And another thing . . .

A while back, I put up a something about how a tag line is not your brand. And my earlier post today kind of made me want to expand that further. Here goes:

A tag line is not your brand. (We covered this already.) But neither is a logo, corporate color, font, advertising or graphics standards.

Your brand is a promise. A unique claim of distinction that is supported by evidence of performance.

A brand is an asset. It can keep customers from considering the competition, help you get premium pricing, help you recruit employees, help get new products accepted . . . and all kinds of other stuff.

Brand development is the discovery of a brand’s distinction. Branding is tactical ― delivery of the brand message. This is where things like colors, advertising, fonts and the logo come in. But in and of their own personal selves they are most certainly not your brand.

(And while we’re at it, “over” and “more than” do not mean the same thing. There’s a big difference between “ensure” and “insure”. And for God’s sake stop confusing “it’s” and “its”.)