Misunderstanding Branding

Myth #4: Only huge consumer-facing companies have to worry about branding.

“That’s totally illogical!” exclaims Kerry Sarnoski, principal at Minneapolis-based Fusion Hill, a research and marketing company. “I would say anyone who has a product or service—anyone who wants to be successful or make a profit—needs to worry about their brand.”

Shelley McKay, partner at Cricket Marketing & PR in Minneapolis, agrees: “Smaller companies such as shopkeepers or local franchisees still need to make a name for themselves and deliver on their promises.”

If anything, Raymond argues, small companies need to be even more focused on the purity of their brand. “I haven’t read a study about this, but I would bet the success of a start-up can be linked in part to its branding efforts,” she says. “I think a start-up company has to do its homework. It’s got to do it’s market-segment research and its com- petitive intelligence. It’s got to craft that brand-experience model to ensure that the desired brand pervades everything it does. Only that way is it going to have a real impact.”

Firms that serve the business-to-business market need to be focused on brand, too. “Our agency works exclusively with business-to-business companies, and the main difference is that B2B buying decisions are often made by groups rather than individuals,” says Schermer. “The products often cost more, too—like computers versus toothpaste. They are less likely to make an emotionally based decision. But make no mistake, groups are still influenced by all the criteria that help build trust. I think it’s imperative to have an established and trustworthy brand in that case, because it helps those people minimize the risk of their decision. It helps them feel more comfortable.”

Myth #5: The company owns the brand.

Well, legally speaking, yes. But in reality, the brand exists in the minds of users, consumers, and stakeholders. Why? Because brand is all about perception. A company can manage a brand, but it can never completely control it.

“Every company and every product has a brand, even if they’ve never worked on it,” explains Sarnoski. “It might not be intentional or even desirable, but it exists in the mind of the consumer. You can try to alter that however you want. Hopefully, if you are really good at managing that experience across all the touchpoints, there will be a lot of consistency between what you want the brand to mean and what it does mean.”