Welcome back to our Branding Guide for those of you that missed our introductory post you can find it here: Branding Guide - Introduction
Today we are going to be talking about the definition of Branding – what a brand actually is.

There are many definitions available to describe brands and branding, though most of them are too vague and many of them are inaccurate.

In order to help clarify a few important things about what a brand is, let us refer to a previous post where we explained exactly what a brand is NOT:

A brand is Not:
•    A logo, a name, symbol, typography, or a unique palette of colours
•    A brand is not packaging or any other set of identity and as such cannot be created for you by a Graphic Design Agency.
•    A brand is not an identity system such as trademarks or trade dress elements
•    a brand is not ‘a product
•    and last but not least a brand is certainly not advertising

So then what exactly is a brand?

A brand is a set of interactive elements that individually, in their own right are critical to the success of a business, and collectively are critical to the long term growth & sustainability of an organisation.

A brand lives in the heart and mind of the consumer, when a brand is built and managed  correctly, it cannot be easily replaced by an alternative.  A brand is long term it is something that evolves and develops over a period of time, it is not something that can be quickly created or assembled over days, weeks or months for that matter.

Brands characterise and symbolise an organisation, its employees and the organisations products and services.

Brands help to forge a promise around the experience that a person can expect to encounter by engaging a particular brand.

Brands provide an emotional connection between a customer or prospective customer and the branded entity be it a product, service, organisation or person.

Don’t forget to join us for our next post of the Branding Guide where we will be talking about the benefits of Branding.

Brand Art – Fresh ideas Grow business™