Brand, Branding, Brand Identity & Logo. What’s the difference?

While a brand, branding, brand identity and logos all work together to support your business, they are in fact “individual parts of a whole”. Each has separate functions and goals that all play a part in building your brands image. 

In short your: 

Brand: Is How people perceive your company

Branding: Is The act of shaping how a company, organisation or individual is perceived.  

Brand Identity: Is The collection of tangible brand elements that together create one brand image

Logo: Is A mark or icon that identifies the business in its simplest form.

What is a Brand? 

A brand is the way your company is perceived by those who interact and experience it. It’s not your colour palette, your name or your logo, but rather the feelings these assets evoke. 

Take Apple for instance. What is the Apple brand? 

Its not the dramatic product presentations, sleek commercials or aesthetically pleasing storefronts. That’s marketing and advertising. 

Its not the sleek iPads, iphones, MacBooks or AirPods that a lot of us for some reason feel we can’t live without. Those are the products Apple manufactures. 

You see, the Apple brand isn’t any “thing” in the traditional sense of the word. You can’t see it, you can’t hold it, you can’t touch it. That is because brands live in the minds of everyone who experiences it. 

Simply put, brands are perceptions. 

What is Branding?

Branding is the act of shaping how a company, organization, or individual is perceived.

Customer perceptions themselves don’t go out and buy iPhones. But they are critically important for one reason: perceptions dictate behavior. Even perceptions that we´re not aware of can have a big impact on how we act and behave.  Studies in Experimental Social Psychology have shown that, even though we might think we’re in charge of everything we do, our actions are often influenced by factors we’re not even aware of. 

In other words, how you perceive a brand(knowingly or unknowingly) will determine how you’ll engage with it. Branding is powerful because of a very important truth about how people see things…and that is that our Perceptions are shapeable. 

As far as our brains are concerned, there is no practical difference between perception and reality. What we perceive is what is real to us. We dont see things as they are, we see them as WE are. This is where the true power of Branding lies.
If Branding can influence our perceptions, and our perception is our reality, then Branding has the power to shape reality.

This is exactly why some companies spend millions of dollars every year on Branding – So they can purposely drive consumer behaviour in a way it benefits them.  It is a long term strategy that can help your business grow and reach its goals for the rest of its life. 

WHAT IS BRAND Identity?

what is the Business Value of a Brand? 

In In the end, brands are a very powerful business tool that can drive growth and return on investment (ROI). Apple’s brand is still the most valuable thing it owns, even though it can’t be touched. It’s also why you couldn’t pay many Apple users to switch to something else.

A strong brand will make people more likely to choose your product or service over your competitors. It brings in more customers at a lower cost, and those customers are often willing to pay a little more and buy a little more often.