freshtrax

Companies struggle hard to establish their corporate images and differentiate their products. Hence, the word “branding” refers to the work of companies that spend money and time on advertisements and brand positioning.  But ironically, the images of brands are established from the people’s side.  They don’t necessarily have to be consumers.

For example, Apple’s mainstream image was of a quirky, high-end, personal computer manufacturer. But now they are almost universally known as innovators of simple user interfaces – from their introduction of the mouse ,to the before-its-time Newton PDA, to the popularization of touch technology.Or Google, which has become not only a tech giant, but a verb and noun as ubiquitous as Kleenex or Xerox.

Starbucks, a worldly recognized brand.

There are, I think, three vectors to decide branding images. One is pricing. The other is value. These two seem to determine demand and supply, but actually there is one more, “emotion”. The more people love a company and its products, the more successful the branding is. Online branding specialist Martin Lindstrom says that “brands are in principal all about emotion.”

When a company and its products are loved,  a brand will be established. People talk about what they use and buy.  When Google became a well used search engine, the word “googling” started to spread.  People started to use the verb to replace “searching”. People found it so easy to use that they started to use it daily.  Like an avid rock fan, you may wait in a long line to purchase a concert ticket.  One fan creates a community which supports the existence of a group. If a community is formed around a brand, branding is complete.

Treasure for a fan

Since the internet makes it easy for us to form online communities, branding has been progressing speedily especially SNS where many people gather, talk, and exchange information.

Branding starts with your love and passions.

Photos by Yuka O.

btrax is a cross-cultural branding and web consulting firm with services for design, mobile, and social media. We specialize on projects between the US, Japan and China markets. Enthusiastic about those topics too? Follow us on Twitter and Facebook!