What is a brand and what is its purpose?

We encounter brands at every turn. It fills not only urban space, but also human minds. It defines our group affiliation, social position, needs and purchasing decisions. What is a brand and what made it such a common phenomenon?
Brand – what is it?
A brand is a set of identifying elements that distinguish a company, product, person or other entity.
The components of a brand are unique names, colors, sounds, or symbols, although they most often occur in combination.
Any feature that distinguishes an entity from its competitors can be the stuff of a brand. The appearance of packaging, the behavior of employees, the style of font, the layout of content on the website, these are just some of the countless building blocks from which a brand can be built.
Activities that aim to give a brand identification are called branding. Interestingly, such activities do not have to be related exclusively to the company.
The Biafra war, Noble Laureate Prof. Wole Soyinka or the Nigerian Independence are also a kind of brands, containing a number of unique, distinctive features that are embedded in our consciousness.
Types of brands
In the business world, we deal with three types of brands: company brand, product brand, or person brand.
Company brand
A company brand is a set of unique features that represent a given organization.
Company branding is distinguished by comprehensive activities with a long-term horizon.
Its target group includes both external customers and internal stakeholders. For this reason, the activities include, among others, work culture, management attitude, visions and goals of the company.
Example: Apple, Toyota, Google, Dangote Group and other corporations.
Product brand
A product brand is a set of features that distinguish a single product or a series of related products.
In this case, the target group is only consumers. The duration of branding equals the product life cycle. Advertising and other marketing solutions are used to build awareness.
Example: Macbook Air, ChatGPT 3, Audi A6, Google Workplace.
Personal brand
A personal brand is a series of elements that distinguish a specific person or character.
This particular type of brand is distinguished by its long-term image building using various media such as television or the Internet.
Example: Celebrities, athletes, experts..
What is the purpose of a brand?
Building awareness among readers brings significant economic benefits.
In the case of products, the obvious goal is increased sales. Well-known brands are definitely chosen by consumers more often.
Corporations or specific individuals also care about this, although the effect is not as direct. A company with a favorable image can attract talented employees (so-called employer branding) or increase the valuation of its shares on the stock exchange. In turn, a popular person can count on influence from sponsors or additional earnings from influencer marketing.
These benefits mean that brands surround us at every turn, and their number is constantly growing. But what is responsible for the fact that we prefer well-known companies? Is the effectiveness of brands conditioned by the functioning of our minds?
How does brand work?
We already know what a brand is. However, the reasons for its success are so interesting that they require additional discussion.
As the cultural semiotician Marcin Napiórkowski succinctly put it: ‘The world is complicated, and we are quite simple. The brand makes perfect use of this dissonance, offering us ready-made solutions that do not require thinking.’
We don’t have to analyze the composition, material or properties of a product. We kind of ‘trust’ the brand and know in advance that this is good and that is exclusive. We live in an excess of information, so we don’t demand much – a rhythmic slogan is enough to choose LG for your washing machine, and one practical visualization will show us how effectively Dettol kills almost all disease-causing micro-organisms.
Awareness of different brands creates an interpretive frame according to which we move around this complex world. We fit numerous labels, stereotypes and judgments in our heads to compensate for our cognitive limitations. When the economy is growing rapidly, the capacity of human skulls does not differ much from that of the Paleolithic. We still need simple answers.
Summary
- A brand is a collection of all elements that identify an entity.
- Its primary goal is usually to generate benefits in the form of increased sales.
- The most common types of brands are: brands of companies, products and specific people.
- The components of a brand include a logo, slogan, color, sound. Anything that is characteristic can be an element of a brand.
- The world is complex, and our cognitive abilities are limited. Brands indicate what decisions to make in the face of an excess of information.
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