Your 1 Page Brand Plan
What is branding? Let’s start by distinguishing what branding is not. Branding is not a logo. A logo is a symbol for the brand. A brand is not a product. A brand is not a promise. A brand is not the sum of all impressions made upon an audience. A brand is a result and it is a customers gut feeling about a product, service or company. Branding ends up in a customers heads and hearts. In a sense when you create a brand, you are subsequently creating millions of other brands, depending on how many customers you have. Each individual has a different brand of you. Consequently, a brand ends up being analogous to a reputation. It may seem daunting to think that a company would creating a multitude of additional brands by proxy, but that is okay. As long as the company has the capacity to corral those intrinsic brands towards a general direction, then branding is beneficial to the company.
“What reputation has your brand achieved?”
What Is Marketing?
With branding, you are creating the story. With marketing, you are telling it. Marketing and branding are like two wings on a bird, you need both to fly.
Some people think marketing is advertising or branding or some other vague concept. While all these are associated with marketing, they are not one and the same. Here’s the simplest, most jargon-free definition of marketing you’re ever likely to come across:
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Allan Dib, The 1-Page Marketing Plan: Get New Customers, Make More Money, And Stand out From The Crowd
If the circus is coming to town and you paint a sign saying “Circus Coming to the Showground Saturday,” that’s advertising. If you put the sign on the back of an elephant and walk it into town, that’s promotion. If the elephant walks through the mayor’s flower bed and the local newspaper writes a story about it, that’s publicity. And if you get the mayor to laugh about it, that’s public relations. If the town’s citizens go to the circus, you show them the many entertainment booths, explain how much fun they’ll have spending money at the booths, answer their questions and, ultimately, they spend a lot at the circus, that’s sales. And if you planned the whole thing, that’s marketing. Yup, it’s as simple as that—marketing is the strategy you use for getting your ideal target market to know you, like you and trust you enough to become a customer. All the stuff you usually associate with marketing are tactics.
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Allan Dib
Reckoning Your Reputation
Marketing and branding are two birds of a feather, they almost always flock together. If we break down the Circus’s marketing plan we can also create a branding plan in a paralleled manner. So, let us start from the beginning and forge a new brand plan for the circus. If the circus is coming into town and has a sign saying, “Circus Coming to the Showgrounds Saturday,” the colors, typography and design chosen would be branding. If the elephant is planned to walk into town with the sign on its back, the messaging, location and visual/auditorial presence would be branding.
Creating A Linear Homage
If the elephant walks through the mayor’s flower bed and the local newspaper writes a story about it, the manner in which the circus responds would be branding. If the town’s citizens go to the circus and is purchase future shows, the ticket, receipt and overall experience is branding. If the circus doesn’t have a name, what you name and how that name personifies the companies beliefs and attributes would be branding. Branding is about consistency of messaging, appearance and reputation. If all these moving parts have a linear homage to the brand attributes tangential collateral, you are on your way to having a successful brand.
P.S. If you found this information valuable, I would recommend watching these videos. In this first video you will hear Chris Do, CEO & Founder of The Futur and Marty Neumeier, American author and CEO of Branding at Liquid Agency, discuss what branding really is. In the second video you will hear Chris Do, Malinda & Fabian dissect the differences between marketing & branding.
