What is the actual difference between branding and marketing? To put it simply: branding is what you are, marketing is what you need to make contact with your customer.
Others also say: branding is your strategy, marketing is tactics. Compare it to a football team. At the start you determine how you want to play and put your team together. You then use specific tactics for each game. That’s how it works.
But nothing is simple or black and white. So some nuance is required here. As you will certainly have sometimes asked yourself the question: I’ve got a problem, but what kind of agency can help me with this specific question? Do I need a branding agency or a marketing agency? We’ll be honest. The outcome of this piece is not that you definitely need a branding agency like SKINN. So don’t worry.
But nothing is simple or black and white. So some nuance is required here. As you will certainly have sometimes asked yourself the question: I’ve got a problem, but what kind of agency can help me with this specific question? Do I need a branding agency or a marketing agency? We’ll be honest. The outcome of this piece is not that you definitely need a branding agency like SKINN. So don’t worry.
Branding goes deeper than marketing. Branding is about your core, the core of your company and therefore the core of your brand.
Here it’s about the basis of your existence, your values, your personality... But make no mistake. You aren’t the only one that shapes your brand. Your customer also contributes to your brand.
If you don’t know this customer really well, you’ve got work to do on your brand. And then you definitely need a branding agency. Many brands also gradually lose the connection with this customer. Because this customer changes, but also because the perception of the brand has changed and is still only linked to a succession of campaigns that may lead off in all directions.
If you don’t know this customer really well, you’ve got work to do on your brand. And then you definitely need a branding agency. Many brands also gradually lose the connection with this customer. Because this customer changes, but also because the perception of the brand has changed and is still only linked to a succession of campaigns that may lead off in all directions.
A mistake that is often made to explain the difference between marketing and branding is to plot both of them on a time line. You then get the impression that branding comes first and only marketing after that. This isn’t correct.
You have to care for and maintain your brand. And often you have to develop extra identities as you find that you need to communicate in different ways and places with your target group.
To give a simple example... you have an e-shop. But suddenly you decide to open a pop-up shop. You need different tools, but you are also someone different. You need an interior, but there’s more: different touchpoints with your customers. You step into a new story. If you expand your brand system in a clever way, you can reinforce your whole business this way.
Often the change to your business is not that drastic. Just say that you are launching a new product on the market. What does that do to your brand? Is your brand architecture still correct, for example, and where is that product situated within your overall parent brand? Does this new product change the wider story? Or does it strengthen it?
To give a simple example... you have an e-shop. But suddenly you decide to open a pop-up shop. You need different tools, but you are also someone different. You need an interior, but there’s more: different touchpoints with your customers. You step into a new story. If you expand your brand system in a clever way, you can reinforce your whole business this way.
Often the change to your business is not that drastic. Just say that you are launching a new product on the market. What does that do to your brand? Is your brand architecture still correct, for example, and where is that product situated within your overall parent brand? Does this new product change the wider story? Or does it strengthen it?
If you go directly to your customer, and immediately plan a launch campaign, you’ll run up against problems sooner or later if you don’t think about these kinds of things.
Customers link products together. When Apple launched the iPod, it sold a lot more computers during the following months. Nothing had changed about these computers, but suddenly they were fashionable because the iPod and the corresponding iTunes were so fashionable. This is called the halo effect. People make associations that have no rational explanation. This can work out well, but can just as easily have the opposite effect. One day your customers may suddenly turn round and say: “Sorry, but I don’t understand you any more. What do you actually stand for?” And at this point it’s already far too late.
A good reason for ensuring that your brand is developed continuously, also because the market, society and the world are changing all the time too. And so this isn’t a linear story, where branding comes first and then marketing. No, branding requires constant attention to remain on the right path. Someone who year after year uses a marketing budget solely for campaigns will one day come up against himself. The campaigns will have taken over the perception and therefore the brand.
A good reason for ensuring that your brand is developed continuously, also because the market, society and the world are changing all the time too. And so this isn’t a linear story, where branding comes first and then marketing. No, branding requires constant attention to remain on the right path. Someone who year after year uses a marketing budget solely for campaigns will one day come up against himself. The campaigns will have taken over the perception and therefore the brand.
Your customer can no longer remain faithful, as he or she no longer knows what to remain faithful to. You lose your main ambassadors, as they don’t understand you any more.
In other words, branding always remains the core, also of your marketing strategy. So keep an eye on your brand. And allow it to develop continuously. With the market and with your business. As a brand is something that focuses on loyalty. You want your customers to stay loyal to your brand, to stay connected with it. So you could also say: with marketing you attract people, with branding you make sure they stay. You don’t need an explanation on the value of the latter.