What Is Branding?

Branding, is it Just a Catch All?

The term ‘branding’ is thrown around a little lightly these days. The term is one of the many terms that marketing and communications folks throw around kind of loosely. It’s always a little vague. Most people think of branding as your logo, colors, fonts, the tone of voice, and your overall design aesthetic. We see it a little differently.

So what is branding? To us, branding is not a logo, it’s not a color, and it’s certainly not a font. Branding is a gut feeling that a consumer gets when they see your company, it’s the first impression, and it’s different for every person experiencing your brand. Because branding includes every person who engages with your brand, it can be hard to put a firm definition of what makes a brand.

The best definition that we’ve ever heard is from Marty Neumeier. In his book, the Brand Gap, he makes the argument that branding is not what you say you are but what they say you are. This definition can scare a lot of people in marketing because the marketing department is not in control of the narrative. It relies on your team understanding your target consumer and looking at the world through their eyes. The litmus for choices becomes, what would my audience think about this campaign, what gut feelings do my target audience get when they look at my website or logo. Branding brings people outside of your organization into the equation.

All you can do to control your brand is to make sure that everything you do reinforces what you would like others to say about you or what brand you want to put forward. From your website to your Google PPC, to your trade show booth employees, it all builds a brand, and it’s hard to do right and easy to destroy.

That’s why Nature & Nurture Creative is a Branding Studio. Yes, we can help you with your digital and your traditional marketing needs, but we always ask ourselves, what does this do to your overall brand? What gut feeling are we hoping to inspire? But most importantly, what is in the mind of your audience.

We strive to make sure all of our work helps you build your brand. You have a brand, whether you want one or not, if you’re B2B or B2C, make sure you’re paying attention to it.