Thoughts on Branding

Lately I have been posting a lot about a high-touch concept called design thinking. In this post I want to revisit some basics of branding. Branding is the process of managing the perception that others have of you personally or of your product, service or organization. There are many ways to do that. Marketing, advertising and public relations are three ways. How you dress, the words you use, the personality you exude and the people with whom you associate are others. The strategy behind these tools is called brand strategy. To brand yourself is to design the toolkit that enables you to manage the perception that others have of you, to deliver on their expectations of you and to fulfill the implicit or explicit promise that you make to them when you interact with them. A successful brand answers the questions, “Who are you?” and “Why do you matter?”