50+ Quotes About Brand
by Melanie, on 1 Jun 2021
Some, but not all, B2B companies believe that brand is important, but not as important as for a consumer product. Or, they think because they sell in a "boring" market, that their brand should also be boring.
But, we're seeing some companies win because they think about their B2B brand as B2C companies do. They're strategic about it. They invest in it. And, they want to stand out in crowded market segments.
Example 1: Plaid (FinTech)
I extra appreciate the graphic they use in their cookie policy statement at the bottom of the screen.
Example 2: SeedLegals (LegalTech)
In both of those examples, there are bright colors and fun graphics, but they still maintain credibility.
And, this extends beyond the website.
Let's look at two examples of Strategic Piece clients.
Example 1: Molecule LinkedIn content to promote pre-conference (back in those days when travel was possible pre-COVID).
Example 2: Bodhi Spotify playlist launched in conjunction with company rebrand
In researching for this post, I visited hundreds of websites and blog posts looking for helpful soundbites about branding.
Some quotes are featured in multiple places and I've included them here too, because they are so poignant.
I skipped quotes that focused exclusively on personal brands because I wanted to focus on B2B branding and general truths about branding for both company or personal sectors.
So let's dive into B2B branding.
What is A brand?
"A brand is the promise of an experience." - Alexander Isley
"Brand is the sum total of how someone perceives a particular organization. Branding is about shaping that perception." - Ashley Friedlein
"Your brand isn't want you say it is, it's what Google says it is." - Chris Anderson
"Brand is just a perception, and perception will match reality over time. Sometimes it will be ahead, other times it will be behind. But brand is simply a collective impression some have about a product." - Elon Musk
"Branding is the art of aligning what you want people to think about your company with what people actually do think about your company. And vice-versa." - Joy Baer
"Brand is the holistic sum of customers’ experiences, composed of visual, tonal and behavioral brand components, many of which are shaped by interaction design." - Kate Kaplan
"Brand is not a product, that's for sure; it's not one item. It's an idea, it's a theory, it's a meaning, it's how you carry yourself. It's aspirational, it's inspirational." - Kevin Plank
"A brand is a voice and a product is a souvenir." - Lisa Gansky
"A brand is a promise. A good brand is a promise kept." - Muhtar Kent
"A great brand is a story that’s never completely told. A brand is a metaphorical story that connects with something very deep – a fundamental appreciation of mythology. Stories create the emotional context people need to locate themselves in a larger experience." - Scott Bedbury
"A brand is the set of expectations, memories, stories and relationships that, taken together, account for a consumer’s decision to choose one product or service over another." - Seth Godin
"Brand: Is not logo, not what it looks like when I look at your product. A Brand is a shortcut, it’s a shortcut for all the expectations I have for what you’re about to do for me. It’s a shortcut for trust, for promises, for conversations. A brand that’s worth something, is worth something either because you can sell more of it, or make more of a profit for each one you sell. That’s it. If you can’t sell more, or can’t get a premium, you don’t have a brand. Cause people aren’t showing up investing their emotion in what it is you sell." - Seth Godin
"Every interaction in any form, is branding." - Seth Godin
"A brand is simply trust." - Steve Jobs
Why Is YOUR Brand Important?
"A brand is a reason to choose." - Cheryl Burgess
"Branding adds spirit and a soul to what would otherwise be a robotic, automated, generic price-value proposition. If branding is ultimately about the creation of human meaning, it follows logically that it is the humans who must ultimately provide it." - David Aaker
"Creativity may well be the last legal unfair competitive advantage we can take to run over the competition." - David Trott
"Great companies that build an enduring brand have an emotional relationship with customers that has no barrier. And that emotional relationship is on the most important characteristic, which is trust." - Howard Schultz
"Founders die. Factories burn down. Machinery wears out. Inventories get depleted. Technology becomes obsolete. Brand loyalty is the only sound foundation on which business leaders can build enduring, profitable growth." - Jim Mullen
"Positioning is finding the right parking space inside the consumer’s mind and going for it before someone else takes it." - Laura Busche
"In a marketplace where it's so easy to produce products, where your competitors can essentially match you on the product itself, you need to have something else. You need to have an added value, and that added value is the identity, the idea behind your brand." - Naomi Klein
"A brand that captures your mind gains behavior. A brand that captures your heart gains commitment." - Scott Talgo
"People do not buy goods and services. They buy relations, stories and magic." - Seth Godin
How Does BrandING Fit with Strategy?
