What You Need to Know About Branding

•  
  richgoidel10/09/08 Report as spam
  1

  RE: What You Need to Know About Branding

  Excellent toe dip into the marketing pond.
  
  I'll agree with Bob Pittman's statement on the Coke brand, it's one of (if not the) most recognized in the world, certainly well-liked. A producer at Coca-Cola once told me about a study that found people at late night, empty gas stations and convenience stores feel safer simply if there's a Coke machine there.
  
  I must argue against Microsoft "winning" based on its brand, however. Everyone I know treats MS as kind of a necessary evil. Apple is viewed in a much better light. I think MS wins with an overpowering monopoly, not its brand. Just one man's opinion.

•  
  Shanison10/09/08 Report as spam
  2

  RE: What You Need to Know About Branding

  Coke doesn't have much different with Pepsi. It wins at Branding. But consider about MS and other OS out there, there is a big different among them. So personally i think MS wins not in branding, but relies really much on it's product differentiatoin. Or maybe as mattathias said, it wins at monopoly.

•  
  susan@...10/09/08 Report as spam
  3

  RE: What You Need to Know About Branding

  Thanks for the article. Interesting misspelling of "symantics" for a branding discussion. Does it mean Norton Antivirus (Symantec) is better at branding than Jacques Derrida?

•  
  randy1429creative10/09/08 Report as spam
  4

  RE: What You Need to Know About Branding

  SAID: "It???s the sum total of many things, including product features, quality and reliability, customer service, even executive presentations. It goes way beyond marketing, PR, ad campaigns, and websites."
  
  I'm not sure I understand how branding can go "way beyond marketing" - I can see it going beyond PR, ads, websites - but I would argue that marketing is the big daddy, the overarching discipline. Branding is a subset of the marketing strategy of your business. I would have put "sales" in place of your word "marketing" in that sentence.

•  
  JoshReeve10/09/08 Report as spam
  5

  RE: What You Need to Know About Branding

  reply to point 4:
  
  Yes its both and the same randy1429creative.
  
  Branding should really be the forefront of any marketing strategy, sales strategy ect...
  
  The Brand is the most valuable intangible component of any company. It embodies what the company stands for, its the constant in all the variables developed by strategy and time.
  
  A strong brand can even take companies beyond bankruptcy such brands as a well known Australian fashion company (prefer not to say who it is right now), gone through three owners over a number of years, bad management has caused this, however the brand still lives on.
  
  an Effective brand such as Microsoft, Google, Coke or even Boeing will overcome major commercial battles. US brands to look at in the future will be the two major banks that just crumpled or Lehman Bros. lets see how their brand will drive security in the future.

•  
  ast94110/09/08 Report as spam
  6

  RE: What You Need to Know About Branding

  SAID: "I'm not sure I understand how branding can go "way beyond marketing"
  
  The author states that branding = brand reputation. Anything a company does can affect its reputation. 0800 customer service experience (which is not pure marketing), the way an employee behaves, the vision/values of the company - remember "do no evil"? Everything a company does, is responsible for helping create an image of the brand in the customers mind, not just marketing.

•  
  null10/09/08 Report as spam
  7

  RE: What You Need to Know About Branding

  The best quote on Branding I ever heard was "Good branding is a promise well kept". I think it illustrates the link between customer expectations and customer experiences. When an organisations branding strategy is working there is a good expectation and a good experience - be it an ad, a sales expereince or even how a complaint was dealt with.

•  
  kellylef10/10/08 Report as spam
  8

  RE: What You Need to Know About Branding

  I have always looked at sales as generating revenue, marketing as generating leads, and branding as the dialog to be communicated.

•  
  babacita10/10/08 Report as spam
  9

  RE: What You Need to Know About Branding

  Great article! It really rings true, then taking it to the next level, how is your brand communicated through each and every customer touchpoint.

•  
  Richard M.11/13/08 Report as spam
  10

  RE: What You Need to Know About Branding

  I like this. Short, to-the-point and in a language we can all use to relate to what it is that branding should really try to achieve ... or better yet what a company really should focus on when thinking about branding.

•  
  Just Once12/08/08 Report as spam
  11

  RE: What You Need to Know About Branding

  One of the important feature to branding is signage. Having worked in the sign industry (illuminated wall/pylon/directional style signs) for the last 21 years has shown me that if the sign isn't there - too small - lacking style and appeal, the store is soon closed - changing the branding too often can be just as deadly - People want to relate a sign on the storefront with the product they are searching for. Just another side to 'branding'.

•  
  owebeewan_101/20/09 Report as spam
  12

  RE: What You Need to Know About Branding

  Hey,
  
  I like the article.
  
  Branding is basically everything about, inside and outside your organisation rolled into one experience had by 1 person who had some contact with your organisation.
  
  Its just that simple and that difficult.

•  
  bronwen9201/22/09 Report as spam
  13

  RE: What You Need to Know About Branding

  owebeewan has it right, i think. marketing, promotion, publicity, even window displays are all part of one branding package.
  
  when i was media coordinator for a small canadian university, i generated $2.5 million+/year in free publicity for the institution, at a cost of one employee vs five employees buying $1.5 million in advertising, and what's more, publicity in the form of news articles has more credibility than paid advertising.
  
  i expect with the downturn, everyone's going to have to get smarter about cheap and free branding strategies.

•  
  joshiwin11/19/09 Report as spam
  14

  re:what you need to know

  branding is the story that the customer gets from your company, so good story good branding.