What's a "brand"?

[directmarketingadvice]

I keep reading and hearing about "brand" and how important it is to have one.

However, it's clear to me that different people are using this word very differently, without clearly specifying what they mean.

I looked up dictionary.com to see what they say and the relevant description is:

"A distinguishing symbol, mark, logo, name, word, sentence, or a combination of these items that companies use to distinguish their product from others in the market"

So, in my quest for understanding, I have 3 questions:

(1) What does the word "brand" mean to you (in the context of business, lets keep the sheep out of it)?

(2) Are you actively striving to promote your brand and, if so, what specific steps are you taking to achieve this?

(3) What brand (if any) are you seeking to create for your business?

Cheers

Steve

[Sarah-Ink Promotions]

A brand for me is something that you recognise straight away and have associations with i.e. the Walt Disney font - you could write anything in that and still know it was disney and straight away associate itself with mickey mouse / disneyland etc...

To promote my brand I put my distinctive logo on absolutely everything, e-mails, mailings, samples etc... When people are looking for promotional merchandise I want them to picture that logo

I want my logo to be associated with promotional merchandise obviously but also become recognised as a symbol of quality and good service

Not sure if thats what you are looking for but hope I have helped!!

Sarah :)

[Pilfo]

Some useless information :lol:

The word "Brand" originated from when cattle traders used to 'brand' their animals with a hot iron. This was so that they could identify them as their own.

Pilfo

[Pebble Communications]

There is also the concept of personal branding floating around these days. The idea that everyone in business ought to think about how other perceive them and make a deliberate effort to manipulate that to their advantage. For example, if your personal brand is that you are a bit disorganised but creative, perhaps you should work to make people view you as professional and creative.

These days 'brand' has a meaning beyond that in the dictionary. I think every business has two or three words that define how its customers see it and that is its brand - however big or small the company. So, while 'easy' uses the colour orange and the word 'easy'as its corporate branding - in another sense its brand is Stelios himself combined with the concepts of value for money, and innovating new ways of offering traditional services.

[VeryMark]

A brand is a personality, a promise, an expectation, an aspiration, someone you want to be seen hanging out with, a family you want to join, someone you can trust to deliver.

[Claire B]

If a brand is strong enough it will convince me that my corn flakes will be crunchier, my loo roll, softer and my whites, whiter, then if I brought the cheapo version! :D

[VeryMark]

Yes, and people prefer Pepsi to Coca Cola in a blind test but Coca Cola to Pepsi when they know which brand they are drinking!

[10 Yetis]

I love talking brands... my two penneth:

(1) What does the word "brand" mean to you (in the context of business, lets keep the sheep out of it)?

(2) Are you actively striving to promote your brand and, if so, what specific steps are you taking to achieve this?

(3) What brand (if any) are you seeking to create for your business?

1. Brand for me is the living embodyment of how you want your company to be percieved by others. E.g. at 10 Yetis we have a series of brand values of how we want to come across in our every day interaction with people.

2. Yes, we believe and are pro-active in making sure that our brand is the main factor that makes us stand out from the crowd of other marketing/design and PR people out there.

We have taken a number of steps over the last few years to create brand awareness in our target market. In fact.. MacYeti and I have worked bloody hard over the last few years just to create brand awareness, and this does not automatically mean just winning new business.

3. Our brand... at the moment that would be telling, maybe in a few months when our re-branding thing is all sorted... lets just say we want to be known for taking a lateral approach to getting results.

Just to move things along on this debate... I would be interested to hear some of the accountants chip in about the value of brands to a businesses bottom line.

Up until the last few years I believe that the Accounting Industry flatly refused to admit that a "brand" had financial value (certainly this was the case till at least 1999).

Now though some big corporations have included brand value in the aksing price when selling of parts of a business... most notably, Ben & Jerry's when it sold out to Unilever (Uniliever wanted the brand more than it wanted the technology or recipe's).

[VeryMark]

I think that the latest accounting standards do allow brand value to be included in the balance sheet, on the basis that companies are now required to record on the balance sheet all identifiable intangible assets of acquired businesses at fair value.

I have various info on brand valuation and know people who specialise in this if anyone needs more info.

[YEM]

I keep reading and hearing about "brand" and how important it is to have one.

As design specialists Redwelly Media have created a very strong brand and embarked on a 6-month long brand awareness campaign. We preach how important a brand is to our client's company so it is even more important for us to have a strong brand ourselves. If you look at our website, you will see a little girl wearing redwellies - this is the main imagery we use in our marketing and it is followed through to our business stationery, business cards, brochures, presentations, exhibition material etc - everything you get from us reinforces our brand and so we are never forgotten. Many of our clients have seen our brand weeks before actually finding out that we are a design agency/consutancy and approaching us to quote for their work. They know that we stand out and that we can do the same for them.

When we decided to launch YEM, we knew that we needed a strong brand for this too - and reinforce the green throughout the magazine and our YEM green 3x2 exhibition stand certainly makes people stop and take a look at us

[crus]

On the Pepsi-Challenge,

I drink Cola, I don't mid pepsi but find it too caramel in flavour.

I have NEVER mixed the two up in blind tasting and have carried the title of CocaCola kid for more than one reason. funny how I got branded with that one ;-)

I love being the exception to the norm.

I drink less coke today, but always look forward to having my industrial chiller cooling some nice wine, lager and of coure coke ;-)

D

[VeryMark]

Great name, Redwelly - but if it's that important as a brand shouldn't you protect it?

Trade mark registration is the only effective method of protecting brand identity.

[crus]

Crossguard,

could you PM me an estiomate, no details that I could use, of regging a YM for a website brand, online only usage. Covering the UK and US.

Thanks

D

[VeryMark]

Crus, I need to know what products/services are involved as the cost depends on how many classes of goods and services of the trade mark classification system are involved.

I'll PM you some general info.

[YEM]

Great name, Redwelly - but if it's that important as a brand shouldn't you protect it?

Trade mark registration is the only effective method of protecting brand identity.

Hi,

Yes we do intend to trademark the name. We have actually just last week been granted the registration certificate for the trademark for YEM