It’s been some weeks since I have been trying to get into depth of branding.
Deeper I went, I realized I know nothing about branding. In fact, most people don’t know about it.
I often see branding experts saying – “It’s not about logos and colors. It’s more than that”
“Then what is it all about? And why is branding necessary?”
“It’s about mission, messaging, positioning, offering, storytelling, experience, etc, etc”
I reply, “Umm… okay! Can you explain it to me in one simple sentence? Assume that I am an absolute beginner with no understanding of all these jargons”
They give vague examples of Apple and Mercedes. C’mon don’t tell me about those giants. Everyone knows about them.
I know they are best in branding. But try explaining me in my context (what an irony branding experts!)
These fancy stories are good to hear till I don’t look to implement things.
As soon as I want to start execution of “branding” activities – I am blank.
How can I make small businesses understand that?
How can I implement that for my clients?
How do I explain it to non-marketers?
How can I measure success?
Everyone tries to explain branding theoretically but that was never a satisfactory answer.
I talked to several experts
I watched several videos
I asked ChatGPT
I read books
I understood everything bit by bit but I was desperately looking for a simplified explanation of “branding”
This week I met Abhijeet, our co-founder (who is an extremely smart marketer) and he gave his own simple definition of branding – “Your confidence to raise price without affecting customers”
Wow! Mind = Blown 🤯
Simplicity is underrated. This is exactly what I was looking for.
Albert Einstein used to say – “If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough”
It connected all the dots that I was looking for.
Answer was just in front of me and I was looking for it everywhere!
I am still not fully aware how brands are built but at least I am feeling like I made some progress.
HOW TO MEASURE?
I am learning concepts and exploring how a “brand value” is calculated.
It has always been clear that branding has no direct KPI.
It reflects on overall sales and sentiments.
To still track it, I find internet sentiments as a good metric. Social listening tools like Awario help with that. These are expensive though.