• by February 8, 2001

By Adam Bernard

Branding is one of the most important aspects of advertising. So why is it that so many people get it wrong? In a recent survey of marketing professionals, a whopping 74.9% of them defined branding as image awareness. While that is partly right, it's nowhere near a complete definition of the concept.

Image awareness is all that branding is to farmers, who have to make sure the other farmers know who owns which cattle, but that definition obviously can't carry over into the advertising world. IT Radio Network recently hosted a program called "The busy executive's guide to understanding branding in the new economy," and it featured many people who are knowledgeable on the subject.

Many do's and don'ts of branding were discussed, but the main point that all of the speakers tried to get across was that trust and truth have to be a part of branding, for no matter how nice a brand looks, if a customer doesn't trust it, the product doesn't get bought.

Dr. Peter Sealey, Adjunct Professor at UC Berkeley, said that the best definition he had ever heard for branding was that "it's the commercial value of the trust between a consumer and a company. Brands have a meaning in the consumer's mind, and the clarity, and precision with which that meaning is defined is what creates branding."

Laurie Coots, Chief Marketing Officer of TBWA Chiat Day, added, "we start with the customers. It's all about connection, making the consumers connect."

One statistic that may be overblown is the click-through statistic. IAB Chairman Rich LeFurgy, of Walden V.C., said click-throughs "just show that you're clicking on a banner. What really matters is if you can create awareness for that brand, if you can communicate attributes about that product and you can increase purchase intent. Those three actions on the branding front are just what we look for in television commercials, print ads, and radio commercials."

LeFurgy did note that the basic banner can do a tremendous job of branding, saying that research has shown that they're just as effective as television commercials when it comes to creating awareness.

As stated earlier, creating awareness is only one part of branding, and Steve Block, Director of Corporate Advertising Services at AT&T, spoke of the importance of earning a customer's trust. Block said "you can bring out new products, and new innovations, and, in fact, customers will cut you a little slack if they still understand you to be the honest brand that is attempting to do what's right. It's never about what you say, it's about who you are."

Mark Goldston, Chairman and CEO of NetZero, may have stated the best way to go about branding when he said "you have to avoid hype, avoid doing things which are not sustainable, because then you lose brand focus. You have to build your brand with a long-term image in mind, and you have to really find out what's going to make you unique and different."

- Adam Bernard may