What is a Brand?
To understand why your brand may be the biggest company’s asset we must first understand what exactly is the ‘brand’. A brand is anything associated with the way the company is perceived. This can include elements such as your trademark, slogan, logo, packaging, marketing messages, brand colors and its online presence. By using brand marketing you can strategize and create ways of how the consumer can engage, buy, and most importantly trust you. If you are in a B2C industry your brand is your most valuable asset because it relies on the consumers trust in order to have revenue.
So, why is it so important to establish your brand?
You become the obvious choice
Your brand elements will never be at reach for your competition. Take these examples, luxury car brands have competed with each other for decades but then Tesla comes in and creates a new niche market because it differs from other gas-powered luxury vehicles, their cars are electric. Elon Musk has done a great job in branding himself as the real-life Tony Stark as well as creating unique brand messages through ads and quirky features like “Ludicrous Mode”
The brand helps you be consistent and guides your overall business thinking
The brand helps your company to follow a guide of where they stand as a brand in their industry compared to their competitors and to which direction you would like to grow. Disney knows and understands the importance of keeping their content family-oriented under the main brand but also knows they can add more mature content under their sub-brands such as Lucasfilm Ltd. and Marvel Studios. Apple started as a computer company, in the following years they stayed true to their brand message of continuing to innovate and self-discover leading themselves to other industries like music, smartphone, and tablets.
A strong brand motivates employees and attracts quality employees
Being a life-long-existing and exciting company like Apple, Google, and Facebook it’s obvious to know that there are life-long-fans of these companies who have built themselves to one day be a great candidate and hopefully an employee. Having a strong brand such as these companies will have employees motivated and eager to work long hours because they’ve worked hard enough to land that job in the first place. Having employees believing in your brand that will help them not only build a strong resume but a successful career is something worth working for.
A brand helps you overcome challenges
The strongest brand can overcome the biggest challenges. Like Uncle Ben once said, “With great power comes great responsibility” brands must address swiftly and appropriately when they become part of a scandal due to wrong brand positioning and messaging that backfires into a negative response. A great example is when Chipotle overcame the salmonella debacle in 2016. Their response was quick and specific by closing for a whole day, getting all new food products, cleaning facilities, and starting a campaign. The campaign included distributing free burritos to slowly encourage their loyal customers to come back, in return they had a positive response and gained back brand loyalty. Today, they continue to strive for the freshest ingredients and a variety of healthy options.