What is a trademark? Simply put, it defines the identity of an organization, product, or service. It’s more than just names and logos. The identity must be based on a unique idea and told through a compelling story. You need to connect with potential customers and form positive emotional bonds. The idea must stand out from the competition and be relevant to the worldview of the target markets. It must also be authentic, which means that making empty statements is not enough. The organization needs to really live its brand.

Brands increase the value of products and services by differentiating them from the competition, creating positive mental associations and forming emotional relationships with the customer. Philip Kotler of the Kellogg School of Management said that “if you are not a brand, you are a commodity. Then price is everything and the low-cost producer is the only winner.”

Competing on price can increase sales in the short term, but it is a dangerous strategy for anyone serious about building a profitable and sustainable business. Brands provide companies with the means to break free from constant price competition, increase the value of their services, reduce their marketing costs, and develop long-term customer loyalty.

Building a successful and sustainable brand requires careful planning and consistency. You need a strategy. The brand strategy is the plan that defines, defines the ideas and stories behind the brands, the structure and relationship of the brands within the organization and the core identification elements. These can include things like company and product names, tone of voice, logos, color combinations, etc. It also provides the framework for implementing the brands across all the organization’s operations and for using them to work efficiently toward business goals. It is not just a cosmetic exercise; it is a key element of business strategy.

With a clear strategy, managers can make appropriate, coordinated, and informed decisions not just in marketing, but in all departments, from product development to customer service to recruiting. This process of incorporating the brand idea throughout the organization is what we call branding.

The beauty of the brand is that by telling your customers authentic and compelling stories, you not only make your products more attractive and valuable, but you give your customers something to talk about. Humans naturally love to tell and share stories. By giving them good stories to tell, you gain access to what is by far the cheapest and most effective form of promotion: word of mouth.

Few organizations manage to reap the full benefits of word of mouth, and worse, for many organizations it spreads more negative stories than positive ones. To make up for the lack of positive word of mouth, organizations spend huge sums of money on ineffective marketing exercises. Without an effective branding strategy, these exercises are often unfocused, inconsistent, and inauthentic. Consequently, they rarely pay for themselves, much less make a profit.

So what is the role of marketing? To a large extent, branding is the antithesis of marketing. Branding is the most effective way to generate positive word of mouth, making it cheaper and more effective than traditional marketing techniques.

Marketing without a clear branding strategy is a chaotic and expensive exercise that, in essence, is little more than yelling and bragging about your products and services. People don’t like or trust bragging. If you want to make an impact, you have to talk to them as adults. With exposure to thousands of marketing messages every day, consumers have largely become immune to nonsensical promotional messages, filtering them and filing them in their mental recycling bins.

However, there is still a place for marketing and in many cases marketing is part of the branding process as it provides a means of spreading the brand story. This explains why there is so much confusion regarding the difference between them. Marketing used to be about promoting products and services. Successful marketing now focuses on brand promotion.

If an organization developed a perfect branding idea but did nothing to promote it, no one would have ever heard of it. The story would never get out and the strategy would not be successful. Therefore, it is important to combine brand and marketing strengths to reach your target market.

The most successful organizations combine a forward-thinking, confident idea with a strong, organized strategy. Then they use carefully targeted marketing to help spread their story. The success of your brands means that as time passes, the need for formal marketing decreases and the effectiveness of any existing marketing increases, thus paving the way for higher profits and organizational growth.

In conclusion, brands are a key element in building profitable businesses with long-term sustainability. When executed well, they increase sales, add value to products and services, and reduce marketing costs. They also focus a business, increase staff morale, and increase stock value.

Building successful brands is not simply a cosmetic exercise. They must be consistent, loyal to the organization and incorporated throughout its activities. This is only possible when there is a clear branding strategy that acts as a framework for their implementation and to ensure that they are always working towards business goals. Marketing has its place as a tool to promote brands, but once they have made a connection with the core of their target market, successful brands can sell themselves through word of mouth.