What is a brand?

To start with this topic is quite easy. It can be told in a sentence and we’ll be done with reading. But lets go a bit deeper now.

The main question is WHAT THE HELL IS A BRAND?

Well, for start everything is a brand. You, the person sitting across the room, Coca-Cola, Heineken, Apple, Google, Medium. If something comes up to your mind that is not a brand you are wrong. Its a product that came from a brand, and therefore it is a brand. Wow, a lot of brand words in this paragraph.

A brand is not a pretty picture or a logo that will be made for your idea. That’s just a support to show off your brand. The core of the brand is the IDEA. What you want to achieve with that. Either is a self cleaning napkin or a phone protection glass or even an app that will help you loose weight. That is the brand. And the brand is created by the power of the people who support and love that idea. Usually its one guy with a crazy idea, but times change and people start supporting the idea, and with that the brand becomes bigger, better and closer to its potential customers.

Now, if the idea is the brand then what the hell are this brand guidelines that I'm trying to sell to my clients?
Again, that is a supportive element of the brand. A brand can live without it, but its better to have it. It makes it look pretty and consistent.

You can have an amazing logo and visual identity, but your brand will still be shit. Why? Because you’ve made it that way.

A brand doesn’t depend on the looks, just like true love. You can see a girl/guy that is sexy and fuckable, but after the one two three fucks you see that there’s nothing else than that. And woala, I’ve just connected branding with meaningless sex with some hottie. But that’s the way it is. Yes, its an oversimplification, but you get me. You get me right?
When building a brand first you need to love the idea, and you probably do. Afterwards the ones that are close to you need to fall in love with it and spread the love. And so on and so on. BUT, once the love is spread across the world, and now there are more people who can see your brand that are not close friends you need to convince them that this brand is not just for the money, there is something more. A money well spent connection.

In my opinion, how do you achieve that?
By believing and loving your brand. AND, most importantly to show that to the audience. Now I’ve been talking a lot about you like one man show, but let’s say your brand grows like those magic beans and now you need people in the company to help you, what do you do? Interviews, test, another interview, team building, bla bla fucking blah. And you hire 5–6 maybe 15 people to work on (and let’s not forget) SPREADING LOVE to the clients. But there is a problem 1/3 of the people are there, checking their clocks to see is it time to go home, and during that time they do their job fucking flaless, you can fire them because they work as they’ve told you, sometimes even better. But 5pm comes, the computer is shut, that person goes to a bar and has a couple of drinks. Another person comes to him/her asks them what they do for living and the answer is always “Uhhhh its this company that has something with uhhh, i can’t really talk about it, its complicated and you won’t understand. I’m in IT, lets go with that”. WOW. Fucking WOW. I’m gonna say this because i mean it, but if a person that works for the brand that you’ve created talks like that, that is a fucking cunt. Fuck that human. He or She is not worth your time, no pardon the brands time and energy. I’d rather hire a person with zero experience and dedicate my time to teach him how to work, than an overpaid zombie that has just a job to do and bills to pay. I know, I know, we’ve all been there, starting fresh, young full with ideas and some assholes are constantly crushing them, but the paycheck is good, and it’s getting bigger, so we steer down the road of happines and just do our clickety clackety paycheck to paycheck. Fuck that, i don’t need that and i will not tolerate that. People that are working on the brand, ARE THE BRAND. They need to have passion about the brand and talk about it like it’s their baby. Or their dog, or cat, or rat, i don’t give a fuck. They need to talk about it with passion, with fire in the eyes, “OUR BRAND DOES THIS, AND CAN MAKE IT GO LIKE THAT AND WHEN YOU PRESS THIS BUTTON IT CAN MAKE FIREWORKS COME OUT OF YOUR ASS. No it can’t right now, but WE CAN MAKE IT, FOR YOU!”.

Imagine having ten people like that, talking about an idea. A FUCKING IDEA. Amazing feeling, I’ve got the chills just thinking about it. And as usual I’ve drifted from the topic, but hey if you are still reading this, thanks.

When it comes to branding you need to start from the inside, make the hype there, with that you don’t need an amazing logo, or pretty pictures (it’s great to have them, but not a necessity). And this comes from a person that does that for a living. Can you fucking imagine? But that is the truth. Your brand can be amazing without an expensive brand guideline. Again, it will be awesome to do that (and if you need hit me up, I’m available) but if the core of the idea is well presented and loved, and the potential customers feel that, your job is done. Imagine selling Mercedes and driving an Audi. That simple.

Very long story short. If you want to create a brand, you need to convince people that the brand is what they’ve been missing in their life. Afterwards its just consistency, upgrades due to feedback and pushing forward.

Thank you for your time, hope that you enjoyed this article and see you soon.

All the best,
Goce.