Print

Brands that are advertised in print media (such as magazines and newspapers) can make certain assumptions about the people seeing the ads. With the long-term trend away from general-interest publications and toward niche titles, it is possible to focus an ad very carefully on a small group of people with a high degree of interest in one subject. For example, a maker of kayaks can place an ad in Sea Kayaker magazine (or one of several competing titles) to reach precisely the sort of people who might react to the ad by buying a kayak in the near future.

What isn’t necessarily known is how much time each reader spends looking at an ad, or whether seeing an ad results in the reader buying a product soon, or having a more favorable opinion of the brand in the future. For this reason, advertisers are constantly testing audiences to see if they have noticed particular ads, and if so, what their impression of the brand was.

As well as trying to reach a particular market segment, each brand forms an association with the brand of the magazine or newspaper in which the ad appears: Canon advertises its cameras in National Geographic magazine; Jack Daniels advertises in Playboy; Macy’s in The New York Times. The reputation of each title affects how readers perceive the brands in the ads too.

Broadcast

Once upon a time, advertising on TV was the best way to guarantee big success for your brand. It was expensive, but you could reach millions of potential customers in 30 seconds, with a powerfully persuasive message. The aura of the tube was such that any brand seen on TV gained instant cachet as a market leader.

Those days are gone: for one thing, alternatives such as the web compete for attention, and for another, people don’t watch TV like they used to. They watch cable or satellite “on demand.” They record programs and skip the commercials. They click on streaming web videos. They buy their favorite shows on DVD.

As TV has become more fractured, it has followed the trend in magazines toward niche audiences, allowing brands to focus on more specific groups of viewers. TV advertising—whether the classic 30-second spot or the 30-minute infomercial—is certainly not about to disappear.

Outdoor

There is something at once appalling and appealing about a large billboard. The billboard is a primitive medium, passive and indiscriminate, and yet these gigantic posters, aspiring on some level to public art, a space-age legacy of ancient cave paintings, inevitably inspire awe and command our attention. The cleverest billboards take into account the context of their placement. Whether in a London tube station or on a Californian freeway, they can make sly inferences about the people looking at them, and say something knowing about how the brands they hawk can fit into the lifestyles of their viewers.

Direct mail

Ever since David Ogilvy proved the efficacy of direct mail, with penny postcards advertising a local hotel, our mailboxes (and more recently our e-mail inboxes) have been flooded with junk mail. Direct mail takes advantage of the fact that most of us still think of our mailboxes as a personal space through which our friends and families communicate with us. We tend to be receptive to any message arriving there. Mailers and spammers consider even tiny response rates successful.

Perhaps surprisingly, direct mail will work for almost any brand. Although most “junk mail” is perceived as common, if the item being mailed is fancy enough, and sent to the right people, it can succeed at selling luxury items. Some direct-mail pieces are elaborate and expensive, and very effective.

Web

Web advertising, which started out with simple banners, is now run by highly sophisticated software that conjures a miniature, full-featured website within the banner itself. Web advertising not only plays video and animation, interacts with viewers, provides customized content, and gathers information about viewers, it also bills advertisers based on such things as how many telephone inquiries or purchases result from the ad.

Web advertising offers extraordinary opportunities for creating fuller brand experiences. The most effective come from combining the web with another medium— or the product itself—to drive viewers in a happy circle from web to store to product and back to web for follow-up that may include customer care or a better way to use the product.

Wearable

For some reason, people seem to enjoy wearing logos on their T-shirts, caps, and jackets. They act as free, walking billboards for the logos’ owners, on top of generating sales revenue for them.

Many writers have explored the sociology from the wearer’s side, looking at how having a logo emblazoned on your chest/ back/head gives you a sense of belonging, an association with a glamourous brand, or a way to identify yourself through your own conspicuous consumption.

What fewer people have looked at is how wearable advertising affects brands. Seeing an unwashed slob in an Emporio Armani shirt doesn’t do much to raise the perception of that brand. Shouldn’t Armani be more careful about who they sell their shirts to? In fact, fashion brands do take care by setting the retail price of the clothing item at a level that’s meant to function selectively. Non-clothing brands, from Budweiser to T-Mobile to Caterpillar, have less control because they’re more likely to be giving the items away.

When Penguin books introduced their now-famous line of quality paperbacks in the 1930s, a simple, modernist cover design, with broad bands of color surrounding the title, was adopted. Originally, different colors were used for different genres, but this soon proved too complex for customers to remember, and Penguin settled on orange as its trademark shade. Even today, after a myriad variations through the intervening years, Penguin covers have a recognizable quality thanks to the style of their designs.

National Geographic magazine displays perhaps the most famous example of using a frame as an identity element. The yellow rectangle is versatile enough to function not only as a design element, but also as a logo, and in signage. The familiar “Golden Arches” of the McDonald’s logo began as an architectural element in a handful of roadside drive-in restaurants in California. The company later discovered that these arches—which, seen from an angle down the road, form a letter M—were a more recognizable feature to customers than the clown mascot or any other visual device. When Interbrand developed a new identity for the Mini, the frame became an integral part of the brand image. It was used on billboards, brochures, web pages, and as an architectural element in showrooms.

