Meaning of Brand and Opportunity of a Branding Strategy

What brand means in its literal translation is soon said. Brand means brand and derives from the Nordic word brand or brand to fire. Practice understood in breeding to recognize the ownership of animals.

Today, of course, the meaning of a brand does not only deal with the “trademark” anymore. It is not just a name, it is not just a graphic but an expression that reflects the strategic vision of the activity that brings it, whatever it is.

A brand, in fact, may relate to companies, non-profit, professional and also (of course) the activities business, or commercial.

What does brand mean today, then? Possible definitions

It is not so easy, nor unambiguous to define the term brand, today. Brand, brand, and set of combined elements that uniquely identify a company … brand today means an entire universe of meaning. “Everything is brand – writes Philip Kotler, one of the leading experts in marketing management – a brand is any emblem that conveys meaning and associations.

A great brand, then, also does the other: it assigns a coloring and a resonance to a product or a service “. So it turns out that the kitchen paper towel becomes for everyone simply Scottex (which is actually the brand of one of the companies that produce it) or the wet wipes for the hands are just the Fresh & Clean or, still, the carbonated soft drink with the caffeine is called Coca-Cola even when you buy it from other brands.

The proof of the fact that a brand is great, Kotler writes, is provided by the level of loyalty and preference it arouses. So the famous phrase of the British advertiser David Ogilvy is valid: “Any idiot can conclude a good deal, but it takes genius, trust and perseverance to create a brand“.

Colin Bates, independent brand consultant and author of the interesting book How to Build Your Total Brand, defines the brand as “the set of perceptions in the minds of consumers”. Scott Cook, certainly not the latest arrival but manager Procter & Gamble and eBay finally, a millionaire American businessman finally explains how “a brand is no longer what the company communicates to its customers. It is what customers communicate with each other “.

It seems clearer, moreover, that brand and brand are not absolutely the same thing. The second is just a symbol, a trademark. The first is a set of signifiers that continue to produce meaning in the collective imagination. The brand includes:

• The history of that activity, of that company, of that product.
• The customer experience , or the complex of experiences experienced by the consumer (or user of the service) as a result of his interaction with that activity, company, professional.
• The brand identity , or the identity that the business has or tries to have towards its target audience to distinguish itself from its competitors ( competitor ).
• The brand awareness, also called brand awareness. It is a concept that is built over time and defines the ability of a target to identify a particular. What comes to mind if I say sneakers? Nike, probably.

What does brand mean? A brief history of brands that have made history

Nike, the luxury of allowing the omission of the name

We have chosen to talk about this brand for this reason. Nike, the brand of a company that produces athletic shoes and sportswear, has come to afford the luxury of omitting its name from its brand. There is only one graphic sign, the famous swoosh, which says it all. The Nike logo is a very emblematic phenomenon in the field of brand identity and is often cited as an example.

Apple, a symbol already present in the collective imagination

In the Forbes 2018 ranking on the most valuable brands, Apple wins the first place. Apple has literally revolutionized the computer world and immediately imposed itself with a symbol (the apple) very present in the collective imagination.

The apple represents knowledge, desire and also an act of rebellion against the established order. So nothing better than a bitten apple (even without brand name) to identify a company that lives in an innovative and unconventional way.

Coca – Cola, the “mother of all brands”

Certainly could not miss the list. Not only because unlike the other two mentioned in Coca – Cola brand identity and brand name coincide. Also because it is a brand that has dominated the market for over a hundred years, so much so that it deserves the name of mother of all brands.

Today Coca – Cola is a globally univocally and universally known and recognized brand. For those brands able to incorporate deep values, aging does not exist.

Now I know what brand means and I would like one: what should I do?

Having a brand means cultivating a highly performing seedling over time, hoping it will become a baobab in its target market. This means, not to discourage you, that the performance of your brand must be studied well, using experts at a table.

For this reason, if you want to try your hand at creating your brand (as a professional, as a company, as a non-profit, etc.), it is good that you use the advice of a marketing expert and a chart. The Marketer can help you define concepts like mission statement (its mission, its ultimate purpose) and value proposition (promise of value), while the Graphic will propose the sketch of your logo.

Remember, the brand is a construction of signifiers that will become a real set of meanings in your target and will identify you forever. Moreover, and it is not the last thing to consider, the brand has a relationship with the positioning (of your business, on and off line, in the reference market).

This means that the more the brand identifies with the value assigned by the business community, the more the link with the brand will grow in the collective imagination. So it’s important to include value creation in your brand marketing strategy and grow it over time.

About the Author!

Megan Max is known as an animator, she is providing her astonishing services to videoanimationinc.com for years; she had her education from London United Kingdom in field of graphic designing and she is so talented and passionate towards her future.