This article explores my understanding and definition of branding.
My preferred definition of a brand is: the persona of the company in the mind of the consumer.
Branding is the process used to influence the image of the company. As it’s a process of influence and not a process of
The branding,
My understand of brands is an evolution of how I understand companies. Like the many things Yuval Noah Harari explores in his book Sapiens, Companies form a part of the shared myth of todays society. But clues of its real nature can be found in its genesis.
The words that give this myth power have been inscribed in Our shared constitution, under Companies Act, 2013 of the Indian Constitution. … A company may be defined as “an incorporated association which is an artificial person, having a separate legal entity, with a perpetual succession, a common seal, a common capital compromised of transferable shares and limited liability.
As can see the company has been defined as an artificial person. The law gives it the power to interact and partake in business the way a normal individual would. But just because the law says so doesn’t mean people will behave so.
Human interaction is complex and has developed over millenniums, It doesn’t mold itself well to interacting with “Artificial persons”. and as any person who has run a half successful business would tell you, at the end of it all it comes down to people and building meaningful relationships with them.
So if business is about building meaningful relationships and the complex human interaction system in place make it difficult for us build one with false entities, we have a paradox.
A paradox which is being explored for centuries under the study of marketing. each method an effort to try and help facilitate this interaction and bond with the end goal always being to make a commercial transaction.
Initially simple methods worked such as getting the information out about the product and as slowly industry and competition evolved and products that had started of as distinct had evolved into more similar pieces. Brands evolved companies started creating creative messaging campaigns around products. some humorous, some serious. And by design or by fluke the development of the brand Image.
A sort of mental image of what the brand personality is like.
As marketeers and companies became more aware of it, an attempt was made to craft the image to best serve the cause of the company and to maximize sales. Soon companies were casting celebrities whose personality matched the one they were trying to build. This is a sort of celebrity by association the. An attempt at A man is known by the company he keeps.
Soon brands became a viable stream of income for celebrities and as they endorsed more brand diluted their personality with each association. As the fad of celebrity endorsement reduced.
For a long time brand relied on their visual communication to enforce their personality. everything from the type on the packaging to the point of sale display boards, every piece was carefully strategised to communicate a singular personality.
The recognition of what personality has already been formed and what is the personality the company needs to create to achieve its future goals is called branding.
branding makes use of various mediums to convey the personality. preferably all mediums available. Some of the key mediums available today are, visuals, auditory, and kineaesthetic. And this list will only expand further as technology allows for interaction with more senses.
The goal of branding slightly differs from that of the company. almost like the goals of a person aren't completely conveyed in their personality. their personality is just the interface for other humans to encounter their being. But the goals of the person can be varied according to situation and does change overtime. But just like general human interactions, people associate with people they share commonalities with.
And what makes them unique is far more important than what makes it a part of the crowed.
One of the simplest methods I know of to understand a companies personality is to associate it with a character I have seen on film or TV. Actors craft their characters with a lot of depth and unlike companies we get a visual representation of that the character looks like and behaves like. Visual cues like the general appearance, distinctive features and clothes, style and colour help understand the visual scape of the brand. Their voice the modulation, speech patterns and even vocabulary help determine the auditory aspects and the body language and movement help understand the kinesthetics of the brand.
often a single character isn’t viable and needs an amalgamation of different characters. In my practice I tend to limit it to 3 as more personalities than that can make the personality overly complex and contradictory.
Try this yourself take a take a famous brand of your choice and try picking characters you have seen in film that can fit that personality.