Branding, eh

Most people in this industry associate "branding" with big name companies like Coca-Cola, Google and Apple. The concept is confusing and sometimes debated. Why worry about branding when you are just trying to get by?

In a posting on the Design and Construction Network's LinkedIn discussion board, University of Malaysia associate professor Chris Preece directs readers to his blog, where he writes:

David Meerman Scott asserts that "branding is only for cattle"! His argument is that marketers who "obsess about brand usually focus on aesthetics over buyers. They are more interested in the colour scheme of the Web site than in meeting their buyers' needs with a content marketing strategy. They care about logos not buyers."

Whilst I feel David is harsh in saying that "marketers are a bunch of flaky wimps", he does make very sensible points for those engaged in marketing and branding in the business-to-business market space. He maintains that "while the rest of the organization is focused on metrics and revenue and ROI and reaching buyers, these ineffective marketers are worried about how the T-shirts look."

So is it time that we start to rebrand branding? There is much misunderstanding about what branding is, or should be, even among marketers let alone hard-nosed CEO's and engineers.

This provoked some interesting responses including a link by Erin Orr. Marketing Director at FOX Architects LLC to an effective downloadable pdf from Marty Neumeier.