Know-How Exchange : Branding

I'm not sure anyone really controls the brand. The brand is a result of behaviors, perceptions and interactions. And it's can be a little different for each consumer or customer ... because their experiences, behaviors, perceptions and interactions are all a little different.

When viewed collectively, all these perceptions constitute a kind of "average" brand image. Marketers who deliver consistently against a brand benefit promise can expect a stronger and more consistent brand image -- one with less variation from consumer to consumer.

If you want to really dig into this, there's some good literature on the subject of brand "touchpoints" that talks about how many different influencing factors there can be for a brand. Many brands/categories have a lot of influencers, while some have relatively few.

The "company" always owns and controls the brand, but its the customers that control whether they will have a relationship with the brand or not.

As the previous poster pointed out, Marketing's job is to consistently deliver against a brand, but unlike the days of three TV networks and martini lunches (AKA mass media), brands are no longer passively absorbed, they are experienced, and this is where the consumer comes in.

Like the good old days, a brand has to resonate with your intended audience, that will never change. And a brand is still the emotional attachment a consumer has for a product or service. But marketers now have to deal with a brand that is 3-D. A great example of this is a company's website.

On a website, the brand has to be much more than just the tone/language/spin of the content, it's about the entire user experience. Everything from how the navigation is set-up, to the content, to the tools, to how it addresses the needs of the consumer. The whole site, from soup to nuts is part of the brand experience. Then throw in Web 2.0 tools that give your consumers a voice, like blogs, social media, Digg, Twitter and you can see why brands are now 3-D.

Now while these tools give customers a voice, I believe the brand is still controlled by the company. That's because they can choose to engage in the conversation, instead of idly standing by. And as long as the engagement is transparent and at the level of the customers (no corporate messages, but real dialogue), the brand can be reinforced there too.

Hope this helps.