The Brand Who Cried Wolf E-Book

Scott Deming

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 270

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2010

Beschreibung

Branding has become the narrow responsibility of the marketing department, and customers have stopped believing the ads. This book shows you how to build a powerful, lasting brand. You will learn how to involve the entire organization, from sales, customer service, shipping, product design, and marketing, in the branding process. The author discusses how to create powerful, emotional, and unique experiences for others, turn every customer into an evangelist, and greatly expand your reach of influence. Use this book to define your personal and professional brand.

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

Dedication

PREFACE

WHAT’S UP WITH THE CHILDREN’S STORIES?

CREATING BELIEFS THAT SHAPE YOUR BRAND!

Acknowledgments

Introduction

CHAPTER 1 - YOU’RE NOT A MARKETING ANIMAL? THIS BOOK’S STILL FOR YOU!

THE STORY OF THE EAGLE, THE CROW, AND THE SHEPHERD

YOU BUILD AND SUSTAIN THE BRAND!

ADVERTISING AS AWARENESS

MARKETING AS A SYSTEM OF UNITING BUSINESSES AND CUSTOMERS

BRANDING IS A PROCESS OF CREATING AUTHENTICALLY UNIQUE, EMOTIONAL EXPERIENCES ...

WIDENING THE SCOPE OF WHAT CONSTITUTES A BRAND

I’M A BRAND, YOU’RE A BRAND—WE’RE ALL BRANDS!

CHAPTER 2 - THIS IS NOT YOUR FATHER’S BRANDING FORMULA

“THE TORTOISE AND THE HARE”

SUCCESSFUL BRANDS DEFY EXPECTATIONS

DEFYING EXPECTATIONS MEANS OVERDELIVERING ON YOUR BRAND PROMISE

CHAPTER 3 - YOU GOT WHAT YOU CAME FOR I DID MY JOB ... DIDN’T I?

“THE CROW AND THE PITCHER”

BUILDING A BRAND DOESN’T HAPPEN OVERNIGHT (DON’T KILL YOUR GOLDEN GOOSE!)

BUILDING A BRAND: A MERE TRANSACTION, A TYPICAL SERVICE, OR A UNIQUE EXPERIENCE?

TRANSACTIONAL VERSUS UNIQUE EXPERIENCES

TYPICAL SERVICE VERSUS UNIQUE EXPERIENCE

THE UNIQUE, EMOTIONAL, MEMORABLE EXPERIENCE

CHAPTER 4 - FORGET ABOUT ME AND MY STUFF; LET’S TALK ABOUT YOU!

“THE LION AND THE MOUSE”

DEVELOPING RELATIONSHIPS: THE HEART AND SOUL OF BRANDING

TRANSCENDING THE TYPICAL: MICHELENE, NAYAN, AND RAY

BRANDING: IF YOU BUILD IT, THEY WILL COME—BUT YOU’VE GOT TO SUSTAIN IT!

CHAPTER 5 - CAN I BORROW YOUR SHOES?

“THE FROG PRINCE”

I AM MY CUSTOMER

YOUR CUSTOMERS ARE NOT CLONES! AVOID THINKING EXCLUSIVELY IN TERMS OF A CORE CUSTOMER

BE YOUR CUSTOMERS AND EMPLOYEES: YOU CAN FIT INTO ANY SIZE SHOE!

CHAPTER 6 - GET OVER YOURSELF!

“THE FOX AND THE CROW”

THE LAKE WOBEGON EFFECT

YEAH, YOU’RE GOOD, BUT NOT THAT GOOD!

AVOIDING THE LAKE WOBEGON EFFECT

CHAPTER 7 - You TALKIN’ TO ME?

“PUSS-IN-BOOTS”

YOUR ACTIONS GENERATE FAR-REACHING RIPPLES

SOME WORDS ARE ACTIONS

AVOIDING NEGATIVE RIPPLES

CHAPTER 8 - JUST CALL ME SLICK!

“THE WOLF IN SHEEP’S CLOTHING”

WHAT WE’VE ACCOMPLISHED SO FAR

CREATING AN AUTHENTIC BRAND IDENTITY: SINCERITY CAN’T BE FAKED!

INAUTHENTIC BRAND IDENTITIES

YOUR BRAND IDENTITY IS DEEPLY PERSONAL

HOW BIG ORGANIZATIONS MUST GENERATE PERSONAL BRANDS

CHAPTER 9 - BRANDING? LOL!