The use of a graphic element in a retail environment, what Interbrand likes to call a “supersign,” can create a powerful visual mnemonic for the brand in a cluttered shopping area, especially at street level, as well as making an otherwise generic-looking space something more memorable.

We absorb almost all the information we need in our daily lives through our eyes. This has been doubly true since the development of writing; and yet, even though vision is our primary sense, we use our other senses more often than we realize. Hunters do best when they can rely on their eyes, but they are able to track prey by sound and even by scent if necessary.

Even though we’re often unaware of it, our other senses contribute a significant amount of extra information and experience to our everyday lives.

Studies have proven something that bakers and chocolate-makers have always known: a strong, pleasant scent attracts people and encourages them to buy. The same is true of music, which is why shopping centers usually have some playing in the background. Music and sound can be integrated into brand experiences through arenas other than retail environments. Websites, radio, and TV advertising, even the noises emitted by a product itself, all can and should be designed to highlight a brand aurally. For example, T-Mobile has a five-note “sonic logo” that is used as a sign-off in commercials and as a default ringtone on the network’s cell phones.

Good brands consider the oral as well as the aural. Some shops provide generic candy for customers, placing a bowl of it on their counter. Clever brand managers choose candy that matches the colors of the brand, in a custom wrapper with a logo. Really clever brand managers will make sure the flavor evokes the right associations as well: not too sweet, too tart, or too fruity; the right amount of playfulness or seriousness; the right degree of femininity or masculinity. Just thinking about what flavor best matches the brand personality can be a useful exercise for brand managers.

For food and drink products the flavor is all-important. But in addition to simply tasting good, the particular tastes of a given market can affect how a product is formulated to heighten the brand image.

International Flavor and Fragrance, established in the 1830s as a merchant in herbs, spices, and essential oils, now specializes in developing scents and taste experiences. In 2006 they created a “brandscent” for Samsung Experience Stores around the world (in partnership with branding agency Lippincott Mercer). The smell of the store is carefully crafted to match the brand identity, often without the customer being aware of it.

Touch is important too. In product design, the choice of plastics and other materials used in sporting goods, electronic devices, packaging, and a myriad other elements takes into account the feel of the material as well as the look, since both are integral to the brand image. Is it rugged? Gentle? Sleek? Flimsy? Is it something to be used quickly and put down, or lovingly held and enjoyed? Again, thinking about these issues can be helpful in identifying the essence of a brand.

All of our senses contribute to the impressions we form of the world around us. Branding professionals should take advantage of this and consider the other senses in designing every aspect of the brand experience: product, packaging, advertising, and retail environments. Customers certainly will, and their actions will be based on their sensory impressions.

All of these issues will help answer a simple question: what difference will it make if a logo is red or green? You should be able to answer the corollaries, too: what impressions of the brand are evoked by the colors we choose for the packaging?

Why should we avoid using yellow in the advertising? Is it possible to have too many colors on the website?

Physics

Renaissance artists honed their color use meticulously, and handed down rules for using colors, based on physical laws, that we still respect. “Warm” colors (like red, yellow, and orange) appear to come forward in space, while “cool” colors (like blue, green, and purple) appear to recede. The judicious use of such colors in painting can give an impression of real depth.

Color combinations play other important roles as well. Contrasting tones increase the dynamic tension of an image. Color makes a page either inviting or aloof. The right (or wrong) combination can make a huge difference to the legibility of signs, billboards, websites, and brochures. Even a subtly discouraging color combination can put customers off a brand, while the right color scheme can prove irresistibly inviting.

Psychology

The psychological aspects of color have been mused upon since ancient times. Many artists and poets have bequeathed us their well-considered opinions. While a brand designer may consider these, a client’s personal color likes and dislikes could well take precedence.

Tests have shown that people react to colors in predictable ways. Psychologists generally believe that our fundamental understanding of color is universal—white equates with purity, purple equates with passion—but opinions vary regarding how much our reactions are affected by culture.

Brands that can build up and exploit strong color associations can gain a valuable advantage because color can be a powerful brand mnemonic. Al and Laura Ries, in their book The 22 Immutable Laws of Branding, discuss the need for a brand to “own” its colors, not literally, but in the minds of customers. The Rieses cite McDonald’s ownership of the red and yellow color combination, which leaves rival Burger King in a “me too” role with its red, yellow, and blue scheme. Color comes to be associated with a given brand in the customer’s mind through long acclimatization. Brands should settle early in their lives on a simple scheme of one or two main colors that are unique in that category, and use them consistently.

Culture

Color interpretations depend strongly on culture. While it is traditional for brides to wear white in Western cultures, in Asia it is worn at funerals. To some eyes, white conveys elegance, to others it looks cheap; little green men are good luck in Ireland, bad luck in China.

It is important for any brand “going global” to be aware of such issues, and to adapt as necessary. The color component of any brand needs to be reconsidered in each local culture to be sure that it evokes the desired response. For example, when MinaleTattersfield was designing gas-station forecourts for a client in India, they proposed using green to denote environmental sensitivity. The client disagreed, feeling customers would be more likely to associate green with India’s neighbor and national rival, Pakistan.

Science

Even after an appropriate color scheme is selected, the job is not done. Whole industries are devoted to the science of getting color right. A basic understanding of the technicalities of color perception is vital to dealing with some of the pitfalls of an effective branding program.

