fathom Blog

What is a Brand?

Posted by admin in Branding, Emotions. 12/30/2009, 3:42 PM

Though consumers commonly associate a brand with a logo, slogan, or product, the brand proper actually exceeds all these things. A true brand is an emotional experience, one that is specific to a product or a service or an environment.

That “brand experience” extends beyond tangible objects to include thoughts, feelings, and sensory reactions to the designed object, space, or activity. As design researchers, we understand these emotional components to be the essence of brand and the first step in the process of designing communications, products, identities, and environments.

This first step only works because humans are emotional beings who make decisions based on gut feelings and sensory reactions. That’s not to say that we’re gullible, that the emotional branding process is easy, or that speaking effectively to us is a matter of simply raising your voice.

Rather, the branding process emphasizes the point that defining an emotional experience is a key part of gaining the confidence of a core group of consumers. A company can then foster more widespread adoption through careful marketing and creative efforts. Once the emotional experience is established, the company must maintain it through consistent quality and ongoing marketing initiatives.

These endeavors require us to think of the brand holistically, as an emotional experience. Too often, companies think of the brand experience in silos: as an identity, logo, website, advertisement, and so on.

To be successful, a brand has to be experienced whole – emotionally and tangibly – telling a consistent and engaging story at every touchpoint along the way. Otherwise, the emotional bond between consumer and company will break.

(Reprinted with some modification from “The Promise of Space: Branding and Architecture in Theory and in Practice,” by Christine Astorino. Design Intelligence, January/February 2010.)