Branding For Dummies®

Chapter 2. When and How to Brand

In This Chapter

• Branding products, businesses, services, and even yourself

• Following the branding process, step‐by‐step

• Seizing the best moment to brand or rebrand

The short answer to the question of when and how to brand is this: Brand when you're ready to make a promise to customers, and brand by making a promise that you're absolutely, positively certain you can keep.

A brand, in essence, is a promise about who you are and what benefits you deliver that gets reinforced every single time people come in contact with any facet of you or your business.

Branding isn't a veneer that you slap on (usually in the form of a new logo) to mask or transform a product offering. Treating branding like some skin‐deep solution to your business's problems is like putting lipstick on a pig: People see through the makeup, no matter how thick the application. Branding has to go all the way to the core of who you are and what you stand for.

Count on this chapter to lead you into the branding process, starting with a good overview of branding definitions and terminology. Then we move into a look at all the things you can brand and a lineup of the moments when branding is most essential and beneficial to your business and marketing success.

Branding Demystified

The $64,000 question among those breaking ground in the world of branding is, “So what is branding, anyway?” In a sentence, branding is the process of building a positive collection of perceptions in your customers' minds. ...