What defines a brand?
05th August
Chain-L’s design raises a smile. It’s certainly an original approach to the functional category of bicycle maintenance. But of course it defines itself by satirising another brand. Is Chain-L a brand or just a bit of a joke? “A brand is an idea attached to a product” is the most succinct and useful definition of branding I know, but this pack questions that definition. Chain-L is an idea (a silly one), and it is a product, but it doesn’t feel like a brand to me. Definitions of brands and branding never seem to quite work universally.
We all intuitively get what brands are, and for me the more academic models of branding seem to miss the point that branding is a feeling as much as a formula. The one below is obviously the product of some hard thinking, but brands themselves work on a much more instantaneous level. Despite spending years talking and reading about what brands are, it’s actually quite nice working day in and day out on something which is rather hard to sum up.
If you should want to read more about what this chart actually means, have a look at www.allaboutbranding.com
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Tom Asacker
August 27, 2009 4:00 pm
After studying the marketplace for a bit more than three decades, the definition that I’ve developed for the elusive concept “brand” seems to make the most sense (at least to me):
“A brand is an expectation of receiving a particular feeling by way of an experience.”
IMO, if people are willing to exchange their time, attention or money for something (even silly bike oil) with an expectation of receiving value (always a subjective feeling, typically self-reflective; e.g. “I’m smart. I’m fun. I’m cool.”) then it is a brand. The strength of that brand, along with it’s ability to scale in meaning, relevance and value over time, is another question all together.
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