The personality aspect of a brand admits that there are strong emotional components to the decisions that we make. If you don’t think your brand is interesting enough to have a personality, then go and ask your sales department how they sell. You may be surprised at their response.

Associations are a mental shortcut to the brand promise. In many cases, these associations occur organically without company cultivation. This is always a positive sign. If, however, the associations are negative, you should stop doing whatever it is that caused them immediately.

Every aspect of the integrated branding model is important to the whole. Each piece plays a role in helping you gain and maintain a firm understanding of what your brand is all about. As we step up beyond Organization Drivers and begin to talk about Brand Drivers, we discover that the Brand Principle is truly the key element of this layer. It is the foundation for differentiating the brand in every area.

The Brand Principle has the power to differentiate the brand everywhere it interacts with the consumer. It is the foundation for consumer expectation and experience.

Organization Drivers determine the form and direction your brand will take- they are the genetic code of your brand. Organization Drivers are made up primarily of your mission statement, your core values, and your marketing story. In short, Organization Drivers answer the following questions:

1. How do you define your business?
2. Which concepts do you cherish?
3. What story do you have to tell?

Any serious effort at creating a strong brand begins with these questions.

So, how can you build a strong brand? Start by redefining what a brand means to you. Integrated branding is about acting out and expressing core values. The image of Nipper took hold because it was inherently true. It matched the experience the consumer had with the product. RCA didn’t draw a picture and then build a story around it, they selected a story that illustrated their core values. And it stuck. In short, get past the idea of viewing branding as a communications process.

The most important thing to realize about the integrated branding process is that it is a model for building the most important asset your company will ever have- relationships with your customers. Once you accept that your best customer is the one you already have, then creating a means by which you can deepen those relationships is the next logical step. As any pop-psychologist will tell you, you can’t have a deep relationship with another person until you know who you are and you’re comfortable with who you are. This applies to brand-consumer relationships just as it applies to person-person relationships.

The Brand. It’s the holy grail of marketing. But what is it? Most average people- even people that have spent thousands upon thousands of dollars on so-called “branding” will tell you it’s a logo, an ad campaign, slogans, yada, yada, yada. Most marketers will give you a broader, more philosophical response- most of which make about as much sense as whiskey-flavored ice cream. Most of these definitions only scratch the surface…