There’s a physical difference between colors of light, such as those on a TV or computer screen, and reflected colors, like those on a printed page. These two “color spaces” are not the same, meaning that not every color that exists in one space can be faithfully reproduced in the other. In addition, colors that can be printed on paper using standard four-color process inks often can’t be matched exactly with plastics or films, and vice versa: printed inks cannot match the rich, saturated hues of plastic or glass. The type of light available in different environments will also have an impact on how colors are seen. The life of a brand manager often consists of settling for approximations and compromises.

In the end, the important thing is the overall experience. Keep in mind that, while people have a good memory for colors and can often recall surprisingly subtle differences in shade, color is just one of the factors that make up a whole brand identity. So long as the other elements (type, photography, tone of voice, etc.) are consistent with expectations, customers will tolerate some deviation from a brand’s “standard” shade.

Customer experience management, service, or care: whatever the name, it’s about the human contact between a company and its customers.

There is an old business truism: failure to provide satisfactory customer support (also called customer service) is the single biggest reason brands lose their hard-won customers.

Customer care is much more important for a service than a product. Most people need to visit their bank at least occasionally to speak to a live person. Not many people feel the urge to visit the makers of their toothpaste or baked beans.

Good customer support involves more than reacting well to a routine problem like a lost suitcase. The term “customer care” is apt: when customer care is good, employees care about their customers. They do a little extra to make sure they’re satisfied. They treat them well. They exceed what the customer expected; sometimes by a lot.

Providing a level of customer service that exceeds expectations is the best way to generate “buzz” and get people talking about a brand. Smart brands will fall over themselves to impress their most influential users—especially the early adopters who try out a new product or service before it becomes really popular—knowing that those users will then spread the word among the rest of the population, effectively doing word-of-mouth advertising on the company’s behalf.

Consumers have become much more savvy about the techniques used to sell things. Often the most convincing motivation to buy something comes from a friend or colleague. Many marketers now try to encourage customers to communicate with their friends about a new product. They focus their efforts not on marketing to the masses, but on swaying a handful of influential “early adopters” who will then recommend the product to others.

On the one hand, this is somewhat insidious—a way of sneaking a commercial pitch into personal interactions that ought to be free of such pandering. On the other hand, who hasn’t discussed a product or service with a friend or colleague in the past week, while shopping together, watching TV, chatting, or just hanging out? The purpose of so-called word-of-mouth or viral marketing is simply to channel in a particular direction those discussions about products that are taking place naturally.

Like PR, alternative marketing techniques work best when the audience isn’t overtly aware of them. Marketers who use them rely heavily on “opinion leaders” to spread the word among their circle of acquaintances. They may ply visitors at a party or nightclub with free samples of their product, or give luxury goods to celebrities for them to show off in public. While the marketing purpose of such actions cannot be hidden, it is made to appear incidental, almost natural.

Product placement, by which a brand-name item is prominently visible in a movie or television program, is nothing new. Audiences generally realize that when the camera lingers on a logo for a few seconds, it is not by chance—money has changed hands. More recently, this has evolved into what is called product integration: an entire episode or scene is written around the sponsor’s product, with characters discussing it and the plot perhaps being resolved through it. The technique actually dates to the 1940s, when De Beers asked Hollywood screenwriters to portray their leading men buying diamond engagement rings. Diamonds became ingrained in the public mind as a symbol of lasting love, to the enormous benefit of the diamond-trading cartel.

A more recent trend is “advergaming,” giving brands a central role in a video game or online interactive environment. Brands like Nissan and American Apparel were among the first to open virtual showrooms and stores in the popular online world Second Life. How these alternative channels become integrated with the rest of the brand relationship remains to be seen.

Every brand can be anthropomorphized to a certain degree. That doesn’t mean every brand needs a little mascot character with big eyes and a funny name; it means that at the heart of every brand is a set of characteristics, akin to a human personality, that customers can relate to as if the brand were a real companion. Words like “honest,” “inspiring,” “sympathetic,” “reassuring,” “fun,” “intelligent,” and “supportive” often crop up when passionate customers describe their favorite brands. We tend to see human attributes, that is, personality, in things we want to have a relationship with.

How a brand is projected, visually as well as through a specific voice, needs to be consistent across all areas in order for customers to see its personality. One of the common mistakes many brands make is to project a well-crafted personality in their advertising, but quite a different personality, or none whatsoever, in “below the line” areas such as customer billing materials.

While the heart of any brand has to be a worthwhile, quality product, there’s no question that having an endearing personality can make up for a few flaws. Friends—and customers—are willing to overlook shortcomings if the personality is attractive. A great brand offers a producer the luxury of a second chance.

The quickest way to attach a personality to a brand is through a celebrity endorsement. The pop star Britney Spears has attached her name to two perfumes, Curious and Fantasy, creating instant appeal for products that would otherwise have had a hard time gaining attention in a crowded market. The risk is that, as Spears has run into difficulties in her personal life, so the products could end up being tarnished. A brand that desires longevity would do better to build its own personality, rather than adopting a celebrity’s.

Perhaps the best personality trait for a brand is self-confidence. A good salesman says, “What kind of car do you want to buy today?” moving quickly past the issue of whether you even want to buy anything at all. Likewise, a confident brand doesn’t merely offer itself; like an innocent puppy it assumes you want it, and sells you on its personality. Confidence is displayed in many ways: cheerful humor, cool detachment, a free sample, or an emphasis on image while downplaying information.

