Brands are a synthesis of 20th century communications. They are how our culture is recognized. Marketers engage in branding to develop or align the expectations behind the experience, creating a brand that has certain qualities or characteristics that make it special or unique.
According to Regis McKenna in his book Real Time, “Brand is the relationship with the product that customers have come to know and value.”
Relationship = building community: Your community includes organizations both for profit and non-profit that bring direct or tangential encouragement and support A product community is simply an aggregation of the firms and organizations which has a self interest in the product’s success.
Barbalo received over 1 million hits a week. And still is very active.
In 2007 we see the phenomena of Hanna Montana (with a little help from the Disney machine), a community totally “in the moment”.
Clients are usually a distinctly different audience from donors and supporters. Non-profit organizations and NGOs (non-governmental organizations) may find that their brand reflects the interaction with their supporter and donor community, rather than a recipient of services. . Check out Branding For Non-Profits http://molitor42.googlepages.com/home.
Activity: Branding activities include education, packaging the organization for public display, fundraising, project outreach, events, retail encounters, film and video storytelling, building an online presence, public relations, advertising and public service announcements. Branding is the process by which brand images get into your head.
Credibility: Every employee, associate and volunteer either contributes to the organization's brand or impacts it in a negative manner. Internal branding is crucial to an organization's success. Fancy branding initiatives are meaningless if employees and volunteers are not brand ambassadors.
Superficiality: Occasionally an organization tries to compensate for weakness by inserting a wish list of core values currently not part of the organization's identity, into the brand statement. Such a tactic doesn't work because saying it's so, doesn't make it so.
In the end, brands are all about the organization, how it reflects and engages key constituencies, how it defines aspirations and enables attainment.
