A Brand is Your Gut Feeling

Brand = a name that stands for something in the mind of prospects.

The ironic thing with the term 'Brand' is that it has a poor brand. The perceptions of what a brand is are often misconstrued. People tend to think a brand is a logo, a visual identity, or a product. Rather, as Marty Neumeier explains in his book The Brand Gap, brand is a gut feeling! It is our perceptions towards an organization. And the logo, visual identity & products help foster that 'gut feeling'.

So, organizations do not define their brands - people do! Organizations, however, can influence their brands, and this process is branding.

First, why do we care about branding? We care because it leads to loyalty, which leads to long-term customer value indicating long-term organizational sustainability!

Branding begins with, as I've written many times before, a purpose! This purpose provides motivation and direction for the organization. For a brand to be successful, it must first ensure that internally everyone believes in the organization's purpose - this way everyone is working towards the same goal.

Once everyone is aware and passionate about the brand purpose, the employees' outwardly actions begin to communicate what the organization is all about. These actions become the reasons to believe in the brand. For instance, Wikipedia's brand purpose is to provide knowledge to the world, and a recent action to begin providing an offline version of its content to help rural students in Peru (via AdAge) creates a perfect reason to believe in its purpose!

These actions form interactions with people, and it's through these interactions where perceptions are developed. Interactions can be anything from reading an article in AdAge, to seeing a tweet on Twitter, to using a product or calling customer service. Literally, anything that references or involves the organization can influence its brand definition!

From this point, it is essential that the actions remain 'on brand'. The organization must follow through and continue to deliver on its brand promise. This consistency leads to credibility, which leads to trust, which results in loyalty!

So, when I read that Sigg, the producer of metal water bottles, has the toxic material (BPA), which we are trying to avoid by using its product, the credibility vanishes. Sigg is no longer properly delivering on its brand promise damaging its brand perceptions.

Dominos is another example of losing credibility & trust because of poor actions. A few months back, two Dominos employees decided it would be fun to put together a disgusting video, for YouTube, of them playing with the food, etc. before, presumably, serving it to customers. This video had such an enormous impact, that by the end of the week, the organization's share price fell by 9.6%, which is about $4.07 billion (facts via Brand Strategy Insider). That is a massive loss, just because 2 staff members were fooling around and acting 'off brand'. This proves that bad brand interactions impacts consumer trust and the organization's future value! Now, as seen in the YouTube video below, Dominos is working hard to regain that lost trust - and it's doing this through actions!

So, through branding, organizations are able to influence the 'gut feeling' people hold towards its brand. This begins with focus, which is set by the organization's brand purpose. That purpose then translates into actions creating interactions with consumers. Consistent interactions form credibility, which leads to trust and eventually loyalty! Brand is not a logo, a visual identity, or a product - rather these help influence the brand.

Note: Image from The Brand Gap SlideShare presentation