Snapple, a maker of fruit and tea drinks, uses bright colors and whimsy on its labels, including occasionally turning the logo upside down, to convey a cheerful confidence.

“Cool” is a trait that many brands aspire to, though few really pull it off. Often, it is the associations more than the product itself that make a brand cool. Luxury goods trade on coolness and their association with a high-class lifestyle.

Google is a supremely self-assured brand. The company is one of the most profitable in the world, even though millions of users have never paid a penny for its services. Its super-simple, uncluttered design, occasionally enlivened with a carefree doodle in honor of a special day, reflects this bold confidence.

A logo is not a brand, a name is not a brand, nor is a product design, a package design, a visual identity, an advertising jingle, or a shopping experience. These things are all merely the tangible aspects of a complex sign system whose goal is to put an intangible—but powerful—brand idea or insight into the mind of a customer.

The notion of brand insight is far more fundamental than the readily recognizable elements of a brand identity such as the logo, the package design, or the advertising. The insight can refer to a personal goal, an emotional response, affinity with a set of values, or a dream of a better future. What’s more, the insight doesn’t need to relate to the product in question. The insight behind the Coca-Cola brand, for example, is inclusion in a worldwide family, which really has nothing to do with sugar water.

The magic of branding is to utilize all the devices of a brand identity to tie the product to the insight. Magic (as practiced on stage, at least) is all about perceptions, and so is branding.

First the brand is given a name, then a visual style, a tone of voice, rules of engagement, then all the other elements of a systematic identity. Each element has a specific part to play; the pieces can come together in different ways for different kinds of brands, in different sectors. If a brand is well crafted, then all its pieces reinforce one another and the association between idea and identity is a strong one. Experiencing any one element of the identity (the swirling script, the curvy bottle, the red can) will trigger recollection of the whole, along with the intended viewer response—a desire for the branded product or service.

Understanding the role of each element in a brand identity, and knowing how to craft it in just the right way to elicit just the right response, demands an understanding of the customer more than anything else. This comes from observation and experience. Whether you are an entrepreneur, manager, or designer, creating a successful brand means knowing how your customers perceive each element of your brand identity, and helping them connect those to grasp the brand insight.

Print

Brands that are advertised in print media (such as magazines and newspapers) can make certain assumptions about the people seeing the ads. With the long-term trend away from general-interest publications and toward niche titles, it is possible to focus an ad very carefully on a small group of people with a high degree of interest in one subject. For example, a maker of kayaks can place an ad in Sea Kayaker magazine (or one of several competing titles) to reach precisely the sort of people who might react to the ad by buying a kayak in the near future.

What isn’t necessarily known is how much time each reader spends looking at an ad, or whether seeing an ad results in the reader buying a product soon, or having a more favorable opinion of the brand in the future. For this reason, advertisers are constantly testing audiences to see if they have noticed particular ads, and if so, what their impression of the brand was.

As well as trying to reach a particular market segment, each brand forms an association with the brand of the magazine or newspaper in which the ad appears: Canon advertises its cameras in National Geographic magazine; Jack Daniels advertises in Playboy; Macy’s in The New York Times. The reputation of each title affects how readers perceive the brands in the ads too.

Broadcast

Once upon a time, advertising on TV was the best way to guarantee big success for your brand. It was expensive, but you could reach millions of potential customers in 30 seconds, with a powerfully persuasive message. The aura of the tube was such that any brand seen on TV gained instant cachet as a market leader.

Those days are gone: for one thing, alternatives such as the web compete for attention, and for another, people don’t watch TV like they used to. They watch cable or satellite “on demand.” They record programs and skip the commercials. They click on streaming web videos. They buy their favorite shows on DVD.

As TV has become more fractured, it has followed the trend in magazines toward niche audiences, allowing brands to focus on more specific groups of viewers. TV advertising—whether the classic 30-second spot or the 30-minute infomercial—is certainly not about to disappear.

Outdoor

There is something at once appalling and appealing about a large billboard. The billboard is a primitive medium, passive and indiscriminate, and yet these gigantic posters, aspiring on some level to public art, a space-age legacy of ancient cave paintings, inevitably inspire awe and command our attention. The cleverest billboards take into account the context of their placement. Whether in a London tube station or on a Californian freeway, they can make sly inferences about the people looking at them, and say something knowing about how the brands they hawk can fit into the lifestyles of their viewers.

Direct mail

Ever since David Ogilvy proved the efficacy of direct mail, with penny postcards advertising a local hotel, our mailboxes (and more recently our e-mail inboxes) have been flooded with junk mail. Direct mail takes advantage of the fact that most of us still think of our mailboxes as a personal space through which our friends and families communicate with us. We tend to be receptive to any message arriving there. Mailers and spammers consider even tiny response rates successful.

Perhaps surprisingly, direct mail will work for almost any brand. Although most “junk mail” is perceived as common, if the item being mailed is fancy enough, and sent to the right people, it can succeed at selling luxury items. Some direct-mail pieces are elaborate and expensive, and very effective.