“THE THREE LITTLE PIGS”

WHAT TECHNOLOGY DOES FOR US

THE DOWNSIDE OF MASS COMMUNICATION

HOW TO USE TECHNOLOGY TO EXTEND YOUR REACH OF INFLUENCE

CHAPTER 10 - BRINGING IT ALL TOGETHER

“THE CIRCUS BARKER: AN ORIGINAL DEMING TAIL”

YOUR BRAND IS YOUR FOUNDATION

AVOID DRIVING CUSTOMERS TO A FLAWED SERVICE!

CONCLUSION

BIBLIOGRAPHY

INDEX

Copyright © 2007 by Scott Deming.

All rights reserved.

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey. Published simultaneously in Canada.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

Deming, Scott.

The brand who cried wolf: deliver on your company’s promise and create customers for life / Scott Deming. p. cm.

ISBN 978-0-470-12712-4 (cloth)

1. Brand name products. 2. Brand name products—Management. 3. Success in business. I. Title.

HD69.B7D46 2007

658.8’27—dc22

2007002549

To my Dad— Alden Lincoln Deming Jr.

Shortly before this book went to press, my Dad passed away on February 20, 2007. He was 72 years young. Dad was a man among men—war veteran, Marine, tough guy, spiritual beacon, teacher, and tender, loving, devoted family man. He was my mentor, my pal, my guide, my calm, my hero. My Dad was everything to me. The fact that he never had the opportunity to read this book makes me very sad, because his wisdom, guidance, and influence can be found throughout every page. I wanted so badly for him to see the culmination of his love and devotion. This book would not have been possible without him.

This is for you, Dad.

I love you and miss you more than I can possibly put into words.

PREFACE

WHAT’S UP WITH THE CHILDREN’S STORIES?

No, you’re not reading a children’s book! But there are children’s stories in it. That’s because they’re a fun and unique way to engage you in a new thinking style as we discover the real formula for personal and professional success.

When we were children, our parents read us bedtime stories full of sensational characters like talking animals, villains dressed up as trusted family members—the better to trick and deceive—and good, honest people who do the right thing. In each story, although the basic premise was to entertain, there was always a point: to teach us valuable life lessons and to groom us and shape our values by inculcating in us, among other things, beliefs about good conduct, citizenship, productivity, and relationships. Although such lessons were taught in myriad ways, from tough love punishment to lectures, to Sunday school, some of our most valuable and memorable lessons were delivered by our favorite children’s stories. You still remember “The Three Little Pigs” and its lesson of working hard to build a strong house. And you still remember “The Tortoise and the Hare” and the lesson of diligence and persistence. And there is “The Goose That Laid the Golden Egg” and the lesson of never taking shortcuts to success. The list goes on and on.

Now as adults, we teach our own children most of the same lessons, and in many of the same ways. Not surprisingly, one of the most popular forms of teaching among all these techniques is still the story. And interestingly enough, the majority of the stories we read to our children today are the very same ones our parents read to us and their parents had read to them!

Children’s fairy tales teach children how to live, and at the time, it all seemed so simple. So, what changes, as we become adults? We become engrained in our daily activities—our businesses, our various responsibilities. It’s true that life becomes more complicated. Unfortunately, because of this adult, responsible, complex life we live, the wonderful and important lessons we learned at such an early age become diluted and go out of focus. As a result, we fail to heed these lessons even as we teach them to our own children.

But the truth in these stories hasn’t changed, and there’s no reason why we should, either. It is realistic—even necessary—to believe that the lessons learned from our most treasured childhood tales could help us to greatly improve our relationships, jobs, businesses, and brands. The enduring nature of these stories shows that there truly are only a few simple rules and values to adhere to that will help us live and serve in an appropriate, productive, profitable, and rewarding manner. I am not trivializing the importance of research, profit margins, sales goals, and attention to detail required for business success. I’m simply saying that focusing on the details day in, day out can easily cloud our vision and prevent us from seeing the bigger picture—and the direction for our lives. And it is in the bigger picture that these early-in-life lessons, these wonderful stories, lie.

CREATING BELIEFS THAT SHAPE YOUR BRAND!

