One of the local Chambers of Commerce is having a press conference this week to “unveil” their new brand for economic development efforts.
That’s interesting.
I’m having a press conference next week to unveil my new personality and what people think about me. Starting next week, I would like to be referred to as Foster.
The two are the same concept. People get the terms “brand” and “logo” confused. A lot.
The personality analogy is a little incomplete, but gets the idea across. Your brand is what people expect from you. You influence it by the way you act and talk…the ideas you share. You define the parameters of what people expect from you. But in the end, people will establish their own perception of you. In a corporate sense, this is called your “BRAND”.
A logo is akin to the human face. When people I know see me, they recognize me by my physical characteristics. “Hey, it’s Chris. (or next week…”Hey, it’s Foster”) From that recognition, their mind pulls up what they think about me (my personality/brand characteristics)
If I had a facelift or cosmetic surgery (I changed my logo), it would not greatly affect what people thought of me.
And yet, companies do this all the time. A new logo will not change “your brand”. Changing what you do changes your brand…slowly. You’re defining your brand if you have a brand strategy or not. People are making judgements on the brand with every interaction they have with your business.
I’m sure the inspiration for this “brand” move from the local Chamber came from the “branding of Kentucky” movement. Kentucky and Oregon are the only two states that have brand strategies (all 50 actually have brands, by the way). I wrote an article for one of the state’s newspapers about Kentucky’s misplaced branding efforts back in January. I have a copy of that article on the blog. You can read it here.
tags:: marketing, branding, kentucky, municipal brands
