#061 – How to prepare for Branding

Destroy Digital

Branding is a word that means ownership. To prepare for branding is to prepare for ownership of your business. Your brand is your mark of excellence. It symbolises the promise you make to each and every customer.

A great showcase from the very early days of branding one’s product is from the cattle industry in the American mid-west from mid-to-late 1900s. From a simple need to being able to identify one’s livestock, these brands quickly evolved to mean much more than that. And would eventually be as valuable or even more so than the cattle themselves.

From the image below, you can see that these cattle brands were quite abstract and very inventive. Like medieval coats-of-arms and heraldry, there is a language and a system to the symbols. These brands were vital to the success of any serious rancher who wanted to demonstrate and exercise ownership. Not to mention, also as a means of conveying and guaranteeing the quality of the beef.

Their reputations were all riding on their brand. Literally and figuratively. This Pinterest board has more great examples and artefacts from those heady days.

How to prepare for branding

How does this affect you and your business? Well, branding is a serious exercise. It is your mark of ownership over your business. It is also your customers mark of ownership. In many cases, the brand is more alive in the minds of customers than the brand owners (e.g. Coca-Cola).

Take the time to find a good brand consultant that can steer you in the right direction. Be involved and engaged in the formulation and execution of your brand. And finally, oversee the on-going expression of it.

Here’s an episode on how modern brands are taking charge of the way their brand narratives are disseminated, perceived and expressed.

Finally, be sure about your brand. Imagine changing your brand in mid-stream…you don’t want to do that. So, you want to get it right – the first time.

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