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Introduction
What is Brand? “Brand is not a logo”, says Marty Neumeier in his popular brand book “Brand Gap”.
He implies that a Logo is often perceived as “the Brand”. It’s not. Furthermore, Website Design, Colors, and other aesthetics are also not the Brand.
So what is Brand and Branding? We pull back the curtains and reveal their secrets in this article.
What Brand really is.
Brand is the personal connections that a customer has with your Company. They build up overtime with each positive experience with your products or services. Take Starbucks for example.
In figure 1, I list my positive experiences from all my Starbucks visits. They are all the feel-good moments that evoked some emotional response.
And each response reinforces the affinity for the Starbucks Brand. And it doesn’t happen overnight. A Brand needs persistent and consistent nurturing over time.
Fig. 1 – My Starbucks feel-good experiences.
Brand Consistency is important.
The connections in my Starbucks example are reinforced every time I visit my local Starbucks. It’s the consistent repetition of feel-good moments I get without fail.
But, not only at my local Starbucks, it’s the Starbucks across town, across the state, and even across countries. Familiarity is a very strong brand connection.
It’s the reliable Starbuck’s Consistency that helps make it a powerful brand.
But how do start building your Brand?
Fig. 2 – Starbucks Brand Consistency
How does Starbucks do it? Starts with the Mission Statement.
Starbucks understands the essence of “Branding”, which is to intentionally and purposefully build up those personal connections with customers to increase the likelihood they will select their stores over others.
But it doesn’t aimlessly fill its stores with feel-good things – else you would have a mashup of arcade games, pizza-nights, and rock-n-roll.
There is a North Star that guides Starbucks and that is called the Mission Statement:
“Nurture the Human Spirit, one person at a time, one cup at a time, one community at a time.”
The Mission statement is important – it guides and aligns a company in every aspect of business; planning, decision-making, people-hiring, all to ensure the integrity of the Brand.
Does it Nurture the Human Spirit?
- Fine Italian Decor – YES!
- Good Coffee – YES!
- Soft Jazz – YES!
- Pizza-night – Not really!
Fig. 3 – Starbucks Mission
“Nurture the Human Spirit, one person at a time, one cup at a time, one community at a time.”
So, is the Logo still important? YES!
So what is the significance of Logo in Branding?
As you may have surmised, the logo, BY ITSELF, cannot produce those feel-good connections to your company. However, it becomes the symbol or place-holder for those feel-good connections.
You need to attach those connections to something tangible and easy to associate with your company – one way is with a word, “Starbucks” – the other is with a visual like a logo.
Fig. 4 – Logo is the placeholder
When you sip that coffee and say, “Nice!” – the Starbucks logo on the cup will be staring you in the face – and that’s where the association takes place.
The next time you glance at a Starbucks Logo from down the street, the colors and shapes of the logo summon all those “Nice” feelings. It beckons you to come in for a cup.
But Brand awareness is all done behind the scenes. What does that mean?
Fig. 5 – Emotion Logo connection
Photo by Omar Lopez (Unsplash)
Where the Brand lies in your Brain.
If you ask any Starbucks patron why they prefer Starbucks, they probably couldn’t list 10-12 items like I did. At best, they may fumble around things like “It’s the environment” or “I like their Frappuccino”.
The fact is, most of those feel-good connections I talked about are tucked deep into our subconscious, in an area of the brain called the hippocampus, where memory and emotions are stored and processed.
Even though we are not always aware of these subconscious memories, they are real, active and influence our cognitive, conscious decision making.
Fig. 6 – Hippocampus – Emotions and Memory
Brain and Hippocampus image by Danielsabinasz (edited) (link). CC Share Alike 4.0
This subconscious influence of our conscious behavior is the “Gut Feeling” that Marty Neumeier describes in the book, “Brand Gap”.
Why is this important? Because you’ll have an advantage persuading customers when you target subconscious channels as opposed to the conscious self, as discussed by Leslie Zane in her book “The Power of Instinct”.
The Journal of Brand Management also mentions, “Much of human behavior in general appears to be shaped by factors beyond our awareness.”
Fig. 7 – The Brand Gap by Marty Neumeier
Understanding what is brand is important for Brand Marketers.
Unless you are a Brand Marketer or specialist, “Design” or “Logo” is what probably comes to mind when the subject of Brand surfaces. But those are just the tip of the iceberg.
Brand is all the feel-good connections about your company that are buried below the surface in the subconscious brain. Branding is the art of building up those connections in customer brains using feel-good aspects of sight (Italian décor), sound (jazz), tastes (cinnamon rolls), and smell (roasted coffee).
And those connections are visually linked to a Logo, to help the customer readily associate those feel-good moments with your company.
Even though we are not aware of these subconscious feel-good memories, they are very active and affect our cognitive decision-making.
That is the “Gut Feeling” a customer has for your company – and understanding how that works, is the secret to Brand and Branding.
Fig. 8 – Tip of the Iceberg
References:
Three laws of branding: Neuroscientific foundations of effective brand building. Journal of Brand Management (Dec 28, 2007).
The Brand Gap – How to Bridge the Distance Between Business Strategy and Design – Marty Neumeier (Copyright 2006)
The Power of Instinct – The New Rules of Persuasion in Business and Life – Leslie Zane (Copyright 2024)
Subliminal – HowYour Unconscious Mind Rules Behavior – Leanard Mlodinow (Feb 12, 2017)
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