Who makes brands?

This paper asks, ’who really makes brands?’ Brand building usually starts with an organisation’s management, but ultimately it is each person’s judgment based on their encounters with the organisation that brings a brand to life. Readers are invited to think of France or Italy and the images they suggest, and how each of us forms our own version of a country as a brand. We do the same with the cities where we live, and companies and their products and services. a brand is the result of an organisation’s behaviour and not a piece of graphic design, which this paper describes as ‘superficial clothes’. Everything an organisation does can be identified as behaviour and has a profound effect on perceptions of it as a brand. Organisations should base their ‘choreography’, or the dance they offer their customers, on strong underpinning ideas. The paper gives seven reasons why a strong and consistent brand idea is a valuable asset, citing the dangers of undermining this value if employees do not have a sense of ownership, and urges all organisations to be single-minded in articulating their brand idea and to create coherence between that idea and what they aspire to achieve.