The impression you create with your brand in any given market place is usually proportionate to your turn over and the budget you can spend on marketing your brand. That’s not to say that if you had an infinite marketing budget you could build a successful company, certainly not – this would no doubt create brand awareness, but to be successful you have to build up a positive reputation through business experience.

An old saying goes, ‘a good name is better that silver and gold’. It therefore means that you can do everything to build a brand but you cannot buy the benefit of a good name. A brand could be a tool, a weapon and at times a toy and changes status as business grows.

A brand is a toy when new and unsure of its survival in the market. On a daily basis, entrepreneurs start new businesses and join the ever-growing market, in the early stages a brand will develop and adapt to circumstance. A brand may have started out with a whole different set of core values, these will change as a brand positions itself in the market to realise it USP in order to compete and become more successful.

Take this scenario; you visited your local grocery store or supermarket to meet a need. As fate would have it, you went straight to the aisle to find the product you intend to buy but on getting there, you saw amidst your favourite brand, a new brand that was introduced to the market few days earlier. You advanced towards favourite brand but the outstanding design of the packaging material of the new product could not go unnoticed. You fell in love with it but still went ahead to choose your trusted brand ahead of the new brand that serves same purpose and with price that favours your budget.

To you, the design is worth buying but not the brand. You probably don’t want to take the risk of buying a brand that is yet to be tested and as such, can’t be fully trusted. At that point, the said brand is a toy and can’t take the place of a tool or weapon in customer’s pyramid of choice and can neither alter customer loyalty nor serve as defence for the manufacturer. It is vulnerable and second to all on the pecking order.

Meanwhile, a brand is a tool when its strength grows to the extent of meeting people’s need over a period of time and as such being favoured as a choice you can trust. Such brand pulls sales with little marketing and enjoys word of the mouth advert from satisfied customer. The existence of such products, services or expertise in the market may not have been long but has enjoyed steady acceptance from customers and potential customers in the market. Time spent is inconsequential but the overall quality of service rendered in terms of turnaround times, responsiveness, and ability to keep customers informed and satisfied, communication style and choice of personalities fronting the brand.

A brand becomes a weapon when it has gone through the stage of being a toy to a tool and developed overtime to become a weapon in the hand of the owner. Brands like Coca-Cola, Apple and Nike etc are brands that have survived the test of time and have a ‘networth’ of their own. They are brands with goodwill and strength. Customers can afford to forgive dissatisfactions considering such mishap an inconsequential mistake Also, owners of such brand can afford to leverage on the might of the brand to fight politically or corporately and have the opportunity to create charity foundations which give money to good causes which in turn helps to humanise the brand.

Having a strong brand is not cast in stone. It requires deliberate effort invested in long-term value, credibility and reassurance, strength build-up, consistency, experience created in customers mind overtime and visuals created.

The longer you can give your customers what they want, when they want it and at a price they want to pay – the stronger your brand will grow.

Dean Williams

Dean Williams is a design and marketing blogger working for Print-Print Limited, promoting business and building brands through quality print marketing. If you’re interested in small business promotion then please get in touch hello@print-print.co.uk