Branding – Pulse Creative
Marketing companies are often approached with the task of “creating a brand” for a company. Usually, this is followed up with a list of things that are perceived as the core of a company’s brand identity: a logo, letterhead, web site, business cards, etc.
What businesses often forget is that in truth, they already have a brand. What they really need is a way to control, nurture, grow and direct that brand so that it works for them.
The impression your brand makes begins the split-second that someone is introduced to your company. This could happen in a myriad of ways, from hearing your name, seeing an ad, speaking with a sales person, etc.; But the second that first impression is made, your audience will begin creating their own impression of who you are, what you do and why you do it. Brands are subjective. They are established through associations and interpretation. Brands are established with a smile or a scowl, a handshake or e-mail, a business card or a passing mention. In short, a brand is the way someone feels when they think about your company and the way they think about your company when they think about the service you provide.
When going through a “brand re-alignment”, what a company is really looking for are new tools in order to direct the company’s influence on the hearts and minds of their audience. Logos, letterheads and business cards are some of the obvious tools that can be used to create or modify that influence, but they are far from being the end all and be all of branding tools.
Global brand consultancy company Interbrand (http://www.interbrand.com) measures the brand strength of the world’s top companies. They use the following criteria as a basis for their results:
| Recognition | How familiar the public is with a business and it’s brand elements? |
| Consistency | How is the brand used throughout a cross section of marketing strategies? |
| Emotion | The extent to which the public has a connection to your brand. |
| Uniqueness | How well does your brand stand out within it’s industry? |
| Adaptability | How flexible is your brand to the changing needs of your industry? |
| Management | The care with which the brand and its image are managed over time. |
http://www.webs.com/blog/2013/06/05/small-business-branding-101-what-is-a-brand-anyway/)
The core of any brand is attitude, and it is often the most difficult to control. Attitude is established within the business itself. It is the way you deal with your customers, clients and partners. Attitude is the faith you and your employees place in your own product or service, the passion, or lack thereof of your industry and your level of desire to improve it. These elements begin establishing themselves before your company even begins, and mistakes made early can follow you for a long time if they are not nurtured correctly.
In short, when a company asks us to create a brand for them, what we tell them is that, “it’s you who creates the brand, but we will work with you to guide your image so that everything falls in line with your core values and needs.”