Your Brand is Not You

All of us must have read so much about the legendary topic of marketing; that is “Brand”.  We have spent so much time reading and discussing about ‘What it is?’ and ‘What it is not?’ We can’t deny the fact that every marketing student has been in love with it forever.  We have always wanted to caress it, and to see it flourish.

 But in our love for our brand, do we ignore the reality that it has got a personality of its own. Do we conveniently forget that our brand is not a mere manifestation of our own selves? And that our brand has got a body and a soul of its own. Unfortunately the answer mostly is yes.     

Be it the Brand Owner or the Brand Manager, she must understand that her likes and dislikes have got nothing to do with the communications related to the brand that she owns or manages. (Please note that the Brand Owner or the Brand Manager can be an individual or even a team.) We must have come across marketers and ad-makers who help us establish the persona of our brand. They try to personify a brand. They help us identify different traits that we wish our brand to be attached to. All this and much more finally adds up to the imagery of our brand. And the brand thus conceptualized is like a living entity in itself. It has got all its attributes defined. All its affinities and avidities have been studied and recorded.

After so much goes into establishing the attributes of a brand, any communication related to it surely can’t be dictated by the whims and fancies of its owner or the manager. We must realize that any communication related to the brand has to be done considering its traits and not ours. The Brand Owner or the Brand Manager must think in line with the brand while deciding what and how to communicate with the market or the customers. It would be extremely unfortunate if the communication between the brand and the customers doesn’t completely reflect the identity of the brand.

What we are talking about is difficult to practice.  It would take a lot of training and constant self reminders to stop one from getting influenced by one’s own affinities while designing any message. But one has to master this art in order to qualify as an able Brand Manager.