
TO & C Original Marketing
BRANDING


“Identity is the cause;
the brand is the effect"
Larry Ackermann
Much has been said about Corporate Branding, especially now that companies have entered the digital age.
For this reason I want to leave you with a detail quoting the words of Charles Darwin that we can apply to current companies:
"Who survives is neither the strongest nor the most intelligent, but the one who best adapts to change."
Charles Darwin (On the Origin of Species, 1859)
The current situation in most markets or activity sectors is characterized by the existence of a multitude of products and services, the participation of a large number of actors, an amount of information that is impossible to process (increasing with mass access to the Internet) and an increasingly demanding society. Thus, to cite an example, in a supermarket a person can find between 5,000 and 10,000 references. But this does not only happen at the level of products, since in a city like Barcelona, a person has more than 500 cultural options available for a weekend, including cinemas, museums, theaters, and other activities. In this context, there is a growing difficulty in individuals to identify, differentiate and remember existing products, services, activities, or organizations. As a consequence, organizations must focus their efforts on establishing a strong, coherent and distinctive Corporate Identity (of their products and/or services and of the organization itself) and properly communicate it to their audiences. This management process (identification, structuring and communication) of the attributes of identity to create and maintain relevant links with their audiences is what is known in the Anglo-Saxon countries with the generic name of "branding". And I use the word in English because it is difficult to find a single word to translate it (maybe we should do it as “create brand”). In this sense, the concept of "branding" is not limited only to the level of the products or services of an entity, but can be applied to any subject capable of carrying out an action of "management of identity attributes". Thus, branding can be developed at different levels, depending on whether the identity attributes of a product/service are being managed (for example, "Skip" detergent), of an organization (such as "Banco Santander"), of a sector of activity (“Rioja wines”) or a geographical area (at the city, region or country level). This differentiation does not establish levels of importance or hierarchy, but rather proposes an integration structure for the different levels of activity, from the simple (a product) to the complex (a country).
For this reason, we will preferably focus on the level of organizations, although the general concepts and work methodology can be applied to any of the different levels of branding.