Web

Web advertising, which started out with simple banners, is now run by highly sophisticated software that conjures a miniature, full-featured website within the banner itself. Web advertising not only plays video and animation, interacts with viewers, provides customized content, and gathers information about viewers, it also bills advertisers based on such things as how many telephone inquiries or purchases result from the ad.

Web advertising offers extraordinary opportunities for creating fuller brand experiences. The most effective come from combining the web with another medium— or the product itself—to drive viewers in a happy circle from web to store to product and back to web for follow-up that may include customer care or a better way to use the product.

Wearable

For some reason, people seem to enjoy wearing logos on their T-shirts, caps, and jackets. They act as free, walking billboards for the logos’ owners, on top of generating sales revenue for them.

Many writers have explored the sociology from the wearer’s side, looking at how having a logo emblazoned on your chest/ back/head gives you a sense of belonging, an association with a glamourous brand, or a way to identify yourself through your own conspicuous consumption.

What fewer people have looked at is how wearable advertising affects brands. Seeing an unwashed slob in an Emporio Armani shirt doesn’t do much to raise the perception of that brand. Shouldn’t Armani be more careful about who they sell their shirts to? In fact, fashion brands do take care by setting the retail price of the clothing item at a level that’s meant to function selectively. Non-clothing brands, from Budweiser to T-Mobile to Caterpillar, have less control because they’re more likely to be giving the items away.

Many residents are aware that the way outsiders perceive them could do with a little improvement. The bigger the place, the more people have a stake in building its brand, and the longer it takes. A building can be branded in a matter of weeks; a country may take a generation or more to alter its brand image.

The birthplace—or origin brand—is a fundamental component of many exports. Nationality is a key attribute of German cars and Swiss chocolate, English clothes and American sportswear, French wine and Japanese electronics. Many people believe Italian olive oil is the best in the world; while many other Mediterranean nations produce olive oil of equal or better quality, the Italians have done a superior job of developing their olive-oil-origin brand.

Many local brands take their nationality with them when they go global and use it to differentiate themselves from their international competition. For example, many countries brew good pilsner, but the Czechs have managed to exploit their status as “the birthplace of Pilsner” to make their brand successful.

What is the difference between clothing “made in China” and clothing “made in Italy” to people around the world today? What do the Chinese hope their origin brand will mean 20 years from now? One of the issues that countries like China, India, Russia, and Brazil need to deal with as they establish their local brands in a global market, is how to turn their nation-brands from being a hindrance to being a help.

Taiwan went through this in the 1990s. The slogan “It’s very well made in Taiwan” was a clear attempt to deal with the fact that many people around the world viewed the “made in Taiwan” label as an indication of low price and quality, even though the quality was often fine. In Taiwan’s case, the problem was mostly with foreign perception, so an advertising campaign was an appropriate solution.

Ironically, developing nations often seem more aware of the need to develop their destination brand than their Western counterparts. Brand development needs to be well coordinated among authorities at all levels. It is sometimes more of a challenge to get this focus in a developed, liberal democracy than in other societies which have more at stake. Some of the best examples of destination brands come from small, developing countries, such as Guatemala and Estonia.

Sometimes it seems as though every architect and real-estate developer wants their building to be a brand. This is easily achieved if the location is already a prime one, if the architect is a well-known brand in his or her own right, or if the developer has an established market presence. In other cases, it is necessary to start from scratch. A building can benefit from a strong micro-destination brand in obvious ways: more visitors, higher rent, a higher rate of occupancy. But a good building brand also benefits the brand of the city or region the building is in, and vice versa, and naturally the tenants’ own brands gain by association.

The elements of a building’s brand can include a prestigious address, good architecture, an attractive identity (mostly expressed through signage and advertising), and the right mix of support services for tenants and visitors. In some cases, the association with the developer or architect also has lasting value for the brand.

Services are intrinsically different from products in one crucial way. While a product is always the same—consumer products strive for consistency—a service depends on human performance for its delivery, and is therefore subject to all the vagaries of humans’ daily inconsistencies.

This is significant for branding, because while a product can be branded once and then benignly neglected for a while, a service requires the constant training (and motivation, support, and correction) of the people who deliver it to customers. This is as true for top corporate consultants as it is for staff at the local Burger King. Internal branding is critical to service industries. You must sell to your own people before you can sell to customers, because without employees who believe in the brand, it’s impossible to get customers to believe.

The hospitality industry is enormous, including not only hotels, resorts, spas, and restaurants, but also, in a broader sense, every retail establishment on Main Street.

Every restaurant in the world should pride itself on its cuisine, but a great restaurant also cares about the quality of its service, the skill of its maitre d’, the stylishness of its architecture and decor, and little things like fresh flowers on the table. Attention to these other factors is what turns a good restaurant into a great hospitality brand.

What distinguishes a popular downtown bar from a deadly dull one? If you list the things that make the good bar better, they’ll mostly fall into the “hospitality” category: the friendliness of the bartenders, the coziness of the seating, the lighting, the music … and inevitably, the other patrons who are attracted by these factors. This is another example of how customers share the role of defining a brand.