"Brand identity fuels recognition, amplifies differentiation and makes big ideas and meaning accessible. Brands are messengers of trust. Customers are reassured by brands that are recognizable and familiar. Great brand strategy is a basic building block of good business strategy. We build industry-leading brands with coherent and authentic messages. We utilize cohesive branding tools, connecting with your customers in a clear and impactful way." - Alina Wheeler
"For your brand to endure, it has to be tested, redefined, managed, and expanded as markets evolve. Brands either learn or disappear." - Lisa Gansky
"Branding is the process of connecting good strategy with good creativity." - Mary Neumeier
"The ultimate goal is to set your company and your brand apart from the crowd. If you form a strategy without doing the research, your brand will barely float – and at the speed industries move at today, brands sink fast." - Ryan Holmes
"Overall, because branding is about creating and sustaining trust it means delivering on promises. The best and most successful brands are completely coherent. Every aspect of what they do and what they are reinforces everything else." - Wally Olins
Figuring out Your Brand
"Determine who you are and what your brand is, and what you're not. The rest of it is just a lot of noise." - Geoffrey Zakarian
"The heart of building a market-focused culture is to create an employment brand that is consistent with the customer brand." - H. Rao & R. Dewar
"People relate to people, and if your brand feels like people, they’ll relate to you, too." - Laura Busche
"Be Bold, and Original. Tell ’em something that they don’t know." - Melinda Emmerson
"Too many companies want their brands to reflect some idealized, perfected image of themselves. As a consequence, their brands acquire no texture, no character and no public trust." - Richard Branson
"Define what your brand stands for, its core values and tone of voice, and then communicate consistently in those terms." - Simon Mainwaring
"A brand needs to embrace the first principles of marketing, which involves brand definition and consistent storytelling." - Simon Mainwaring
Operationalizing YOUR brand
"Brands are built from within … [they] have very little to do with promises made through advertising. They’re all about promises met by employees." - Ian Buckingham
"The strength of brand loyalty begins with how your product makes people feel." - Jay Samit
"A brand’s strength is built upon its determination to promote its own distinctive values and mission." - Jean-Noel Kapferer
"Your brand is a story unfolding across all customer touch points." - Jonah Sachs
"When it comes to building brand awareness for my company, the method that’s worked best has been content marketing. Although it involves a lot of work, and it takes six months to a year for it to be effective, it’s been proven to provide the biggest bang for the buck." - Neil Patel
"Design is the silent ambassador of your brand." - Paul Rand
"Branding demands commitment; commitment to continual re-invention; striking chords with people to stir their emotions; and commitment to imagination. It is easy to be cynical about such things, much harder to be successful." - Richard Branson
"Making promises and keeping them is a great way to build a brand." - Seth Godin
brandING in b2b marketing
"Business-to-business work is about building a brand from the inside out. The brand message that we communicate to our clients’ business constituents is often the same message that is carried through to the consumers in the marketplace." - Maureen Hall
"Even with B2B, the recipient is still a person, so we have to humanize our brand." - Ryan Quinn
And, Please Remember
"If no one hates it, no one really loves it." - Jessica Walsh
"If you try to resonate with everyone, you will resonate with no one." - John Lee Dumas
"Every brand isn't for everybody, and everybody isn't for every brand." - Liz Lange
"A brand trying to be all things to all people = ‘blanding’." - Simon Mainchipp
"Products are made in the factory, but brands are created in the mind." - Walter Landor
"Your premium brand had better be delivering something special, or it’s not going to get the business." - Warren Buffett
"If people like you they will listen to you, but if they trust you, they’ll do business with you." - Zig Ziglar
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