Today’s operative term in effective marketing is branding. In one way, it’s just a new slant on a combination of time-honored aspects of successful marketing communications:

• Image/Identity
• Positioning
• Differentiation
• Developing top-of-mind awareness
• Building relationships with target audiences
• Integrated marketing communications

On the other hand, properly understood and applied, the branding concept does create a healthy new paradigm for marketing. But once “branding” became a buzz word, many different definitions for it surfaced: a promise, an image, a relationship, a unique position...and on and on. However, these are results of branding, not the brand itself. Settling for these limited viewpoints only truncates, if not negates, the effectiveness of branding.

• Branding is, in essence: a person Branding is, in essence: a person’s collected experiences with an entity --  

So a brand is actually a memory -- everything remembered about you through interaction (whether in person, on the phone, at the web site...), what others have said about you (personally or in the media), your advertising and other marketing communications, and actual experiences with you.

This is why consistency -- of the look, of the feel, of the “attitude” -- is so critically important to success. It’s also why:

• Successful branding is a continual process, not a one-shot panacea.