When people are asked what business McDonald’s is in, many say “hamburgers.” Some will say “family entertainment.” A few smart ones will even say “real estate,” on the assumption that acquiring lots of prime business locations is where the fast-food chain makes its real money. Yet McDonald’s, like every other restaurant, is in the business of providing hospitality. Plenty of restaurants make a better hamburger; plenty provide better hospitality. But none provide the two so cheaply, reliably, and ubiquitously. That’s where McDonald’s has built its historic brand strength.

Hotels also base their brands on hospitality, since there isn’t much else to differentiate one clean bed from another. Retail stores distinguish themselves by the range of goods they stock, but the best ones also know that hospitality is what puts a store’s brand on a higher level. (The best retail chains have managed to apply their brands to the very products they sell: clothing chains such as Gap, H&M, Benetton, Mexx, and Mango are essentially extending a hospitality brand to sweaters and socks.)

At the heart of any hospitality brand are a well-designed environment and well-trained staff. The environment is the relatively easy part; it only needs to be solved once. Staff training is a continuous challenge, even at the best-run chains. Once staff are trained, they need to be motivated to embody the brand promise every day. Some restaurants are too cool to ask their staff to smile; but McDonald’s promises free food to any customer who isn’t greeted with a smile. Other ways in which staff become part of the hospitality brand include being well informed about the products they’re selling, acting out the brand personality, being helpful when customers have a complaint, and passing customer feedback along to managers who can fix things.

A brand is not going to overcome basic problems like bad food, lumpy mattresses, unstylish goods, or careless staff, but it can distill the experience of enjoying good food, comfy furniture, attractive merchandise, and attentive staff into an essential idea, different from the competitors, and present that idea to customers in a desirable way.

Financial services brands must do one thing better than any other brands—inspire trust. This was once accomplished through naming (First National City Bank sounds like an institution worthy of trust) and through architecture (imposing facades giving the impression of strength and longevity). Nowadays banks use subtler forms of image building. In addition to trust, competence, and permanence, a financial brand must stand out in a crowded field, encourage clients to diversify, and most of all, to break off relationships with competing banks.

Geico, an American insurance firm, offered a high level of efficiency and personal phone service at a cost well below other firms. They realized they could do better with a stronger brand image. Using humorous ad campaigns, including one with a talking gecko, Geico began pushing the catchy claim that “15 minutes could save you 15 percent” and “we just want to save you money.” But the brand goes beyond humorous advertising. A human, not an automated system, answers the phone, and the service is efficient. Plenty of brands have funny ads; Geico’s not only provide humor, they also make a relevant point about the brand benefits.

The ads of one competitor protest “No cute talking lizards, just lower rates,” but the competitor’s weak branding only serves to keep Geico uppermost in customers’ minds. The competition may offer lower rates, but the brand is uninspiring.

Telecommunications firms face the considerable challenge of making complex technology accessible and attractive to ordinary customers. Almost all telecom firms have similar offerings: their brands have to be built on ease of use and superior customer service.

The first breakthrough brand in telecoms was Orange, created by Wolff Olins in the mid-1990s. From the start, Orange was about simplicity and friendliness. Its advertising, website, and brochures sported a minimalist look, with slender, orange type offsetting abstract, black-and-white photographs of everyday objects. The logo was a simple square. The design has since evolved and adapted, but the friendly, “different” ethos of the brand remains.

The first Orange shops, opened in the late 1990s, were designed according to the principles of feng shui—the firm originated in Hong Kong—and included tanks of goldfish for good luck. More recent shops are marked simply “Not Another Phone Shop.” Inside, the walls are papered with pictures users have taken with their phones. Customers are offered coffee and free phone cleanings or support to encourage them to visit regularly.

Wolff Olins is also responsible for the identity of BeeLine, a leading Russian cellphone brand. The name BeeLine is a play on words: a beeline being the shortest distance between two people, and “line” picking up on the Russian word for mobile phone, the first part of which also means “honeycomb.” The absence of naming cliches like “-tel,” “-cell,” “-com,” or “-net” set BeeLine apart from its competition.

BeeLine’s original look was created in 1993. The logo launched in 2005—an elegant, abstract combination of a bee and a globe—is clean and stylish. Compared with the old version, the new identity is sophisticated and worldly, and reflects service rather than technology. The redesign showed that the brand was responsive to customers’ changing expectations, and fitted the image they desired.

Many countries’ local mobile/cellular/ wireless brands have been taken over by global giants such as Vodafone, Orange, and T-Mobile. Unfortunately, the multinationals have focused more on financial gain than on brand insights, so each has struggled to build a meaningful worldwide identity that is persuasive to customers in the local markets. Not everyone wants to be part of a global colossus; some customers prefer their own, local identity and are no longer certain what to expect from their switched-over telecom brands.

Airlines, cruise lines, train companies, and bus lines are in the business of getting people from one place to another. They can also be regarded as hospitality services.

Once upon a time, most airlines were national enterprises, flying the flag in a heavily regulated industry. This has begun to change, slowly, as low-cost carriers pressure the inefficient state-run companies to become more responsive to customers.

SAS is one of the best examples of an airline that successfully ditched its old way of thinking and developed a compelling new brand. The environments, both on board and in airport lounges, epitomize Scandinavian modernity. Luggage tags are inscribed with poetry rather than just a logo. The brand has become an identifiable mind-set for the whole organization.

