I just finished reading two great books on branding, The Brand Gap and Zag. The book's author Marty Neumeier is president of San Francisco based Neutron, a brand consulting firm. I highly recommend these two books to anyone involved in marketing or running a company. I have already been able to apply some of their teachings into my work with our client's marketing strategies. The first thing that Neumeier lays to rest is the idea that a brand is a logo. Ok, sure. A brand is obviously much more than just a logo. However, Marty goes on to state that a brand is also not a comprehensive corporate identity system, and not even a company's product. Ok, well it's got to be the personality of a company's product, right? Nope. His definition of a brand is:
A person's perception of a product, service, experience, or organization.
Basically he says your company's brand isn't what you say it is - it's what they say it is. Your brand is defined by the consumer’s intuitive "get feeling" about your product. It's the difference between your personality and your reputation.
Now, I know that the term "brand" is a pretty broad word, everyone has their own meaning and uses it in a different way. However, I really like how Neumeier describes the term. While it requires me to change the way I use the term, I am going to adopt his meaning. By doing so we can define branding as:
The process of shaping a person's perception of a product, service, experience, or organization.
Perfect—that is what we have been doing all along!
Jeff
Apr 10, 2008
Banks:
How do you convey this to a client. One of my biggest, gut wrenching, issues as a practitioner of Design is client “ignorance.” Plus, once you begin to try and explain things such as the quotes above, many automatically just classify what you’re saying as “fluff” and then eventually get back to… “Well, how much will a logo cost me? My cousin said $50.”
I guess an extension of my question would be… How do we all, (Designers, Marketing etc), change this “buzz word” mentality with the general public?
Banks
Apr 12, 2008
Jeff,
Potential clients often come to us with a very specific requests (logo, website, brochure, etc). However, part of our early design process is to understand what our clients goals are and then work with them determine what they “actually” need to meet those goals. Generally this process includes some time being spent on education. It’s important for us to be on the same page with our clients and that they not only understand, but believe in what we are saying. An example of this education could be explaining the difference between branding and logo design.
Successful design firm / client relationships requires trust. Any client that thought we were selling “fluff” would not be a great fit. I know that trust is earned not given - I’m as skeptical as they come. Why should I believe what this slick salesman is selling. I get it. So to combat that mentality, we offer case studies from our portfolio that support the things we say and recommend.
Patti Palmer
Apr 16, 2008
Who are you guys/gals? There’s nothing on your site about who runs studiobanks. I always like to know a little something about people. Did I miss you somewhere on the site?
Robbie
Apr 16, 2008
You can find out more here:
http://www.studiobanks.com/#/studio/
Mouse over our photos for details.
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