branding

Religion is the branding of spirituality.

Brand inside is more important than brand outside for sustained success.

If I lost control of the business I'd lose myself--or at least the ability to be myself. Owning myself is a way to be myself.

Branding is no longer for Fortune 500 companies and Madison Avenue agencies with excessive budgets and inadequate tracking.

Personal branding is about managing your name — even if you don’t own a business — in a world of misinformation, disinformation, and semi-permanent Google records.

Going on a date? Chances are that your “blind” date has Googled your name.

Going to a job interview? Ditto.

Much literature has been written on branding. 

But what is a brand?  Can you define it in just 6 words?

No, it is not Nike’s “swoop.”  It is not McDonald’s “I’m Lovin’ It” jingle.  It is not Accenture’s Tiger Woods ads.  It is not the design of my website or my “Unconventional Thinking” tag line.

Erik Hansen, Tom Peters’ brand manager (and a good friend of mine), said it quite eloquently.  A brand is… “what your customers say it is.” 

What is great about this definition is that it gives you direct access to changing your brand.  To change your brand you must change your customers’ perceptions and experiences.  No logo or advertising campaign has ever done this.

Being happy at your job is success. If you’re not happy with your job, then build a brand that reflects who you are and be recruited or start a company based on that.

More than a name, logo or "iconic" CEO, a brand is a place in the heart where employees, investors, suppliers--and Conscious Consumers--meet to tell a company's story, says brand guru Elsie Maio. "When brand reveals authenticity, values and humanity's drive towards consciousness, it's a powerful strategic advantage."

Cult brands aren't just companies with products or services to sell. To many of their followers, they are living, breathing surrogate family filled with like-minded individuals. They are a support group that just happens to sell products or services. Picture a cult brand in this context, and you'll have a much better understanding of why these brands all have such high customer loyalty and devoted followers.

At their core, cult brands are always fun. They make us happy. They uplift our spirits. They cheer us up when we're down and give us confidence. They help us enjoy life. They not only make us feel better about ourselves, they also give us a temporary escape from the drudgery of everyday life.

Mass marketing may be going the way of the dinosaur, but we would never suggest the principle of branding is on its deathbed. The need to establish and sustain name recognition and associative benefits will always be part of the competent marketer's stock in trade. However, the complex and interconnected relationships between emerging media and the information they now make available mean that name recognition and associations alone are insufficient. Increasingly, customers are associating brand not with a message but with their entire experience surrounding the product or service.

In other words, branding is now more about what you do than what you say.