Brand is the promise, the big idea, and the expectations that reside in each customer's mind about a product, service or company. People fall in love with brands, trust them and believe in their superiority. The brand is shorthand. It stands for something.

Bottom line: good brands build companies. Ineffective brands undermine success. As products and services become indistinguishable, as competition creates infinite choices, as companies merge into faceless monoliths, differentiation is imperative.

While being remembered is essential, it is becoming harder every day. A strong brand stands out in a densely crowded marketplace. Translating the brand into action has become an employee mantra. There is substantial evidence that companies whose employees understand and embrace the brand are more successful. What began as corporate culture created by human resources is fast becoming branding, and the marketing department runs the show.

While brands speak to the mind and heart, brand identity is tangible and appeals to the senses. Brand identity is the visual and verbal expression of a brand. Identity supports, expresses, comunicates, synthesizes, and visualizes the brand. You can see it, touch it, hold it, hear it, watch it move. It begins with a brand name and a brandmark and involves into a matrix of tools and communications. Brand identity increases awareness and builds businesses.

The need for effective brand identity cuts across public and private sectors, from new companies, to merged organisations, to businesses that need repositioning.

The best brand identity systems are memorable, authentic, meaningful, differentiated, sustainable, flexible, and add value. Recognition becomes imediate across cultures and customs.

Brand awareness and recognition are facilitated by a visual identity that is easy to remember and immediately recognisable. Visual identity triggers perceptions and unlocks associations of the brand. Sight, more than any other sense, provides information about the world.

Through repeated exposure, symbols become so recognisable that companies, such as Target, Apple, Nike, and Telstra, have actually dropped the logotype from their corporate signatures in national advertising. Color becomes a mnemonic device - when you see a orange truck out of the corner of your eye, you know it is a TNT truck.

Every company needs to differentiate itself from its competitors and gain greater market share. Every company also has a compelling need to be distinctive. The same goal drives the approach of an internet café in Blue Mountains, a global information broker in cyberspace, or a Sydney museum showing outsider art. Survival of the fittest requires a brand strategy and a medium to express it.

Vision
A compelling vision by an effective, articulate, and passionate leader is the foundation and the inspiration for the best brands.

Meaning
The best brands stand for something - a big idea, a strategic position, a defined set of values, a voice that stands apart.

Authenticity
Authenticity is not possible without an organisation having clarity about its market, positioning, value proposition, and competitive difference.

Differentiation
Brands always compete with each other within their business category, and at some level, compete with all brands that want our attention, our loyalty, and our money.

Sustainability
Sustainability is the ability to have longevity in an enviroment in constant flux, characterised by future permutations that no one can predict.

Coherence
Whenever a customer experiences a brand, it must feel familiar and have the desired effect. Consistency does not need to be rigid or limiting in order to feel like one company.

Flexibility
An effective brand identity positions a company for change and growth in the future. It supports an evolving marketing strategy.

Commitment
Organisations need to actively manage their assets, including the brand name, the trademarks, the integrated sales and marketing systems, and the standards.

Value
Building awareness, increasing recognition, communicating uniqueness and quality, and expressing a competitive difference create measurable results.

Functional criteria

Bold, memorable and appropriate.
Immediately recognisable
Provides a clear image of the company
Comunicates the company's persona
Legally protectable
Has enduring value
Works well across media and scale
Works both in black and white and in colour

Brand strategy connects the left side of the brain with its right side and makes the brand work. Effective brand strategy provides a central unifying idea around which all behaviour, actions, and communications are aligned. It works across products and services, and is effective over time. The best brand strategies are so differentiated and powerful that they deflect the competition. They are easy to talk about, whether you are the CEO or an employee.

Brand strategy builds on a vision, is aligned with business strategy, emerges from a company's values and culture, and reflects an in-depth understanding of the customer's need and perceptions. Brand strategy defines positioning, differentiation, the competitive advantage, and a unique value proposition.

Brand strategy needs to resonate with all stakeholders: external customers, the media, and internal customers (including employees, the board, and core suppliers). Brand strategy is a road map that guides marketing, makes it easier for the sales force to sell more, and provides clarity, context, and inspiration to employees.

It is usually a team of people who develops brand strategy; no one does it alone. It is a result of an extended dialogue among the CEO, marketing, sales, advertising, public relations, operations, and distribution. Chancellor takes someone who is an eperienced strategic and creative thinker to help a company articulate what is already there.

Positioning
What distinguishes you from competitors.

Customer experience
From the first call to support services.

Brand architecture
Brands in a hierarchy system.

Cross cultures
Same message to different cultures.

Staying on message
The distinctive voice of your brand.

Names
An essential brand asset.

Taglines
Evoke an emotional response.

Characters
Embody brand attributes or values.

Look and feel
You can even cover up the logo but you will still identify the company.

An identity helps manage the perception of a company and differentiates it from its competitors. The coherence of comunications across various media sends a strong signal to the customer about the laserlike focus of a company.

A brand, or company's reputation, is considered to be one of the most valuable company assets. Small company and nonprofits also need to build brand equity through increased recognition, awareness, and customer loyalty, which in turns helps make a company more successful.

Managers who seize every opportunity to comunicate their company's brand value and what the brand stands for sleep better at night. They are building a precious asset.