What is a “Brand?”

Originally, “brand” was short for “brand equity,” meaning, the additional increase in a company’s sale price that is attributable to the company’s name.

The phrase came into being in 1988 when Phillip Morris purchased Kraft Foods for four times the company’s book value. Kraft commanded the premium price because its president knew that any new product bearing the Kraft name would fair better in the market place than the same product bearing another company’s name. http://tiny.cc/vhrP7

After that landmark sale, “building your brand” became a marketing focus.

A brand represents the reputation of a company—its fairness, honesty, respect, quality, helpfulness and integrity—in every aspect of its contact with the public (and in today’s transparent world, its employees). Everything counts, from a smile on a clerk’s face to the amount of quality testing before a product is shipped.

The value of a company’s name is inextricably link to its logo. While a company with enormous brand equity usually has a readily recognizable logo, a slick logo does not make a valuable brand.

Today, many marketing companies tout “branding” as the creation of a new, dazzling logo, advertising campaign, social media campaign, etc. And, indeed, it is all that, but true “branding” is much, much more.