Frequently asked branding questions

Question: Does every company need to brand itself and its products?

Answer: Frankly, the answer to this question depends on whether or not you want customers to identify your product with something they will remember. Brands are nothing more than a set of associations that, if properly communicated, will result in potential customers associating a message with the product.

A good example is Intel. Prior to launching their Pentium campaign back in the early 90's, their microprocessors were known by a number and letter (e.g., 386 or x86). This meant little to most people other than numbers. The Pentium name, communicated to mean performance and compatibility, now meant something to people. Realize that the microprocessor is embedded inside a product, so now people really knew about something that literally meant nothing to them before and was invisible.

This was not the first time this had been done (Stainmaster and Teflon are other examples), but the point remains the same. A brand name can communicate something important to customers even if they can't see the product or if, in reality, the products are commodities (like bananas, cranberries, and chickens which all have been successfully branded).

Question: Does the term "branding" mean anything more than just making the consumers aware of a brand name?

Answer: The textbook definition of “branding” is “researching, developing, and implementing brand names, brand marks, trade characters, and trademarks.”
Over the years, practitioners and academicians have elaborated on the strategic implications of branding – perhaps starting with the work of David Aaker in “brand equity.” Since then, authors have talked about brands as “assets” that must be strategically managed (see, for example Scott Davis (2000) “Brand Asset Management.” Jossey-Bass Inc., Publishers. San Francisco, CA).

Question: What is a brand?

Answer: This is a concept that is confusing to many people. Here is a straightforward and simple but accurate definition:

A brand is simply a set of associations that is linked to a product or company namethat resides in consumers' memory help them understand what the brand or company is. Why it is potentially relevant to them. How it is different or similar to other products made by the firm. How it is similar or different from competitor's products.

Question: What messages are most important to communicate?

Answer: Unless you want to be in a commodity market, you need to be able to differentiate your offering from the rest of the market. You need to make your message stand out from the noise. Maybe you really do have a better mouse trap — is that clear from your messages?