The bigger picture—the connection between the values found in children’s stories and branding—is a matter of belief. Everything in our lives, from our values to the choices we make about what products to buy, is guided by the beliefs we have. From the moment we’re born, we begin experiencing the world. From these experiences we develop beliefs about who we are and how we want to be: In general, we develop values that shape our engagement with the world. When we believe that it’s important to deliver on our promises, for example, part of what we’re doing is staking a claim about how we think the world works, or how we want to see it work. When we believe keeping one’s promises is valuable, this belief motivates us to act in a particular way. In fact, beliefs are what drive people’s actions. What I show you in this book is how to create beliefs in the hearts, minds, and souls of your customers that are so incredibly strong, so full of conviction, that the customers are unwilling to part with them—and unwilling to part with you.

Although the processes whereby we form our beliefs are complicated, once a belief is fixed in our minds we’re typically very unwilling to get rid of it. That’s because we equate our beliefs with truth and reality. We’re so committed to our beliefs we often cannot fathom that one or more of them could be wrong. Think about how we react to challenges to them.When someone tells us that what we believe is false, our first response is typically to reject the challenge out of hand. For example, people were initially resistant about accepting that their beliefs about the shape of Earth or its movement in relation to the sun were false.

It’s no different in business. Consider how many people insist on following a certain business model even when it’s been shown to be unprofitable. Beliefs are powerful, and they are motivating. We know that swift moving, get rich quick, poor planning models don’t work. Yet companies like Pets.com do it anyway. That company attempted an immediate domination of the Internet market for pet supplies, and that’s one of the reasons the company went bust. Consider, on the other hand, Amazon.com, which weathered the dot com bust. Though the company grew rapidly, founder Jeff Bezos’ thinking was long term.

The comparison reminds me of the fable “The Tortoise and the Hare.” Some beliefs about business models simply don’t work over the long haul. If, for example, you believe in get rich quick schemes, and use them as your business model, you’ll soon find that whatever money you have made quickly disappears. Remember the greedy couple who killed their golden goose? As we see in Chapter 3, it was against this sort of thinking that the founders of Google laid out their corporate mission when they took their company public.The firm belief that killing the golden goose would not be the best experience for anyone involved was their guiding principle. To date, Google has been a very successful brand.

Not only do we equate our beliefs with truth, we also equate them with goodness. Our beliefs are good because they’re true. Therefore, our actions are based on the belief that what we do is good or will result in something good. Even when we do things that seem to contradict what’s good for us, we do it with the belief that at least something about it is good. Believing that exercise is good seems to be contradicted by sitting on the couch instead of taking a jog. Yet we justify sitting on the couch based on the belief that it’s good to rest. In this way, our belief—whatever it is at the moment—is a belief about truth and goodness.

My own dear mother is a perfect example of this idea. She has been smoking since she was thirteen years old. As this book goes to press, she is close to age seventy. She still smokes. Though it’s true she’s tried to quit a couple of times, deep down she truly believes it’s okay to smoke—she’ll be okay. She has many reasons to quit, from the medical evidence that smoking is linked to many diseases, but doesn’t.

The same thing happens in business. Corporations do things that are unprofitable and unproductive, because it is part of their belief system that these things will work. They make decisions even in the face of evidence that it’s not going to work, because their belief system is so strong. For example, some businesses believe that relying on technology (such as automated voice menus) instead of people to interact with customers is the right thing to do—no matter how many customers complain about how impersonal and ineffective technology can be.

The belief you have about the type of person you are is no less important to your business relationships than to your other, personal connections. And when you are working to create a brand, you are working to create a belief for your customers that they’re extremely unwilling to part with—a belief that has lasting value. Creating beliefs in the hearts and minds of your customers about you, your company, your values—your brand—is the core element of success.

The Introduction provides us with a terrific starting point for understanding what branding is and why it matters to you!

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Within the pages of this book there is so much influence, inspiration, advice, collaboration, wisdom, friendship, love, and support from so many different people whom I wish to thank.

To my wife and life partner Debbie—Wow! We’ve been through it all. How can I ever thank you for the years of love and support? You have physically and emotionally held me up when I could not stand on my own. Your inner strength is unbelievable. I can’t imagine doing any of it without you or being where I am right now if you weren’t by my side. We are quite a team. I love you, my soul mate. To my children, who are truly the source of my dreams, drive, laughter, and inspiration, you are the reasons why the goofy little kid still lives inside me. Ryan, Danielle, Taylor, and Nicole, I am so very proud of you and I love you more than you’ll ever know. I am your Faj! To my mom and dad, Doris and Al, the greatest parents ever to grace this planet, my rock and my foundation, whose guidance, values, encouragement, support, and unconditional love have made me the man I am today—who mean everything to me and whom I will always love so much. To my brothers Steve and Ken who always keep me in line. You remind me to keep it real and remember who I am and where I came from. We’ve laughed, cried, argued, and had each other’s backs. I can’t imagine three men being any closer. You are my best friends. Thank you for being there throughout the years. I love you both.

