Why is branding so important? (hint – it’s about life and death)

Posted by Jeremy L. Knauff | March 4th, 2009

These days everyone is preaching about branding, and rightfully so. From advertising gurus touting the importance of establishing a powerful and consistent brand image, to the SEO gods educating the masses about how branding can affect their search engine optimization campaign, it’s clear that branding carries more weight than ever before.

But where did branding come from and why is it so important? The truth is that it’s been around a lot longer than advertising because in a way, it has been critical to the survival of mankind. Our earliest ancestors didn’t have the plush lives that we enjoy today. They had to know what plants were safe to eat and what animals were dangerous or they would live a very short life. They didn’t have time to wait and see if that furry brown creature running in their direction was planning to do them harm or was just happy to see them. They lived difficult lives and had to be able to quickly determine a threat to their safety. They also had to be able to quickly determine what would aid in their survival. This rapid categorization allowed them to make decisions quickly and efficiently. Modern man does the same thing, though the consequenses are generally less severe. When we see a man in a suit, we usually assume that he is relatively safe to talk to, but if we see a man dressed in dark clothes lurking in an alley, most of us would quickly head in the other direction.

So how does this apply to branding? People like to quickly put everything into convenient little categories. When you mention Volvo, the first thing that comes to mind for most people is safety. Google is on the forefront of every one’s mind when talking about search, and Xerox has become ubiquitous with copy machines. The top brands of the world have achieved a dominate position, making them the first companies that people think about when it comes to their core business model, and this all came from early man’s need to rapidly identify threats and opportunities in order to survive. Today, this mindset directly relates to the survival of your business as you face challenging economic times. It’s critical that your consumers can quickly identify with your company, understand exactly what you do and how that benefits them.

If you don’t know how effective your branding is, you need to evaluate that immediately. You can start by looking at your web analytics. If a moderate percentage of visitors are using your brand name to search for your company, then you’re branding is probably on the right track. Another way to evaluate the effectiveness of your brand is to call your existing customers and ask them if they can explain your company in a sentence or two. If not, you’ve got some work to do. You’ll also want to make sure that your brand is consistent across all of your marketing mediums.

Be sure to check back soon for our multi-part series on developing a powerful and consistent brand that will squash your competitors!

Related posts:

1. BING – A lesson in weak branding - Microsoft has recently launched BING, replacing Live Search, in their latest attempt to win back some of the market share they’ve lost...
2. Online advertising = branding? - For some reason, many businesses are still avoiding online advertising, instead sticking to more traditional forms such as newspaper advertising,...

Post a Comment »

Leave a Reply

Name (required)

Mail (will not be published) (required)

Website

Click to cancel reply

Notify me of follow-up comments via e-mail