THE BIG
QUESTION
Branding expert Robert Bean considers what small businesses need to do to
make sure their customers – and clients – get maximum bang for their buck
I
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question of what exactly a brand is.
Here’s a definition the accountants at
the height of the ‘50s US consumerism
boom tried to apply to the word: ‘The
worth of a business beyond the value of
its tangible assets.’
Fine as far as it goes, and reflective of a
time when one’s asset-base needed to be
tangible. But how would Google, Uber, and
countless other modern-day service-based
companies fare under that description?
Another definition, this time from a
well-known ad-man goes to the other end
of the spectrum:
‘Product + Personality = Brand’.
Interesting.
But perhaps predictably ad-land-like
given their job is to add personality
was once told that if I wanted to
understand anything in life, I should
look to the origin. It came as little
surprise then that the origin of the word
‘brand’ is a similar word: ‘brandr’.
For the Old Norse speakers amongst us
it means ‘burnt’.
It then struck me that people like me
have been corrupting the original meaning
for many years. The simple act of burning
one’s identity on to the side of one’s cattle or
property ‘brands’ it as yours.
And thus much confusion about brand
= logo.
But these days we all know brand = a lot
more than that.
So, before going much further, I thought
it might be useful to explore the profound
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