I’ve been holding off on this for a while, hoping that sooner or later leaders in the industry would actually catch on. But, to my dismay, yet another example has come to my attention to fuel my frustration about the ‘understanding of the term branding’.
I was on Twitter earlier today and came across a conference on branding, called Brand Manage Camp — being held in Las Vegas this October. Curious, I went to the web site hoping to see a plethora of skilled experts discussing the huge scope branding covers. Needless to say, once again, the primary (there is no secondary) focus is on the EXTERNAL side of ‘branding’ that should really be called ‘Marketing’.
Not one of their speakers is touted as being an expert an internal brand definition and development. And that really disappoints me because they are only educating the participants on half the picture! When companies focus their efforts entirely on marketing (external exposure) behaviors and have not yet clearly done the due diligence in clearly articulating who they are as a brand (their Brand DNA), then how can they create promise after promise in their marketing message and live up to that message?? They may be successful at getting customers in the door, but HOW DO THEY KEEP THEM? What is the promised experience? And where is the consistency?
What is the company’s brand style? What are their Values, true Differentiators? Standards of Performance? Without knowing these brand attributes, companywide, how do they deliver on them? How do they gain loyalty? How to they hire and retain employees?
A conference on Branding should cover all aspects of the process of branding both internal and external. When will this concept be embraced?
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