Why Marketing is nothing without Branding.

The term «brand» is often overused or completely misunderstood. Or both at the same time. As representatives of a brand agency we occasionally get to hear: «Well, so you do marketing! I have an advertising campaign that I need to implement as quickly as possible…» As a brand agency, however, we do not primarily offer marketing services. Rather, we try to lay the foundation for later marketing activities by building brands. And we do this strategically, in most cases in cooperation with the management and the board of directors, because they develop the corporate strategy that should be the basis of every successful brand strategy. People often answer to this explanation: «Yes, that’s exactly what we need! We want to win more customers with effective marketing, but we don’t know what to tell the target groups. So we need help with our brand and its message.»

Branding and marketing are broad terms with many overlapping aspects. Despite tons of blog posts, podcasts and books on branding and marketing, it seems that many entrepreneurs are still unsure how a brand differs from marketing and how the two disciplines need to support each other in order for the company’s sales to go in the desired direction.

Even today, brands are far too often reduced to a «logo», and I sometimes really see my counterpart imagining me sitting in front of a drawing board and drawing squiggles and patterns on paper with a freshly sharpened pencil. Of course, a good visual identity (logo, fonts, colors, visual language) is one of the primary distinguishing features of a brand. However, the brand as a whole is a spiritual attitude. It is like the foundation of a house: the more stable the foundation, the stronger the house. And thus, the more credible and effective the marketing activities based on this foundation are.

The trigger for going to a marketing agency is usually the call for more sales. This is quickly needed, so you bypass the topic of branding because you (too) often neglect it as «Nice to have». And this leads to marketing without a brand: You try to market a company or product without a clear voice, focus, message or basis and claim to be simply better than the others. A lot of time and money is spent to neither achieve the desired results in the end nor to be convinced that marketing works.

A brand must use its incomparable message to arouse in its customers the desire to identify with it, to want to own it. This makes the brand desirable and indispensable for the target group. Successful, effective branding is about being specific and focused and thus creating the basis for a consistent brand message, taking it up again and again and internalizing it like a mantra. The brand must dedicate itself to its message in all its manifestations, and all participants must live this message in order to achieve the desired effect in the minds of the target groups.

Once this homework of well-founded brand building has been done, the time has come to talk about marketing. Only then.