What is a Brand?
While a logo is an important part of your company’s visual identity, it is not your brand.
Your brand is the culture you maintain across your organization, how you engage with others and how you carry yourself. Your brand is your company’s reputation, and the perception others have of you. It is the story that people tell when asked to define you.
Your brand is the promise you keep; ensuring that you do exactly what your organization has committed itself to. Your brand is the shared values you live by, the values that guide you in every interaction and decision you make. Your brand is how you make people feel and the memorable experiences you create. Your brand is the difference that sets your company apart from its competitors.
Your brand is how you communicate, it is everything you do, say, and allow others to see. Your brand is your discipline and insistence to use your logo in accordance with the brand guidelines, ensuring that your brand is always consistently projected.
We are all creative spirits and love to illustrate our creativity, but did you know that when you do not strictly abide by your brand guidelines on something as basic as a PowerPoint presentation, or a business card design, you are negatively impacting your brand’s equity? At the same time, when you send out an email or a proposal with spelling mistakes, it could tell the recipient that your brand doesn’t pay attention to the details. How many of us have received communications where our name is misspelt? Doesn’t that resonate negatively with you?
Your brand is your mission and your vision and your commitment to delivering on the long-term aspirations and goals of your organization. Ask yourself, do you know your company’s vision? Do you work in accordance with your company’s mission? If you do, then you are positively impacting brand equity and brand value.
When you bring together your company’s vision, mission, shared values, attributes, functional and emotional benefits, and visual identity you are helping define your brand essence.
A final thought, your brand is not what you say it is. It is what others say it is when you are not in the room.