Brand New Year, Brand New You

When Four Seasons Hotels, Inc., a Canadian-based international luxury, five-star hotel management company, sold itself to Bill Gates and Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal of Saudi Arabia for $3.8 billion. What did they buy? Locations? Restaurants? Beach front property?

No, they bought the brand.

Likewise, when Kraft bought Cadbury for $19.5 Billion what did they buy? The chocolate?

No, they bought the brands.

Why? Because branding is fundamental. Branding is basic. Branding is essential. Because building up brands creates incredible value for companies and corporations.

Brands are psychology and science brought together as a promise mark as opposed to a trademark. Products have life cycles. Brands outlive products. Brands convey a uniform quality, credibility, and experience. Brands are valuable. Many companies put the value of their brand on their balance sheet.

Want to see the most powerful example of branding? Grab your wallet and pull out a five dollar note. That dollar is a world brand. In essence, it is simply a piece of paper. But branding has made it valuable. All the tools of marketing and brand building are used to create its value.

Brands are more important today than in the past. There are a few reasons for this. First, the world has come online and there are many new markets and a growing middle class in places like India, China, Brazil, Russia, South Africa, Nigeria, Indonesia and in many more places. These consumers buy brands. The best brands have remarkable creativity in advertising to help them break through people’s wall of indifference to create brand heat and product lust.

How?

1) By promoting recognition.

People tend to do business with companies they are familiar with. If your branding is consistent and easy to recognize, it can help people feel more at ease purchasing your products or services.

2) By setting you apart from the competition.

In today’s global market, it is critical to stand apart from the crowd. You are no longer competing on a local stage, your organization now competes in the global economy. How do you stand out from the thousands or millions of similar organizations around the world?

And finally

3) By telling your clients about your Business DNA

Your full brand experience, from the visual elements like the logo to the way that your phones are answered, tell your customer about the kind of company that you are.

Are all of these points of entry telling the right story? Are they telling YOUR story?

If the answer to these question is no, you deserve better. So do just that, expect better. Demand better. Get better.

Article was written by Melvinder Singh