What is a brand?
In the book Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari, it is explained that brands don’t exist in reality. Brands are imaginary constructions companies create to get people together to do something while profit is being made.
Many of us agree with that way of looking at brands. After many years working as a Creative Director in the tech space, I’ve come up with my own definition of brand.
Let’s stop for a second in this word: perception.
This idea is also explained by Marty Neumeier, author of branding books like The Brand Gap or The Brand Flip, when he says:
“Every customer has a different brand of you.”
As creators, marketers, or even founders of a business, we don’t control our brand. We control how our brand behaves, what our brand says, or how it looks, but we don’t control what our brand is. That’s up to anyone interacting with our brand.
Your brand is built in every single interaction you have with our audience.
I believe the moment you have a business, you have a brand. The moment you are online in the business space, you have a personal brand. Even if you’re not aware
If, as Yuval says, brands exist to unite people, what brings them together? What makes people stick around?
Trust.
I believe the purpose of every single brand on the planet is to build trust.
Some may say the purpose of brands is long term profit. I consider long term profit a byproduct of building a meaningful brand, not its primary objective.
Want to dive deeper into this? Feel free to watch this video I’ve made about it.
