Jul 16, '20
Everything a brand can be today.
Is there a reason that people are finding it difficult to define the concept of branding? Is it because of its vast scope?
This also gives rise to a question, can everything be branded?
There have been claims by exaggerating content writers who will claim, “Everything is branding”, “A brand is everything you do”, and “Your brand is everything”. While there is some weight to the latter, what started out with further exploration of packaging design with the industrial revolution, personification of an idea can roughly fall under the umbrella of what can be branded.
As a branding studio, we receive ‘leads’ as the sales team calls it from all walks of business- a product, a service, an app, a celebrity, a city, a utility, an event, a sports team, even a film.
Your ethos, values, mission, vision, strategy, marketing, identity, everything can be crafted to have a projection in the consumer’s mind to be something more real than just a company in the business of making money. When you, as an enterprise, believe in something, people who resonate will follow and in extreme cases like that of Apple Inc., you might be successful in creating a cult out of your provision. Imagine it like the personification of something intangible. And this person’s personality is designed and strategized to be friends with a huge number of people. A friend that you know, believe in, and trust. An experience will be engineered in a creative studio. That is branding oversimplified for you.
Unlike marketing, branding doesn’t have a clear definition, it doesn’t have the 7P’s. Al and Laura Ries have tried to come close to a set of defined rules, or “The 22 immutable laws of branding”, but they couldn’t be set in stone like the 10 commandments. They had to write a book on it to dig deeper, give detailed reasoning and explanation to each law.
At the end of the day, what branding does today is something very simple and equally effective. We are living in times of over-saturation, overpopulation, over-stimulation with information, and almost an unending number of choices whenever we want to make a purchase. Of course, many brands have been successful in creating brands strong enough to become the first world in the consumer’s mind when they think of that product or service. But as a brand that is starting out, your goal is differentiation from the rest, a unique positioning for consumers to resonate to, and at least not turn a blind eye to what you want to communicate.
We commonly use words like ‘On brand’ in modern communication, to depict something or someone who partakes in an activity that is so… ‘them’. Every individual is different, no matter how hard we try to put everything in boxes with star signs, and personality types. There will be something that will set you apart and if life is something, it is finding what makes you, you, your identity and later on other conquests of questions you have in life. The life of a brand, no matter how timeless it’s identity is, will change, will grow and expand into different territories, horizons and will explore the ‘why’ of its existence even further.
The way we brand is changing, drastically too. We have multiple mediums and within mediums we have a superlative amount of platforms. Presence on all doesn’t matter as much as an impactful presence on at least one does. People are willing to find you and listen to you if you are saying something worth. A brand can’t be everything to everyone. But for the group of people that it will be something, loyalty will be achieved.
So yes, maybe everything can be branded. Maybe, everything you do contributes to your brand. Even if branding is personification, today people branding and celebrity branding is very popular among PR agencies. How strong a brand is will determine a whole path that could alter paths affected by minor decisions. What you believe in doesn’t matter- you will get an audience even if your opinions fall on a negative side of the spectrum. It is important to believe in something. If you are going to exist, at least have a meaningful existence?
What is stopping you from reaching your deserved potential? No matter what business you are in, branding can work wonders for your enterprise. Let us tell you how over a call.
— by Manas, Content Strategist, Slangbusters Studio
