The Difference of Marketing and Branding

10 Jul 2018 · 1 min

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1:26

In this short interview excerpt, Speaker B clarifies common misconceptions about branding by first unpacking the term "brand" and then distinguishing it from marketing. The speaker emphasizes that a brand is not a logo, tagline, website, messaging, or company name—those are merely tools used to express a brand. Instead, the speaker defines a brand as a "desired perception" that an organization aims to create in the minds of its audience. Marketing, by contrast, is presented as one of the vehicles or tactics used to build and reinforce that perception, but it is not synonymous with branding. The conversation aims to help listeners understand that branding is about shaping perception, while marketing is about the activities that help achieve that perception.

What's one of the top things that you want people to know that they might not know or might be a misconception about branding?
Well, a couple things. So let's start with— actually, let's unpack the term brand and branding because I work with lots of marketers and, you know, a lot of times people say, oh, you do branding, and they say, well, you do marketing. Well, they are related and yet they're distinct. So the first thing I'd like to address is what is this thing called brand and branding and how it's distinct from marketing. Listen, brand is not your logo, it's not your tagline, it's not your website, your messaging, the name of your company. And these are all valid things to build and grow and express a brand, but that's not your brand. The definition that I use in my career is that brand is a desired perception.
Hmm.
And if brand is a desired perception, you technically own your brand. It resides in the minds of the people that you're communicating to. And so let's just say for a second that was the definition that you've adopted for brand and branding. Marketing then is one vehicle, one of several vehicles, to create a desired perception. So that's number one. I want to sort of demystify brand and branding. It's so much more than just a logo.