Is it a business… or a brand?

Once upon a time, "branding" was what ranchers did to cattle and horses. Later it was co-opted by the advertising industry. But today, as David Lemley, president and chief brand strategist of Lemley Design, wryly noted, "the term 'branding' sits in the pot with all the other buzzwords." In his contribution to a book titled Design Thinking: Integrating Innovation, Customer Experience, and Brand Value (edited by Thomas Lockwood), Lemley wrote that he is weary of hearing the word "branding" thrown around everywhere. "The pinnacle of oversaturation," he observed, "had to be when Tom Peters wrote The Brand You."

The Brand You actually came out in the late 1990s, but countless other branding books - and experts - followed over the next decade, and these days you can't pick up a business magazine or click on a business-focused website without encountering a branding guru who is willing to help you take your business to "the next level." There's also no shortage of advice for people who are gamely working to "brand" themselves in order to stand out from the crowd, as Tom Peters advised way back when. "Now," wrote David Lemley, "we live amid a marching mass of billions of branded bipeds... when did [branding] become so ubiquitous and meaningless?"

Wry observations aside, branding is profoundly relevant to business owners. Even if you're a sole proprietor and have no interest in becoming a huge international corporation, you need to brand if you hope to compete. And unless you are the only provider in a tiny niche industry, you do have competition. Branding is crucial for promoting sales and creating customer loyalty, and can even empower you to command a higher price for your product or service.

In view of that, a strong brand is one of the most critical assets you can develop for your business. But a brand is more than an elegant logo, a catchy tag line, or a cute mascot. A brand is the sum total of all you do, representing not merely the products you sell or the services you offer, but the value you provide and even the values you hold dear. Your brand communicates to customers all of the ways you're different from the competition. A strong brand instills consumer confidence, and confidence translates to sales.

A few years ago, author and branding consultant Karen Post, aka The Branding Diva ®, came up with the idea of branding as a "brain tattoo," and wrote a book called Brain Tattoos, Creating Unique Brands that Stick to your Customers' Minds. Her premise is simple: Branding is like a mental imprint, like a tattoo on the mind of your market. But it's not a permanent tattoo; as Post says, "Tattoos are elected and can be removed."

Whether you want to use the tattoo metaphor or not, a strong brand is something that sticks in your customers' minds. Here are a few branding points to keep in mind whether you're just starting out in your business, or have an established business that just isn't growing as you think it should.

• Define (or re-define) your market. To begin with, you can't be everything to everybody, so don't even try. Conversely, is it possible that your product or service might appeal to more than the niche market you originally had in mind? Figuring out your target audience is the first step to building or strengthening a brand that will truly appeal to that market.


• Define your mission and values, and stick to them. You've probably heard this one before, and if you're somewhat of a cynic (or just a "Dilbert" fan), you may think that crafting a mission and vision statement is a waste of time. But a concrete mission statement that directly relates to your business and actively affects how you do that business can be enormously helpful on several levels. And since you probably won't be very successful if your business isn't consistent with your values, it's good to define those too from the get-go. You don't need to hire an expensive consultant to draft a mission and value statement. Nor do you have to wave your mission and value statements around like a banner. You don't even have to use them in your marketing material. (If they're assertively applied, your customers will notice, anyway.) Those statements can be your secret allies, if you wish. The important point is that defining your mission and your values can provide a solid basis for the message you wish to convey through your brand, while keeping you on track as your business grows.


• Be different. Everyone and his uncle claims to offer great quality or unparalleled customer service. You have to go beyond that to seek out and exploit your points of difference. As the Sloan Brothers on the Startup Nation Web site write, "A point of difference can include a visual symbol, story, color scheme, proprietary process or product, historic milestone, physical characteristic, or combination of several of these." And give your brand a "personality." What human-like characteristics does your brand have? Brand consultant Karen Post suggests that you think of your brand as a person you're introducing to a single friend. Is your brand playful, confident, sexy, fun? Be creative, but don't be inconsistent with your purpose. For example, if you're a tax accountant, "sexy" or "fun" probably aren't appropriate. Honesty, reliability, and integrity, however, are. And one more point: Just because a gimmick worked as a brand-builder for that over- caffeinated furniture store owner or the "crazy" car dealer, this doesn't mean it will work for you - especially if you're not selling furniture or cars. Remember the three magic words: Be. Your. Self.


• Appeal to emotions as well as logic. . More than likely, it will be emotional appeal that initially attracts people to your brand. Of course you have to back up that emotional draw with real value, and it's been pretty well established that people do use logic to justify their purchases. But without emotional reinforcement your brand probably won't stick in your customers' brains, at least not for very long. Here's where a powerful "story" or cute mascot can play a role. Just make sure the story is genuine (and that you stick to it consistently), and the mascot is appropriate for your market.


• Take care in creating your brand name. Make sure it is consistent with the image you're trying to convey and that they will resonate with your target market. A name isn't everything, but it's an important building block for a lasting brand. Don't make it bland and generic, but don't make it too obscure either. Your company name should support your strategies for positioning your business in the marketplace. There's no foolproof method for coming up with the perfect name; you can spend thousands on market research, or you can test the name with a few colleagues and potential clients, but in the end, of course, it's your choice. Do try to avoid names that are hard to pronounce or spell, or that could have a negative connotation. And be sure to research name availability so you won't step on any trademark toes.


• Take care in creating your logo. Your logo will be the most memorable visual image of your company. It will be used on both print and online media, so it needs to look good on everything from business cards to signs, photocopies to business stationery, and your Web site to a T-shirt. It should, of course, be congruent with the image you want to convey about your company to the world. A logo for a business consulting firm will probably look a lot different from that for a line of aromatherapy products. Your logo should be memorable and simple. You don't have to make it a four-color job; some of the most striking logos are one- or two-color, which will certainly save you on printing costs.


• Avoid brand confusion. Make sure your logo, tag lines, service marks, and the general "look and feel" of your Web sites and promotional material are uniquely yours and don't resemble those of another established company. If that other company is big enough, sooner or later they will probably send their mighty legal team to crush you. If you try to fight them you will almost certainly end up spending money you don't have, and in the end you will have to change your company name or your logo or your advertising... in short, it's better to get it right the first time.


• Create a demand for your brand. This one is almost worthy of a whole separate article. Effective advertising and marketing help create demand, of course, but the real key is to build a great customer experience by delivering on your promises.


• Don't be afraid to "re-brand" if what you're doing isn't working. Companies re-invent themselves all the time. But that too is worthy of a separate article... so stay tuned.

In his essay for the book Design Thinking, the real point that David Lemley - the guy who was so sick of all the branding talk - was trying to make was not that branding is useless. Rather, his point was that all of the efforts devoted to logo design, color palette, and so forth are meaningless if a company fails to deliver on its promises. In the end, creating a brand that people love boils down to promoting good values as well as creating good value.

Overused buzzword or not, branding is important, and will remain so long after the buzzword creators find new words to describe all the ways in which a business builds and maintains its presence in the marketplace. Make sure that everything you create - whether it's a product, a service, an event, or promotional material for any of the above -polishes rather than tarnishes your brand.