I have always been intrigued by the art of branding. I’ve read lots of books and blogs about branding, studied great companies and their brand identities, and have come to the conclusion that a brand is identified by the people (and their actions) who make up the company and not the advertising company who comes up with the next smart idea or ad campaign. The idea of branding to create identity is flawed. It’s the identity of the people, their integrity, their belief in the company’s business, and their actions that create the brand. If it’s authentically embedded in the culture of the company and all the people who make up the company, then the brand is strong.
The best companies are those that don’t need to be rebranded. Coke, Nike, 3M, Virgin, and Apple all have the same brand ideology and the consistency in their message. A company, product, or building’s marketing campaign needs to be rebranded only when something is wrong. And there seems to be a lot of this going around right now……
Older companies are trying to become young and hip.
Gorilla franchise companies are trying to disassociate with their parent franchise.
Established specialist companies are trying to reinvent themselves into full service all-things-to-everyone companies.
At CORE, we’ve been instrumental in rebranding and marketing many projects recently, and our main challenge when we do this is always to identify the product accurately, and reflect that in our message to the buyer.
– Shaun Osher is the CEO and Founder of CORE