Know-How Exchange : Branding

A brand is the promise + the experience. A product is something bought and sold.

Fried meat on a bun and potatoes are products. A craving that can only be satisfied by a Big Mac and large fries that has people saying "I'm lovin' it" is the McDonald's brand.

A motorcycle is a product. A bike that makes an accountant feel as if he is the baddest badass in town is the Harley-Davidson brand.

A laptop screen powered by a microchip is a product. A machine that makes you feel creative and different is the Apple brand.

A rental car is a product. An experience that Picks You Up (literally and emotionally) is the Enterprise brand.

Hope this is useful.

A brand is a named product/service that leaves an impression on you, creates loyalty and becomes preferred by you.
A product is something you use to fix something, a tool you use, but you may choose different manufacturers who make the same product.
With a brand you have relationship. With a product you don't.

You have to think first of cows. You brand a cow so that when people see it they know it's yours. That brand represents you or your ranch. If it's a clever brand people might remember it more readily. But clever or dull, the brand represents you or your ranch. If you're a good rancher who plays fair with water, breeds good beef and is successful that brand means something positive when people see it. If you're a hornswoggling no good two faced polecat rancher, with sick stock and rigged scales, that brand means something negative. The ranch and the rancher give all the meaning to the brand.

The product in all of this is the cow. That's the thing owned and sold by the rancher. The rancher wants everyone who sees that cow to know he owns and can sell it. That's why he put his brand on it. But, the brand represents nothing of the cow. The brand doesn't tell what sex or how old or what bloodlines. The brand is about the ranch. "This cow comes from this ranch, therefore it's higher priced." Or of lower quality. Or whatever it might be.

As with cowpokin', so with Marketing.

Your brand represents you--you the company--to the marketplace. When people see your brand--usually the logo, clever or dull--you want them to identify it with you: "ah, this product is made by THAT company." If you're a good company and make a good product and contribute to the marketplace people think positively of you when they see your brand. If not, they don't.

Product is the thing you own and sell, and you want people to know that you own and sell it. So you put your brand on it. But the brand represents nothing of the product (although the product name might). The brand name Cadillac doesn't tell you whether it's an Escalade or a Sedan de Ville. The brand is about the manufacturer. "This CRM system comes from THAT manufacturer, therefore it's higher priced." Or of lower quality. Or whatever it might be.

But there are lots of exceptions. M&M's is its own brand. Kleenex. Windows. Lots of exceptions.

I enjoyed thinking through this. Hope its usefulness outweighed its self indulgence by even a little bit. Thanks for the question.

Dear skris17 ,

All of the above and more.

The brand is indeed a promise. It's also the thoughts, feelings, perceptions, and projections that the use of the thing imbue into the life of the person buying the thing.

All these things remain with the buyer long after they've bought the thing.

The product is the tangible item: the shirt, the car, the MP3 player, the social group or whatever it is that one obtains when one hands over one's cash and walks out of the store, or when one receives a package on one's doorstep, or when one is welcomed to the fold of whatever group one is buying one's way into.

The brand and its essence remains with the person. Think of the brand as a mental tattoo—some thought or feeling that's etched into the psyche of the buyer. The product can be moved around and forgotten, lost, damaged, or stolen. The brand takes much more to be changed or erase: brands go deeper.

I hope this helps.

Gary Bloomer
Wilmington, DE, USA