One of the ways in which the airline industry has responded to its difficulties has been to form groupings between carriers, the major ones being Star Alliance, OneWorld, and SkyTeam. But while these partnerships may have some financial payoffs, the brand implications are more awkward. Although the attraction of national carriers persists— British Airways felt a serious backlash when it tried to reposition itself as a more worldly brand—a brand strategy that focuses more on customer experience than on cost-cutting would certainly be an improvement over the present situation.

The media, from giants like News Corporation and TimeWarner to bloggers and YouTube, began in seventeenth-century London coffeehouses. The telegraph, high-speed presses, radio, TV, and the Internet have all brought change, but the business model is the same: selling readers gossip, news, and critiques; and charging businesses to advertise. Journalistic standards are but one way of safeguarding a brand.

Old media brands are being challenged by specialized satellite and cable channels; magazines printed for niche audiences; and websites based on user content, such as Wikipedia and YouTube. Any bright child can set up a blog or podcast and reach much the same audience that Rupert Murdoch can. What are the prospects for big-media brands, hit by journalistic scandal, relegated behind the brands of their stars, their markets cannibalized? A brand should exploit every element to fulfill its goals (audience, point of view, content, revenue).

The name usually draws on a place name (Sydney Morning Herald), a founder’s name (Forbes), a name that conveys corporate power (Columbia Broadcasting System), or the special interest served (The Food Network). The Guardian began its life based in Manchester, England, but dropped the city name from its title in a successful effort to reach audiences farther afield. The New York Times has no such need: its full name has a strong association with quality journalism, and its association with New York, center of finance and media, doesn’t hurt. One future challenge will be what to do about the many other papers named “… Times,” as geographic separation of markets disappears and media become more global.

The context of the logo must also be considered. A logo in the corner of a TV screen must be legible but not distracting. A distinctive outline works better than a bold, simple shape. MTV was the first channel to use hyperactive logo animation in the US, and this has now been widely adopted.

Newspaper banner logos must remain distinct at a distance. The typeface has to reflect the values of the paper; be emblematic of the place in which it is published (if it is a local paper), or transcend national characteristics (if it aspires to be a global paper); be legible in tiny web banners; and above all, have a timeless quality. Readers will have to look at it every day for decades without growing sick of it.

Magazines face even greater visual competition for both nameplate and cover art. Each cover needs to grab attention with an enticing visual image, and to evoke recognition with a distinctive, familiar nameplate and typographic style. It needs to combine the timely elements of the magazine’s current coverage with the longer-term values that its readers expect. And it needs to be designed and printed quickly.

Broadcast media rely on presenters (anchors) to give them an appealing face. The best anchors achieve wide recognition and become brands in their own right. Walter Cronkite, often referred to as “the most respected man in America,” retired as anchor of “CBS Evening News” in 1981, and the show’s popularity declined. So which brand was driving the program’s success: CBS’s or Cronkite’s?

Some of the fiercest forms of brand loyalty pertain to sports. Whatever the psychological reasons, identification with a team and with one’s fellow fans can be so intense that metaphors like “nation” and “tribe” are routinely used to describe sports fans. In larger cities which boast several teams for a given sport, the rivalries can be intense. Some interestingly subtle factors separate one set of fans from the other, such as class, education, income, and family background.

For example, New York’s two baseball teams, the Yankees and the Mets, appeal to different groups of fans according to class, local geography, and personality. The parameters of these groups do overlap, but generally speaking, the Yankees appeal to working- and upper-class New Yorkers; the Mets appeal to the middle class. The Yankees draw fans with aspirations for success and little tolerance for mediocrity; the Mets, whose players seem to rotate more often, have toiled stoically at the middle or bottom of their league for most of the team’s history. Yankees fans value the club’s long history, which includes legendary players Babe Ruth and Joe DiMaggio, and a record number of championships. The Mets, established in 1962, have won the championship only twice. Their slogan is “Ya gotta believe.” Yankees fans generally tolerate the Mets as one would a pesky younger sibling; many Mets fans despise the Yankees.

Brand image reinforces both teams’ loyalties. The team colors, the hospitality they show to fans, public pronouncements of the team’s players and management, and players’ behavior all reinforce the team brand. Several observers have noted that the appeal teams hold for their fans can be instructive about the appeal of brands in general as “tribal” identifiers.

Some mega-corporations have solved their branding issues by pretending they don’t have a brand, choosing instead to focus on the brands of their individual business units, products, or services. Others, like Mitsubishi and GE, have opted instead for the long march of building and maintaining a corporate mega-brand. In the world of branding and marketing, opinions remain divided as to whether this is a good idea. The benefits seem to be primarily in business-to-business dealings, since consumers tend not to care as much about big, monolithic corporations as about things they can actually buy.

In the early 2000s BR the multinational oil company formerly known as British Petroleum, decided to begin a process of transformation. Their first steps toward recasting the brand as “green energy” met with skepticism and outright derision. “Big Oil” is not known for its dedication to environmental sensitivity, and many doubted that BP was sincere. The new logo, a yellow-and-green sunburst, was mocked by some designers for its spare, geometric look.

BP appears to be succeeding in its attempts to lead the way in “clean” energy usage, supporting technologies that reduce carbon emissions and investing in solar power. Although it still has some serious issues to overcome, BP’s actions show that its new brand is not a simple veneer, but a representation of real commitment.

