It’s a 3D world

So I get this question a lot. 

I already spend so much of my budget on marketing, how can anyone afford to spend so much on branding? The answer of course, is that the question is backwards. Unless you’re just getting started and running a proof-of-concept for a product or product line, you shouldn’t spend a single dollar on marketing before you’ve invested in solid, strategic, positioning-led branding.

Why? Because it’s branding that creates differentiation, desire, demand. 

Branding is multidimensional – consisting of concept, product, purpose, positioning and communication. We tend to think of branding as just that last dimension, how we communicate about a product or service group, verbally, visually, and even aurally, but communication is only the last, forward facing bit, and unless it runs deep with the other dimensions strategically addressed first, the brand will just be a superficial coat of paint on a randomly selected set of grouped products, with no direction, differentiation or distinction.

Branding is a force that pulls, while marketing is a force that pushes (ever heard of making a marketing push?) Every dollar spent on branding that homes in on your who, why, how, and for who, is 5 dollars you won’t have to spend on playing the numbers game, attempting to push your product in front of an unidentified mass of indifferent, glazed-over eyeballs.

Branding is the foundation. Marketing is the mouthpiece. Branding is your relatable, desirable ‘why’. Marketing is your method for spreading the word to more of your ‘for who’.

If you’re selling anything at all to consumers, branding is the fuel to your engine, the soul to your sell, your secret sauce for systematic success.

So why do brands spend so much on branding? They can’t afford not to.