Visit any cattle farm and you are likely to see cows with letters or icons burnt into their hides with a branding iron. These burn marks help farmers determine which cows belong to which farm, should herds become intermingled while grazing.
This topic might seem like a strange introduction to a marketing discussion, but the practice of marking animals is at the very root of branding. Because cows pretty much all look alike, farmers needed a way to tell which cows belong to which farmer. To solve this problem, farmers started to burn a mark on their cattle, so that they could tell them apart. Th e mark (brand) helps to tell one cow (product) from another. Therefore, one definition of a brand is:
This topic might seem like a strange introduction to a marketing discussion, but the practice of marking animals is at the very root of branding. Because cows pretty much all look alike, farmers needed a way to tell which cows belong to which farmer. To solve this problem, farmers started to burn a mark on their cattle, so that they could tell them apart. Th e mark (brand) helps to tell one cow (product) from another. Therefore, one definition of a brand is:
Brand: An icon or mark (logo) that helps distinguish one product from another.
So then, is the brand a product? By this definition, no—the brand represents the product. Pepsi Cola is carbonated water, sugar, and caramel flavoring. The brand is the red, white, and blue circle, the Pepsi name, and the distinctive lettering used. When you see it on the shelf, you immediately know it is different from the bright red and white Coca-Cola bottle on the shelf next to it.
However, there is a slight disconnect with this definition. Let’s revisit the farmer. The farmer brands his cows to prove ownership—not so that you, the consumer, can pick out his cows from those of another farmer. By the time his cow ends up on your plate, you are thinking far less about which farm it came from than you are about whether you will still have room for dessert. That is a very different scenario than the one in which a consumer is choosing to drink Pepsi instead of Coke. For many people, the choice comes down to taste, which is more than just the basic ingredients. Taste is a feature of each product that makes it unique. That brings us to a different definition:
Brand: A specific characteristic or unique quality that distinguishes one product from another.
The Pepsi logo lets you know that inside that particular bottle is the specific taste you are looking for. What if every time you opened a bottle of Pepsi, it tasted different? What if sometimes it was bitter and other times it was sweet? Chances are you would stop buying it. The red, white, and blue logo, the specific type face, and the product name would no longer mean anything. As a consumer, if you see a bottle with the Pepsi logo on it, you know exactly how it is going to taste, whether you are in New York, Boston, Los Angeles, or any one of a million other towns. This brings us to the single most important definition of a brand from the perspective of a marketer:
Brand: The sum total of all user experiences with a particular product or service, building both reputation and future expectations of benefit.
From a marketer’s standpoint, this is the definition that really matters. Notice that in breaking down the word, we have taken the brand from being tangible (an icon) to being intangible (reputation). We have also taken it from being a one-way communication (this icon tells you what the brand is), to a two-way relationship with the consumer (based on reputation, we expect something of the brand). If something seems familiar here, it should. Involving consumers directly in a brand is something we have discussed in the Social Media sections of this book. Blogs, online consumer reviews, and other social media tools allow consumers to take a more hands-on approach to a brand. However, the fact that brands and consumers are inextricably linked is nothing new; it is, in fact, inherent in the very definition of a brand.