Branding does for a business what garlic does for soup.

It’s no secret - garlic can be the best thing you can add to soup. You could probably cook up a great soup without it, but any amount of garlic added to it can make it special. That’s exactly what branding can do to your business.

Let’s be clear; branding is not essential for a business to be successful, but it’s a great addition. When you think about a specific person, the only way you’re able to differentiate this particular person from someone else is by focusing on what makes them unique. This uniqueness can be attributed to this person’s personality.

Businesses can have personalities too. In fact, that’s exactly what a brand is! An effortless way to describe a business is to call it a profit-making entity. How do we describe a brand? A brand is simply the image in which people perceive a business, ergo, its personality. The word “brand” is quite a broad term and can mean several things. The context in which this blog has been using the term “brand”, is much better put as brand identity.

So, what is a brand identity? Paint a picture in your mind.

• Imagine a metal box with a hinge that opens up to a glass slab and plastic bits. It doesn’t necessarily sound appealing, does it?

• Let’s add some more information. This hypothetical metal box is actually a laptop. The mental image has been enhanced slightly.

• Now, picture the Apple Macbook Air - definitely very appealing.

A product by itself can be really great but adding a brand identity exponentially affects how it makes a customer feel. Broke teenagers don’t dream about any random smartphone, they dream about a flagship-level smartphone (mostly an iPhone), specifically because of the brand identity Apple has created around their products.

A brand identity helps the customer distinguish between “that energy drink you can’t remember the name of” and RED BULL. The moment one reads “Red Bull”, they can almost instantaneously picture the logo, the color scheme on the packaging, and even the tagline which is so popular that it doesn’t require a mention. This is the power of a brand, something much more dynamic and impactful than a business.

The simple reason why a good branding strategy is essential to a brand’s success is because each business is unique, and so are its branding needs.

With the help of branding, you can show your customers what you want them to see, while also showing them what they want to see. A little investigation and analysis of your clientele can go a long way. A business could design the brand to meet its customer's preferences by learning about their age, demographics, interests, and gender. And if you come up with a brand that has everything your target audience is looking for, they will be eager to interact with it.

Businesses can be similar but a brand is always one-of-a-kind. Each brand is distinct and has its own USP. Similarly, the ways in which a brand can successfully help a business grow also differ.

Small and medium-sized businesses are frequently inclined to do something that blends in with the environment, isn’t strange, and has a familiar appearance to the client. This can fall flat as it allows other players to outshine your brand.

Branding tries to provide unique characteristics to a brand identity that appear fresh and innovative, without feeling forced. The trick is to strike the correct balance between catchy and elegant; leaning too much one way or the other might have an adverse effect on your brand's identity.

Does the garlic and soup analogy make more sense now? When someone brings a pot of soup into the room, the first thing you smell is garlic. In the same way, when you’re interacting with a business for the first time, you notice its brand identity, which goes on to become the image you hold for that business. Something that long-lasting should definitely be treated with planning, shouldn’t it?