BRANDING

Branding

What this concept means to us

Nowadays, we often hear this word – branding. It seems to be so common, so simple, so easy to understand for everyone. It’s true, but with a big observation; people are divided into 2 categories: those who consume and interact with brands from this position and, on the other hand, those who build brands (which, in turn, are divided into several categories).

The latter has a very difficult role, but as beautiful. They have to understand the organization, to look in its depth (its people) and give life through this process named branding, a positive image that will exist in the audience’s mind.

The branding process works well if the brand agency has the right means to help the organization define itself, identify its common values, ambition and resonance elements.

The branding process is a process of self-knowledge and defining in which the agency gets involved as a facilitator, helping the organization to build the foundation of a stronger and more coherent image. This image will exist exclusively in the audience’s mind and can’t be influenced directly. A set of strategic and tactic elements is needed here as well to influence its construction in a positive shape.

A few observations about branding processes

What means for us this concept – branding

Below we have gathered a few points that we consider important in the processes that target the brand.

• branding – is not a service, it’s rather an honest, assumed and deep connection with the organization. Only through this approach, you can bring value.
• All the activities involve people, are about people and not about abstract things. That is why it’s very important to empathize.
• There doesn’t exist branding without the top-management involvment…without involvement you can, in the happiest case, make a partial diagnosis and several work sessions that can bring valuable content but without succeeding to bring a transformation in the organization.
• The organization needs to devote time to work in such a process, the employees have to be willing to spend time in working sessions and interviews.
• The branding process involves many hours spent inside the organization for observation, for working sessions, for interviews.
• To increase the process relevance it’s important to understand the audience of the organization.
• Brading processes need a lot of time to be fruitful. Besides the effort made in the audition steps and brand redefinition (when needed), you need a continuous, long-term effort to help all the employees to know the brand and, especially, to make them resonate with it.
• In organizational branding an internal team, well prepared, ready to propagate the brand strategy elements from within it’s necessary.
• A brand needs the support of the employees, their interaction, the experience they create as a group to the audience. All these shows, in fact, the authenticity of the brand, they show to what extent the values, vision, and promise are real, are respected.

It’s very important for an organization to choose carefully the agency with which they will work on branding projects because the success of the process is heavily influenced by empathy, by the way of interaction and relationship between the organization and the agency.