What's a Brand?

In my work as a marketing assistant, I do not like to spend a day without a question. A question that is in line of making my job better thus it will create a better results for the company I am working with.

What is a brand? I have been talking about marketing for the last post that I made (credit goes to Jay Conrad Levinson, author of "Guerrilla Marketing") and it made me realize I wasn't talking about what is really a brand.

I've read on Seth's Blog:

What's a brand?

I think it is the product of two things:

[Prediction of what to expect] times [emotional power of that expectation].

If I encounter a brand and I don't know what it means or does, it has zero power. If I have an expectation of what an organization will do for me, but I don't care about that, no power.

Fedex is a powerful brand because you always get what you expect, and the relief you get from their consistency is high.

AT&T is a weak brand because you almost never get what you expect, because they do so many different things and because the value of what they create has little emotional resonance (it sure used to though, when they did one thing, they did it perfectly and they were the only ones who could connect you).

It says the brand has power because it answers your expectation. Was it that difficult? Not at all! You think of yourself as a customer, here you inquire in a bank of what are the requirements of opening an account. The person at the new accounts said that you need picture, ID and the opening deposit. She didn't smile at all. So here you are expecting that the staff and employees would be friendly. This was actually my experience. When I opened that account the only thing I knew is that I am opening an account with this money on hand. I do not know their policy so I was expecting it will be explained to me. I know that there are a lot of other customers to attend to but I felt I am not important and neither are the rest of us in that bank. Everyone is busy doing something and all the times they were not smiling.

My impression of a bank if that I will let them keep my money and I will have to trust them not just the name of the company. If they will commit mistake I will lose my trust with them, which they did they put it all my deposit into another account name and it made me mad. Trust not just with the staff that is operating the branch but to the name of the company. They did not make their promise so why do I have to trust them the second time around.

A brand is living to what you are telling your clients who you are. Giving them what you expect.