When thinking about branding, most immediately think of logos. However, logos are merely symbols of the brand, not the brand itself. So what exactly does a brand encompass? A brand is in part personality, culture, and community. Whether a company is service-based or product based their brand is also defined by what they don’t sell as much by what they do sell.
Even so, this only explains or defines a company’s outward interaction with the general public. All of these same criteria also have to be looked at from within the organization as well. What I mean is, what is it like to work there? Are the conditions of employment, the relationship of the employee to their employer similar to a company’s outward personality? Conversely, does the business put forth a public face very different from its private one?
When I began a brand strategy, my first instinct is to see if the group’s leadership has already crafted relationships that are somewhat consistent in how they relate to their associates and customers.
If the company is remarkably inconsistent in how they do this, the objective is to begin to bring those two faces together in hopes of creating a more real personality for the organization. Then we can we begin to craft a mark or logo that truly symbolizes who and what they are. Anything else is a mere costume.
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