What is a Brand?

Beginning a short series of brand notes, I’ve taken literally the notes from my notebook and this week, prepared them into a short, simple nine-page document.

Over six or nine features like this, I plan to write up my notes that explore what a brand is. These will be in note form, because as I proceed, I may find I wish to alter original thinking or find better examples to illustrate my point.

This document suggests there are five working parts to what a brand is - the company, product, the experience/interaction, the consumer and their perception of all this. In future features, I’ll explore these relationships in a little more detail and document useful case studies that highlight this thinking. The PDFs may not make as much sense individually as they should in conjunction with others, and really should be considered a partial thought, sort of incomplete without the following PDFs to come. In this case, there are still many parts of a brand to explore before answering completely, “What is a Brand?”. There, have I covered my butt?

Overall, my notes are to help me simplify my area of focus so I can apply and communicate it clearly in many different situations. I hope they serve the same purpose to you.

Because of my interest in business behaviour, in particular how organizations can improve their performance through design thinking, there most likely will be a lot of intersection between design thinking + brand thinking here.

Do feel free to correct, discuss or ask questions. Because it is in a PDF doesn’t mean it’s final by any standard, and I’ll always appreciate any ‘helpful’ comments.

This PDF tries to illustrate the answer to, in very simple terms, “What is a Brand”. It stops short of discussing parts like brand identity: personality, values and so on. Instead, this sets the stage for further notes, questions and answers.

What is a Brand? [brand-notes.pdf: 700kb]

2006-01-08 + plink