What is a Brand? 5 definitions.

The Mark

Brands are the pillars of modern capitalism, they are symbol of ownership. To “Brand” something means to mark with a branding iron. And this is what we are doing when working with Brands, we take the mark, and mark it deeply with a Sizzling Hot Iron🥵 onto our products, ads and then into the minds of our buyers.

We get marked by brands around us like this all day, when we go to the shop, when we are mindlessly scrolling on our phones, and not only brands, a whole lots of other things. The promotion of Brands is called Marketing for a reason.

A Brand is an imprint that symbolize ownership and credit, marking the essence of a product, service, or organization. We’ll call this the Brand Mark. Except that today, we are the livestock. Makes you think doesn't it?

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✍️ Next steps

• What is the “Brand Mark” that you want your buyer to remember about your Brand?
  

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Owning an Idea, a Message, a Story

The first denominator of a Brand is obviously, its own name.

A brand is a Name or Symbol that reminds you of a Story.

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“Louis Vuitton was born in 1821 to a modest family in rural France. Orphaned young, he journeyed to Paris on foot at 13, taking on odd jobs to survive.

He apprenticed under a renowned trunk-maker, mastering the craft. Despite his humble beginnings, Vuitton's dedication and skill earned him the favor of Parisian elites.

In 1854, he founded his own brand, revolutionizing travel with his innovative flat-topped trunks. From a struggling boy to the creator of a global luxury empire, Louis Vuitton's story is one of perseverance and innovation.”

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The Essence of Brand Stories

This story can be a simple narrative or can be rooted in myths and symbols.

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• Elevate your status
• Make you feel something
• Make you think
• Make you believe
• Make you belong
• Trigger your imagination.

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A Brand is name associated with a story, and within itself an associations of symbols. Brands are intrinsically created by associations because associations is how we learn. Branding is created and learned from the repeated exposure of those associations.

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A really good story leave you changed

The Story Offer.

1. Setback: Struggle / Problem
2. Promise: Change / Transformation
3. Delivery: New Result

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This transformation start with the brand tension, then the promise, where buyers can hope for future benefits: tangible and intangible advantages the buyers can gain from the brand.

So Brands make promises, keep promises and have to deliver on their promises, leaving us transformed by the experience, no matter how small the experience is. This is how Brands add value to our lives.

We easily experience and attach the experience with this imprint, allowing us to make sense of the world. It doesn’t matter how much the experience is real, as far as it is believed collectively.
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The Philosophical Stone of Branding

The must important  job of a brand is fulfilling on the promise based on your Value Proposition, a clear statement that explains how a product or service solves a problem, delivers specific benefits, and distinguishes itself from competitors. If the brand doesn’t deliver, they’re toasted, trust disappear and they lose buyers.

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✍️ Next steps

• What is the setback, Struggle or Problem your Brand is trying to solve?

• What is your Brand promise about? Write your idea.

• What does your Brand deliver?

• Write your Vale Proposition. Does it relate to your Brank Mark?. Work it out, go back up if needed.

Collectively Perceived association of Value

Those associations are made with culturally constructed meanings of value: That’s because people decide what things are important or valuable to them based on what their culture or society told them. So we learn what things are valuable or special from the people and culture around us.

A Brand make associations relevant and meaningful in the context of You buying something of symbolic value.

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A Brand is an entity, a communication device that encompass a system of meanings that either influence or is influenced by culture and society, and that meaning is projected and interpreted by their audience.

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✍️ Ask yourself

• Identify the Associations that your Brand makes

• Identify the Symbolic Value of your Product or Services

• Identify the Projections, Beliefs an Interpretations of those associations.

Brands appear as mentally constructed systems in our mind. A system consist in parts and wholes:

Products are different than Brands but can be a brand and so on: a Product can be be a included within of the brand, have their on brands within brands etc... Products usually becomes brands when their availability require direct and sole recognition, for their presence in supermarket for example. For the sake of simplicity, we’ll use the term “Product” for services too.

You can easily identify the structure some Brands use for their products. If you're working on a Brand Product you may think about, create or establish this structure. We won’t dive too deep into the construction of those systems.

Just remember that the most successful brands organize products in your mind in a way that is clear and memorable.

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✍️ Ask yourself

• Draft a quick structure between your Brand and your Products, see how everything fits together. Is your brand one product? Single or with variations? Does your Brand have subset of other brands?

A brand is an artificially constructed signal of value, associated with a narrative.

Brand Value = Narrative*(Perceived Quality + Emotional Connection + Trust)

This narrative define, create and amplify the value of the perceived quality, of the emotional connection, and how much trust the brand is worth.

A Brand is a reminder of associated ideas that bring value and transform something.

Brands needs to have a pretty clear Value Proposition in the mind of their buyers. They are the beacon, the symbol, that signal and represent the business associated with them:

Real people, creating values through products and services.‍