To my agent, Jackie Meyer of the Whimsy Literary Agency, who believed in me enough to work longer and harder than any person should have to. Thank you so much, Jackie, for your loyalty, guidance, honesty, dedication, and constant support and confidence. This would not have been possible without you. To my friend Mia Wood—your knowledge, wisdom, and words flow throughout this book. What a wonderful experience collaborating with you! Thank you for picking up the phone every time I called and being there when I needed you. You’re the best! To all the wonderful people at John Wiley & Sons who worked extremely hard to make my dream and this book a reality. To Kim Dayman, Marketing Manager, who guided me through every stage of this project from book design to publicity.Your words of advice are priceless. To Tiffany Groglio, Editorial Assistant—I’ve never been around a more dedicated, buttoned-up, conscientious individual in my professional life. You make it happen! To Linda Witzling, Production Editor—thank you for working around my crazy schedule and bringing this book to market even sooner than I expected! To Richard Narramore, Senior Editor, who from day one showed genuine interest in me and my work and a sincere desire to make the book the best it could be. Richard, you’re not just a pro, you’re a great guy. Thank you.

To the following individuals who have in some significant way inspired, educated, moved, and supported me during my life: Thank you, Greg Warmbrodt, Candace Beach, Barbara Mc-Murray, Joel Bauer, Larry Becker, Jane and John Stopher, Joe Zielinski, Bill Dando, Dr. Milton Richards, Joe DeLion, Vito Lupo, John Pullum, Ken Chandler, Wayne Irons, Jodie Noe Musselwhite, and my grandparents. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

INTRODUCTION

“THE BOY WHO CRIED ‘WOLF’”

Once upon a time, there was a young boy who tended sheep up in the hills. It was solitary work, and with no one to play with, the boy grew lonely. So, one day he cried out, “Wolf! Wolf!” The entire population of the town came running to the hills to rescue the boy and protect the sheep. But when they arrived, there was no wolf. The boy fell down laughing, delighted that the townsfolk had come.

He thought it was a wonderful game and so played again the next day. “Wolf! Wolf!” came the horrible cry. Again, the townsfolk rushed to the hills, only to find, once again, no wolf. The sheep were grazing peacefully, and the shepherd boy once again squealed with glee.

Needless to say, the townsfolk were not at all happy. “Why should we believe him?” they grumbled. So, they resolved to ignore him when he played his trick again.

Unfortunately for the shepherd boy, wolves finally did sneak into the flock and attack the sheep. Terrified, the boy screamed, “Wolf! Wolf! Oh please come quickly, the wolves are eating all the sheep!”

Down in the town, the citizens heard the boy’s desperate pleas, but they turned away. No matter how plaintive the boy’s cries were, the townsfolk would not come to his aid, and the wolves took their leisure, eating every last sheep one by one.

The moral of the story: Don’t say something if you don’t mean it. Once you lose someone’s trust, it’s almost impossible to get it back!

The most successful relationships you and your organization have with other people are those built on trust. And a crucial component of earning the trust of others is acting on your word. Simple formula, isn’t it? Making a promise plus keeping your promise equals trust. But let’s take it a step further. Once you’ve earned someone’s trust, you now have the opportunity to take that relationship to a whole new level, one that transcends what a typical relationship is. If you create memorable and unique experiences for your customers, and they trust you based on those experiences, they will become loyal to you and only you. Out of that loyalty, they will come to you again and again. Additionally, these same loyal customers will help you build your brand and your business because they will evangelize on your behalf. True. Creating unique, emotional, and memorable experiences turns a typical customer into a loyal, raving fan for life! And it is these loyal, raving fans, these evangelists, who will take you and your business to the promised land. Emotion. Uniqueness. Trust. Loyalty. Evangelism. These are the ingredients of the sustainable success I call branding.

First and foremost, please understand that this is not a specialized book for certain people within specific departments in a corporation. This book is for every person and every department within any industry—profit, nonprofit, big, small, social, or political. In short, this book is for everyone. Why? First, because every company and every person is a brand. You’re a brand, your spouse is a brand, and so is your best friend, your neighbor, the public megacorporation and the little corner store—you get the idea! Moreover, this book is for everyone because it’s about a new concept of branding that applies to businesses, organizations, and individuals alike.

