Definition of brand – the 3Sixty view

This is a question we get asked a lot. “Define Brand” What is it that makes a brand? Is it a logo, an experience, a promise or more? This blog post will help you understand what a brand is, why it’s important and give you some great sources of information.

3Sixty believes that a brand is a promise. Who you are, how you behave, and how you communicate. It is a consistent experience that you ensure your customers receive. It is an emotional attachment with your target audience(s) and, through this, a building of their loyalty.

For sure, there are some basic foundations of shaping a great brand - defining the target audience, creating a ‘brand story’ to articulate the selling points, deciding on your brand values, creation of your logo, strap-line, and messaging etc. But what truly matters after this is how consistently you provide the product or service.

When I stumble upon your brand for the first time, I have no expectations, no knowledge of what it will provide. At that moment your brand is neutral to me. You have one chance to prove your credibility to me at this point and one chance only.

The first thing I look at is ‘image’ – does this company look professional? Are they talking my language? Do they provide what I need? Do they have good recommendations? Have I heard of them before? Do they provide value for money etc?

Then I try the product or service. At this point you need to provide me with a satisfactory experience. Throughout this experience I will sub-consciously answer many questions such as:

• Is the product or service great?
• Did it exceed my expectations?
• Did it solve my problem or need?
• Were the people nice to deal with?
• Were there any problems, if so, how did they deal with them?


If the answers to the above questions were positive, I will have a good emotional attachment to your product or service. The better the experience I received, the stronger the attachment will be. Then I want to see that the experience is consistent. The longer the experience is consistent, the more my ‘brand loyalty’ will grow.


Branding Web Sources:

Brand Week
Everything from branding tips on increasing brand loyalty to the latest industry news

Building Brands
Brand management, brand building, brand strategy and branding tips

BNet Today
More of a general business site, but has some good articles on Brands and branding



Other Brand Definitions:

MSN Encarta Definition of Brand
Commerce product or manufacturer: a name, usually a trademark, of a product or manufacturer, or the product identified by this name

Wikipedia Definition of Brand
Brand is a collection of symbols, experiences and associations connected with a product, a service, a person or any other artifact or entity.

The Dictionary of Business and Management Definition of Brand
A name, sign or symbol used to identify items or services of the seller(s) and to differentiate them from goods of competitors. 


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