What Is Branding?
Did you know that the first folks to use the term "branding" – as a noun or a verb – where ranchers?
It's true! And when people use the term branding these days, I can promise you that 99.9% of them are NOT thinking about livestock.
But here's the thing ... there's actually a few nuggets of wisdom to be gleaned from that necessary / cringe-inspiring history, so let's dig into it.
The term "branding" comes from the cowboy days when ranchers would devise a special mark that represented their ranch.
Usually it was symbolic of heraldry or the family name, but if you imagine the way a university creates a logo out of the university initials you’ll basically have the idea.
They would take that mark and make a casting of it with metal. That metal mark would be attached to a pole-like device, would be put that into a fire or a furnace, and they'd heat it up until it was red hot.
Picking the part of the animal that was going to be the least painful was an important part of the job, and with that done, they would press that red hot metal emblem into their skin so that it left a mark, or a “brand”.
This way, the ranchers all knew whose cattle were whose, and if there was ever theft or anything else untoward, they could at least figure out where the cattle belonged.
(Quick side note re: the animals welfare: the ranchers would pick the spot least painful, usually a fatty or fleshy area, and they never tried to hurt the animal. Why? Because animals can die from shock just like humans can. That would be bad for business, so this whole process was done as gently and humanely as possible.)
So branding is literally stamping your mark on something to show the world that it’s yours!
And that’s precisely why the marketing industry stole that term.
We stamp consumers with whichever brand we have been paid to help, and when we do that the right way, those consumers become yours!
You now own their purchase decision – for the need you help solve – and it’ll stay that way until either you change, or their needs change.
So what is branding for businesses and entrepreneurs?
It's simply what people say about you when you're not in the room
It’s the sum total of several messages, interactions, and calls-to-action, all pointed at one consumer with the intention of getting them to purchase. When they do finally purchase (and they usually do), what they say next is your “brand”.
See, the purpose of a ranchers brand was not to help the rancher remember which cattle where his. Ranchers spend their lives with their animals! They know which ones are theirs!
The brand is there to help strangers realize that this livestock belongs to someone else!
Similarly, in the process of branding for the modern businesses and entrepreneurs, your brand isn't so much what YOU think it is.
Your logo is yours, but your brand is actually what other people say it is.
So, when they experience your brand for the first time, does the consumer say “yes?”
Do they say, “never again?”
Whatever they say next is your brand, because branding for businesses is all about the consumer.
At its most basic level, that’s what branding is.
All of this does raise one rather important question, though.
How do we convince them to try my thing and take my brand?
And that, my friends, is what the next blog is all about.
~ Daniel Schmidt