Know what a brand is 1

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KNOW WHAT A BRAND IS

People think they know what brands are, but often they don’t. I’ve heard business people say, “Oh no, we don’t really have a brand, we just run a business.” Clothes shoppers will tell me, “I don’t buy brands, they’re too expensive. I go to the Gap, Next or Uniqlo.”

A brand isn’t something that’s too expensive for most of us to buy—that’s a luxury brand. A brand is any product or service (and occasionally an individual) that stands out from the others around it because of its positioning or its personality. All organisations are brand owners whether they like it or not, and they’ve a responsibility for how other people regard that brand.

The most important thing is to stand out.

The idea A brand is much more than a logo or a name. As well as its easily defi ned features, like its colour and its location, it’s made up of the feelings it evokes in people. Each individual will feel something different about the brand according to personal experience, and this is something a brand owner can’t control.

However you should still give it your best shot. As the brand owner, it’s your responsibility to infl uence the way people think about your brand, and you do that by taking care of each experience your customers have when they come into contact with the organisation. Dividing a brand into positioning and personality comes from an excellent academic book, Branding In Action, by Graham Hankinson and Philippa Cowking.

When they talk about positioning, they mean where your brands fi t compared with all the others you compete with. Where do you fi t in the price versus quality scale? And what do people use your brand for?

With personality, Hankinson & Cowking’s book includes things that you defi nitely control, like the typeface you use your corporate colours your logo, where you’re based, where people come into contact with you.

Personality is also made up of perceptions which are much more diffi cult to pin down. How do people see you? Are you traditional or modern? Are you safe or risky? Do people think you’re really good value or cheap? Do people think your excellent quality or way too expensive, or both?

When you know what’s at the heart of your brand, it can help to defi ne what you should do next.

In practice • Look at your brand positioning. On the price scale, where do you fi t among the brands you compete with? • Looking at “usage”, what Hankinson & Cowking mean is when, where, why and how people would choose your brand rather than an alternative one. If people want a cup of coffee would they choose a different brand at home, from when they buy a takeaway or when they go with a friend for a chat. What do your customers use you for? Where you fi t into the market compared with your competitors? How can you increase your chances of being the one they choose? • As for your personality, list the words you think people would use to defi ne your brand’s identity if it were a person.