Only you can develop your brand identity in a way that creates lasting, meaningful, and beneficial relationships. There is no doubt you are a brand. The question is, What is your brand right now and what do you want it to be? If you take the time with me to look at this new concept of what branding is, you’ll be on your way to personal and professional success.

The ideas in this book are, collectively, a unique departure from the traditional understanding of brand creation, building, and maintenance. I developed my thinking on branding, and what makes a successful business, over more than 20 years of owning and running a national advertising agency, consulting with clients in a wide range of industries, and in more recent years on my work as an in-demand corporate speaker and trainer. I believe the way most people think about branding is stereotypical, tired, and narrow because it excludes the single most important feature of any human endeavor: sincere interaction with others. The branding I describe in this book is much larger than what the general understanding of the concept involves. It asks you to return to the moral principles that are at the heart of all sincere interaction. These principles are exemplified by some of our favorite children’s stories, and so it is through these that I introduce you to each chapter and to a paradigm shift in thinking about branding.

The branding concept you learn about in the following chapters is divided into several elements. You learn what a brand is, how it is distinct from both advertising and marketing, who the loyal customer is, and how that customer is created through the ultimate customer experience. You also learn how to objectively assess just how good your organization is, right now, at creating the ultimate customer experience, and how you need to change to get to the level where you want to be. These ideas are relevant not only for the large companies mentioned in the pages of this book. Branding operates at the small company and personal levels, too. In fact, you see that a brand is about one’s core identity; it’s about the beliefs and values that make you the sort of person who always seeks to establish lasting, trusting relationships.

With the simple, direct processes you read about in this book, you will learn what your personal and professional brand could be. The same concepts apply in the virtual domain as well: E-mail and instant messaging, web pages and web-based companies, and other virtual platforms are also realms in which, increasingly, business is conducted, but this does not preclude them from the branding strategy I lay out in this book. In fact, my theory and practice of branding is crucial to the long-term success of any business that relies on technology. Once you understand branding in all its aspects, you’ll see how your brand can be reconnected with advertising for an authentic fusion.

Get ready to rethink what you thought you knew about branding!

CHAPTER 1

YOU’RE NOT A MARKETING ANIMAL? THIS BOOK’S STILL FOR YOU!

Branding versus Advertisingand Marketing—CompletelyDifferent Animals

THE STORY OF THE EAGLE, THE CROW, AND THE SHEPHERD

One warm afternoon, a crow sat on a tree branch enjoying the sights. He saw an eagle soaring high in the sky. I could do that, the crow thought to himself. I’m just as good at flying.

The crow continued to watch as the eagle swooped down on a lamb and grabbed it with its talons. As the eagle carried its dinner off into the air, the crow said, “I can do that!” So he took off from his branch and soared into the air, copying the pattern he had seen the eagle make. Then, when the crow saw a lamb stray from the flock, he dove down, alighting upon it just as he’d seen the eagle do. Of course, since he wasn’t strong enough to lift both himself and the lamb off the ground, he couldn’t very well fly away with it. But, just as he had grabbed hold, his claws had gotten stuck in the thick wool. The more he flapped his wings to extricate himself, the more entangled he became.

After first trying to run away from the unwelcome visitor on its back, the puzzled lamb eventually got used to the crow’s presence and went back to browsing with the flock. Later that day, the shepherd found the crow. “What a strange thing for you to do,” the shepherd said, untangling the bird as he held it fast. “Did you think you could steal my little lamb away?” Chuckling to himself, he put a string around the crow’s leg and then took it home to his children for a pet.

The moral of the story: Advertising, marketing, and branding are not the same animals, nor can they accomplish the same thing!

YOUBUILD AND SUSTAIN THE BRAND!

Whether you work in management, accounting, manufacturing, customer service, sales, marketing, or any other department in an organization, you need to understand how branding differs from marketing and advertising. That’s because, regardless of what your job is, you—not marketing and not advertising—build and sustain the brand. Once you understand how branding is a different animal from marketing and advertising, you’ll understand why this book is for you.You’ll see how important it is for you to be concerned about your company’s brand, and what your role is in creating and sustaining it.

