What is Branding?

There's a common misunderstanding between brands and logos. We commonly say that we are going to buy the "brand X" when we are actually referring to “product X”. 

Imagining the beginning of a new venture: someone has an idea and works hard to transform it into a product that will be improved over the years until it’s shaped like its final version. After that, a new journey begins, to transform it into a business, to define the best business model, attracting partners and talents, adjusting systems, and creating a culture. Those are stages for the business creation, but even if this company has a name and a logo, it’s possible that it doesn’t have a brand yet.‍

The most well-known definition is from Marty Neumeier, who defines a brand as "a gut feeling about a product, a service, or a company. It's a reputation. Your brand isn’t what you say it is. It’s what they say it is”.
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Every touchpoint of the business leaves a perception. It’s true to say that there are many brands as consumers because each one of us will have a slightly different idea about Nike or Apple, for example. ‍

And that’s the beauty of it: the more uniform and consistent this mental image, the better the brand-building work is. In that sense, branding is the ongoing process to help businesses to build that.

I really love this other definition from Hello Monday: “Branding are ideas that keep growing”.

It summarizes the role of a brand in terms of helping shape vision and values in the form of something tangible and beautiful. A deep design thinking process leads to a strong brand that can set pricing positions, improves business model, engages like-minded people, retains and attracts talents, and ultimately Increases business longevity and profitability. But that is only possible if we can uncover the business essence, its core, to translate that in a simple and clear message. So, in a nutshell, Branding is the ongoing process to help businesses to build that.‍