor to the achievement of organizational and marketing aims. This post seeks to identify and briefly describe literature and research that supports, in various contexts, the statement: “Brands are critical to marketing communicators”.
The “Brand” Defined
A brand’s most literal definition, in the corporate world, is of a symbol, word, or mark that represents an organization and its products and differentiates them from competitors. BusinessDictionery.com expands upon that by incorporating the dimension of time: “Over time, this image becomes associated with a level of credibility, quality, and satisfaction in the consumer’s mind (positioning). Thus brands help harried consumers in crowded and complex marketplace, by standing for certain benefits and value.”
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