Suppose you work in manufacturing, and your job is to sit at a station and assemble a product. Because you have absolutely no contact with customers and you’re not involved in marketing, you might think that your work has nothing to do with your employer’s brand. Therefore, you might mistakenly think this book isn’t for you. But consider the following scenario: Imagine that the product you manufacture has a flaw in it. It goes to the store, and the salesperson, who doesn’t know about the flaw, is busy selling it. She’s advocating on behalf of the product, which people know about because of the company’s wonderful advertising. From advertising to sales pitch, the brand promise has been made. What happens to the brand when the customer learns about the flaw? It tanks.You, as part of the manufacturing and brand building process, fell short. Because of this, in the mind of the customer, the advertising was false and the salesperson was dishonest. The brand is damaged.

Or suppose you work in accounting.You might also conclude that this book isn’t for you. After all, you’re “internal.” As such, you think you have nothing to do with the brand building process. But this is another mistaken conclusion. Imagine this scenario: A vendor calls asking for clarification on an invoice. You happen to be very busy that day. Because you don’t consider your role as important to the brand building process, you treat the call as an intrusion, as insignificant. In the mind of the vendor, however, you represent your company and you are the brand. He tells friends and colleagues about his negative experience with your company. You’ve just damaged your company’s brand. This book will show you that whatever it is you do, you impact your brand. So, it’s crucial that you learn about my new brand paradigm.

Professionals and laypersons alike often don’t properly distinguish between advertising, marketing, and branding. They think they are synonymous terms for a single function. The result, ultimately, is misapplication: People think they develop brands through advertising, or that their brand is simply the product or service for sale in the marketplace. This chapter is designed to dispel these mistaken ideas by defining what advertising, marketing, and branding are, and by clarifying their relationships to one another. By the end of this chapter, you’ll have a working knowledge of each of these three concepts, both in their common usage and as I believe they should be understood. In Chapter 2, I focus exclusively on defining the concept of branding in a way that has not previously been articulated.

ADVERTISING AS AWARENESS

Most people focus on advertising as the single most important feature of both branding and marketing. It’s understandable to think that advertising is the most important feature of a business’ brand, given the fact that most of us are bombarded with advertising. A good ad makes consumers aware of a product or service, but it also makes the item attractive in order to compel them to seek it out. Advertisers have gone so far as to promote the idea that the product or service is so iconic that it generates a culture—Coca-Cola’s “Coke is it”; Nike’s “Just do it’—to which the consumer should want to belong. But at the end of the day, the function of advertising is simply to create brand awareness and hopefully drive customers to your place of business. No matter how flashy, savvy, sophisticated, or manipulative an advertisement is, the best it can do is make consumers aware of a product or service and possibly move them to investigate or even make a purchase. Convincing a customer to make a purchase, however, doesn’t mean you’ve created a brand. What it does do is give you an opportunity to create and build a brand.

MARKETING AS A SYSTEM OF UNITING BUSINESSES AND CUSTOMERS

Advertising is one of the activities involved in marketing. So, what’s marketing? Broadly speaking, it refers to those activities involved in the marketplace concerned with bringing products and services to consumers (and vice versa). The American Marketing Association defines marketing as “an organizational function and a set of processes for creating, communicating, and delivering value to customers and for managing customer relationships in ways that benefit the organization and its stakeholders.” Marketing involves, among other things, research for gathering and analyzing data about customer demographics, customer perceptions, market size, strategies for developing and positioning a brand in the marketplace, the channel of distribution arrangement and management, and management of the sales force. In brief, marketing is a sort of social institution, a systematic way of bringing customers and businesses together to facilitate a sale. Initially, the marketplace was the physical location where goods and services were sold, and marketing derives its identity and basic methods from this original idea.

Notice that both advertising and marketing are mechanisms. As such, they are means of simply connecting customers and businesses. They are not brand experiences.

BRANDING IS A PROCESS OF CREATING AUTHENTICALLY UNIQUE, EMOTIONAL EXPERIENCES THAT YIELD EVANGELICALS

The common—and incorrect—understanding of branding in the world of marketing and advertising is a method of advertising to create and reinforce particular ideas of a product or service. Most people think a brand is a company’s logo, image, or tagline—an identifying mark that differentiates one business from another in markets cluttered with similar products and services. Others think in terms of objects, namely, that a brand is a type of product manufactured by a company. In truth, branding is the creation and support of a powerful perception and image of someone or something based on unique, emotional experiences—so powerful that the perception or image becomes a belief. Therefore, I argue that the formula for professional and personal success lies in our ability to create the most powerful, emotional, memorable brand based on these unique experiences. As a result, branding operates at a level that is far more profound than is commonly thought.