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I had one of my consulting clients make a statement the other day that got me thinking.  He was discussing the directors of the business and the sales agents and he said that “we are the brand.”  I let the statement slide at the time, but I should have argued with him, because this is a dangerous way to think about a brand.  If you are the brand, then when you’re having a bad day is the brand having a bad day?  If the directors have diverse opinions and stand for different things, does that mean that the brand stands for all of these things or none of them?   The answer is that the brand and the people are not the same thing.  My client has made a dangerous assumption that will stand in the way of him building and supporting a great brand.

So if a brand isn’t the people of an organisation, what is it?  I prefer a definition along the lines of the following from Al Achenbaum:

What distinguishes a brand from an unbranded commodity counterpart and gives it its equity is the sum total of consumers’ perceptions and feelings about the product’s attributes, about how it performs, about the brand name, and about the company associated with producing it.

Notice that what counts in this definition has got nothing at all to do with the company!  The only thing that matters from a brand perspective is what the consumer thinks!  You aren’t your brand.  Your brand is the perceptions and feelings of your customers towards it.  Heavy stuff.