Know-How Exchange : Branding

There is no typical agreement.

What does your contract/agreement state? Find out what they will do, and how well their results have worked for other customers (ROI).

Appears like you need to take a good hard look at your contract documents before you make a payment. What exactly is the responsibility of both parties? Was this a local firm or from an internet site? Do they have an address?

Dear Jzhoujian,

For the benefit of ALL businesses, small, medium, or large, I'd like
to once and for all clear up the BS myth that branding is something
that's achieved by hiring a "branding company".

NO IT'S NOT!

All of this talk about a company—any company—DOING branding is nonsense. One does not "do" branding, one integrates messages that promise solutions—solutions that speak TO the customer, ABOUT the customer's needs, and messages that PROJECT images into the customer's mind of how their future will be better, brighter, bolder, thinner, faster, sexier and so on as a result of having bought, used,
and enjoyed the product, goods, or services in question.

In short, the brand is the sum total of everything the customer is looking, dreams of, and aspires to in terms of a solution for their
specific need, want, desire, or problem.

No doubt this comment will open the flood gates of complaints from branding experts on this forum and beyond but let's be honest here: logos and leaflets are NOT branding.

Branding does NOT exist in the real world. Logos (abstract symbols
that evoke an emotional response) connect with images, visions, and aspirations that all take place in people's heads, but logos are NOT brands.

Brands lock into people's imaginations when the promise of the combined messages from the marketing mixes and gels with the thing that the product, goods, service, or whatever is supposed to achieve—when the benefit that's promised is delivered and successfully put into operation. Brands matter (and therefore anchor in long term memory, which is where they gain their power) when the promise offered is kept and matches with the expected outcome OR WITH ITS OVER DELIVERY.

There's no logo or leaflet or piece of corporate stationery on the
face of this Earth that can do that.

None.

Brands are created when the metal of desire is heated in the furnace
of solution and when that metal is then hammered and honed into shape through repeated heating, cooling, hammering, stretching, folding and melding.

Logos and names and strap lines and tag lines are all well and good but until they add VALUE to the customer's life by helping to solidify the use of the product and its inherent benefits WITH the solution of a specific problem all you have is really expensive corporate identity.

Read your agreement with this company, the fine print, everything,
then move SLOWLY. If they cannot deliver on their promise you might need to seek legal counsel.

I hope this helps.

Gary Bloomer
Wilmington, DE, USA

Gary writes: "No doubt this comment will open the flood gates of complaints from branding experts on this forum and beyond ..."

I beg to differ. Anyone who would dispute his discussion of what branding is (and is not) is not a legitimate "branding expert."

What we have all learned is that every graphic designer thinks he/she is a "branding expert" just because a logo is often associated with a "brand." Of course that is a very limited (and inaccurate) view of the term -- and it demeans the underpinning of true marketing.

As for the problem at hand, it's not clear what you expected and contracted for, so it is impossible to assess your situation or suggest a path forward.

If you did not provide your consultant with a clear and focused Creative Brief, then you are asking for trouble.