A brand is a name, term, design, symbol, or other feature that distinguishes you, your organization, and product from your rival in the eyes of another, while branding is essentially the ongoing process of establishing a prescribed image (brand) or impression in the mind of others about yourself, your group or organization.
That said, it therefore infers that branding is the process of a brand. It could also mean that a “brand” is a destination or an endpoint of a branding process.
The True Branding
True branding starts with intuitive perceptions about you, based on the value you offer.
It starts with what your closest allies call you, and then spreads out organically. What you are known for or identified within your home, neighborhood, and environment, what comes to mind each time a quick description is made about you.
For instance, my kid sister: growing up she was nicknamed “shakara”, which connotes an embodiment of beauty, fashion & style.
Not because she was a professional as at then but because it was something she loved doing naturally. She loved looking good, wearing makeover, the best she could at a time and would practically beg you to sit so she could make you up. Everyone at home and the environment knew her for that.
Today she is a professional fashion designer with classy designs and her brand name is “Ruchy Classy designs”.
For some other persons, growing up, there may have been known for their remarkable knowledge display in being able to fix electronics at home and that fetched a name, an identity of an engineer.
They continued in it and didn’t lose focus and today they have a remarkable brand or something close to it.
My point is that the life of a brand is not induced or influenced; it starts with a cell and then grows into tissues, organ and becomes a full system.
Simply crafting out beautiful logos, symbols, designs, terms etc without being intuitively perceived for the service you offer, makes you irrelevant in the long run.
Today we focus on getting a brand without looking back at the early stages of life.
Now it was easy for my kid sister to find herself because she was conscious about her environment growing up, and that made her to stay focus, undergo several trainings and today she has a brand.
Even if you had a terrible brand while growing up, there’s still a way of bringing out good in every bad. All you may need is channel that strength and passion in the right path and a bit of fine tuning and you are there.
Today, all we want to do is come up with a brand name without going through “the true branding” process. Many times we get stuck because perhaps it’s not something that can be traced to our origin.
