1) What is branding?

2) What is the difference between brand development, brand strategy and branding?

3) How can business benefit from branding?

4) What is online branding? Tips and tricks.

5) A case study and a guest interview.

6) Vox populi (A collection of ideas and views on the subject from various sources)

A business organization usually start making sense out of the benefits of branding when either one of their senior managers discover it while he accidently stumbled upon a book on branding or suddenly they realize that their competition has become “famous overnight”. And the result of this interesting discovery leads them to the doorsteps of a so called “brand guru” , who talks about a prophecy that there business is doomed and he is a godsend savior to bring them out of the oblivion. The enlightenment begins here and then with couple of meetings over sushi, black coffee, heated arguments, ego brushes and some brand experts (by products of the exercise) later a brand is born. The result of this exhilarating & arduous exercise somewhat looks like this:-

1) Hiring of a design agency

2) Suddenly a new logo is created

3) The corporate identity looks like a riot of colors

4) A meticulous exercise of revamping the marketing collaterals and online presence

5) A press meets with dark suited business journalists (who are more interested in “what’s on the menu?” then “what’s in the meeting?”)

6) A beautiful mailer sent across to the customers, employees and other stakeholders (with the new logo and color family of course)

7) High expectations (should result into benefits overnight)

A hole in the balance sheet (sushi and black coffee bills included)

With some heart burns and blame games later our “brand” is forgotten and people return back to their work with a feeling that “whatever it was but it has certainly added a nice idea to my retirement plan-becoming a brand guru someday”. Pass on the caviar and some champagne too.

I understand your concern, but I am not the byproduct of some similar exercise, I am but a curious spectator of this game called “branding”. And here through my blog I want to discover and unravel the mystery behind it, so that someday I and you can help create a brand which lives up to everybody’s expectation and performs like any other asset of the organization in creating a real, tangible value for the business or just to create a sound bite “A brand that really works.”

I hope I have set the tone for taking the case forward and if you have gone through something similar or you have an interesting sushi recipe, then I request you to share your experiences by leaving a comment.

Note: My next post will be on what is branding?

Till then I leave you with an interesting article on the concept of branding by Jeff Cohn, CEO and Chief Brand Strategist of Cohn Marketing. Click here to download your pdf copy. And for this I thank Jeff for replying so quickly and allowing me to share this whitepaper with you all.