13 Ways of Looking at a Brand

Marketing researchers and theorists have a lot to say about what brands are, what brands do, and why strong brands are so important for organizations of all kinds. Here are a few insights from gurus both well-known and obscure.


1. A Brand Is a Symbol

“A brand is a complex symbol that represents a variety of ideas and attributes.”

—Burleigh Gardner and Sidney Levy

2. A Brand Creates Value

“A brand is used by an organization to create value for its stakeholders.”

—Jon Miller and David Muir

3. A Brand Exists Only in People’s Minds

“A brand is simply a collection of perceptions in the mind of the consumer.”

—Paul Feldwick

4. A Brand Is a Differentiator

“A brand identifies one seller’s product or service as distinct from those of other sellers.”

—American Marketing Association

5. A Brand Is the Result of Behavior

“A brand is a promise you make and keep in every marketing activity, every action, every corporate decision, every customer interaction.”

—Kristin Zhivago

6. A Brand Is Not a New Idea

“The idea of brand has been around for at least 5,000 years.”

—Marty Neumeier

7. A Brand Is a Powerful Asset

“Powerful brands can drive success in competitive and financial markets, and indeed become the organization’s most valuable assets.”

—Peter Fisk

8. A Brand Taps into Emotions

“Emotions drive most, if not all, of our decisions. A brand reaches out with a powerful connecting experience. It’s an emotional connecting point that transcends the product.”

—Scott Bedbury

9. A Brand Grows in Influence

“A brand tells the consumer many things . . . via the body of associations it has built up and acquired as a public object over a period of time.”

—Burleigh Gardner and Sidney Levy

10. A Service Brand Is Unique

“The service process . . . has to be at the heart of service brands, because it is there that the most profound impression on the customer . . . is created.”

—Christian Grönroos

11. A Brand Is Like a . . . ?

“The product or service can be imagined or visualized as a hard, white golf ball, while the brand is a translucent, multi-coloured ball of gas the size of a large balloon surrounding that golf ball.”

—Iain Ellwood

12. A Brand Is Everything We Are

When defining their brands, “organizations talk variously about credo, DNA, purpose, vision, values, beliefs, principles, philosophy, attributes, and characteristics.”

—Nicholas Ind

13. A Great Brand Inspires

“A great brand is one you want to live your life by, one you trust and hang on to while everything around you is changing, one that articulates the type of person you are or want to be, one that enables you to do what you couldn’t otherwise achieve.”

—Peter Fisk