Some thoughts on branding.
Products are made in the factory, but brands are created in the mind – Walter Landor
And former P&G executive, Robert Blanchard, wrote this:
A brand is the ‘personification of a product, service, or even an entire company.’
Like any person, a brand has a physical ‘body’: in P&G’s case, the products and/or services it provides. Also, like a person, a brand has a name, a personality, character and a reputation.
Like a person, you can respect, like and even love a brand. You can think of it as a deep personal friend, or merely an acquaintance. You can view it as dependable or undependable; principled or opportunistic; caring or capricious. Just as you like to be around certain people and not others, so also do you like to be with certain brands and not others.
Also, like a person, a brand must mature and change its product over time. But its character, and core beliefs shouldn’t change. Neither should its fundamental personality and outlook on life.
People have character…so do brands. A person’s character flows from his/her integrity: the ability to deliver under pressure, the willingness to do what is right rather than what is expedient. You judge a person’s character by his/her past performance and the way he/she thinks and acts in both good times, and especially bad.
The same are true of brands.”
It’s late. I need to get up in five hours’ time. But I hope to post more on this topic which I’d not known much about before. It’s good to know what you don’t know. For me, this would be A LOT.
