Branding
Branding, also called brand development, is the process of positioning a person, a product or service, an organisation, a place or space in the market by carving out your own place in that market. It involves giving careful thought to a brand strategy on how you will reach your goals. This leads to creating your brand’s name (your verbal identity), designing corporate identity or product identity (your visual identity) and writing brand messaging (verbal and written tone). This will be in line with a setting of brand standards which allows you to keep your brand consistent and strong.
So, branding is not actually things such as a logo, advertising, corporate identity or marketing. Rather it’s things like confidence, passion, personality, belonging, security and a set of unique values.
When branding is completed in a professional way, the branding process will probably not have to be undertaken for roughly 10 to 20 or more years (Hobkirk, 2012).
WHAT BRANDING IS NOT
Advertising: Some businesses call advertising branding (which is not even close). Branding is about defining, while advertising is about promoting (Hobkirk, 2012).
Brand: Others even use branding and brand as interchangeable words. Branding is not Brand (Hobkirk, 2012).
Branding (verb) = Creating a Brand vs Brand (noun) = Marketing Tool
Brand Identity: There are also others, when referring to a brand identity such as logo, colour, etc, who use the term ‘branding’. What they actually mean is ‘brand identity’. This mistake is more often used by graphic designers. The fact that many graphic designers don’t know what branding is or how to accurately describe it, makes matters worse, particularly because businesspeople expect them to know. Some designers use brand and branding interchangeably, reinforcing confusion instead of providing clarity (Hobkirk, 2012).
REFERENCES:
- Hobkirk, K., ( 2012) The important differences between brands and branding [Online] Available: http://trainofthought.net/branding/the-differences-between-brands-and-branding-355/ [Accessed: 20 October 2018].