What’s the difference between branding a nation and branding a government? The two intersect in a number of ways. After all, it is usually governments that sponsor programs of national or regional branding.

One difference is that nation branding tends to be aimed outwards, at visitors and investors, while governmental branding tends to be aimed inward, at its own citizens. In most countries there is little or no concerted effort at projecting a coherent identity beyond using official names and coats of arms. However, there are a few democracies, mostly European, in which more progressive governments have come to understand that a good branding program can give the illusion of a participatory democracy by making government services easier to navigate, more responsive to the people and, because of their greater success in satisfying the demands of the electorate, more effective in power.

In most cases a brand needs to reflect the long-term mandate of the civil services, and of social structures such as welfare or development initiatives. Other entities, such as political parties, the armed forces, utilities, and transport systems, have used branding systems of one sort or another for a longer time, though with mixed results.

Many government entities, even today, can do a lot more to brand themselves successfully. The experience of governments in countries like Denmark has shown that appropriate branding results in a better functioning of some of the apparatus of a democratic society, such as public administrations and services, because the mission becomes clearer and government employees have a better understanding of their own roles, and of their customers.

Nongovernmental organizations, because they need to raise a broad awareness of their work and compete to raise funds, have had more long-standing experience with the process of branding themselves than State entities. Because they are motivated by causes rather than profit, they also tend to be “ahead of the curve” in focusing on issues such as environmental friendliness, ethics, animal rights, and sustainable development. This has an obvious impact on their operations, and also on their brands.

What about universities, churches, and museums? In Branded Nation, Professor James Twitchell examines the branding of these three types of institutions in the US. That they need branding as much as anything should come as no surprise. Universities, whether public or private, have multiple customers: prospective and current students; faculty and staff; alumni, who may donate money; and the general public, whose opinion of the school affects issues such as government funding, esteem for the professors and their publications, and how popular the school’s sports teams are.

A brand needs to address all of these groups. The school brand will be influenced by its location (or origin brand), the renown of its founders and leaders, the history and caliber of academic inquiry there, and (especially in the US) how well the football team does. Most schools measure academic performance factors obsessively, and the general public tends to follow the results with some interest. So in theory, marketers of university brands should have an easier job. But in practice the many stakeholders, and the general aloofness of academia concerning commercial things like brands, mean that anyone managing a university brand faces a big challenge.

It may seem odd, even heretical, to discuss the branding of religion, but in fact religious movements were some of the earliest adopters of signs and symbols, and religious leaders throughout the ages have had a good grasp of the correlation between a clear message and a loyal following.

Douglas Atkin, in The Culting of Brands, draws a persuasive (if slightly overstated) parallel between brand affinity and belonging to a religious group. The Bible contains a seminal lesson about idol worship that is instructive to brand managers: don’t bow down before the logo, but pay attention to the transcendent meaning of the brand and live by its dictums.

Recently, so-called megachurches in the US have found that ordinary branding, positioning, and marketing strategies work. There is nothing intrinsically different about a religious congregation that negates the rules of branding as they apply to any other organization.

Museums have many of the same issues, goals, and stakeholder groups as universities (minus the football teams, of course). They need to appeal not only to their regular patrons and supporters, but also to the general public, and to maintain esteem and funding in order to ensure that they continue to have the means of carrying out their stated mission of enlightenment. Some museums brand themselves as part of an establishment; others court controversy and try to keep their brand edgy. A clever few are able to appear edgy while reassuring the establishment.

Print 

Brands that are advertised in print media (such as magazines and newspapers) can make certain assumptions about the people seeing the ads. With the long-term trend away from general-interest publications and toward niche titles, it is possible to focus an ad very carefully on a small group of people with a high degree of interest in one subject. For example, a maker of kayaks can place an ad in Sea Kayaker magazine (or one of several competing titles) to reach precisely the sort of people who might react to the ad by buying a kayak in the near future. 

What isn’t necessarily known is how much time each reader spends looking at an ad, or whether seeing an ad results in the reader buying a product soon, or having a more favorable opinion of the brand in the future. For this reason, advertisers are constantly testing audiences to see if they have noticed particular ads, and if so, what their impression of the brand was.

As well as trying to reach a particular market segment, each brand forms an association with the brand of the magazine or newspaper in which the ad appears: Canon advertises its cameras in National Geographic magazine; Jack Daniels advertises in Playboy; Macy’s in The New York Times. The reputation of each title affects how readers perceive the brands in the ads too.

Broadcast 

Once upon a time, advertising on TV was the best way to guarantee big success for your brand. It was expensive, but you could reach millions of potential customers in 30 seconds, with a powerfully persuasive message. The aura of the tube was such that any brand seen on TV gained instant cachet as a market leader.

Those days are gone: for one thing, alternatives such as the web compete for attention, and for another, people don’t watch TV like they used to. They watch cable or satellite “on demand.” They record programs and skip the commercials. They click on streaming web videos. They buy their favorite shows on DVD.

As TV has become more fractured, it has followed the trend in magazines toward niche audiences, allowing brands to focus on more specific groups of viewers. TV advertising—whether the classic 30-second spot or the 30-minute infomercial—is certainly not about to disappear.

Outdoor 

There is something at once appalling and appealing about a large billboard. The billboard is a primitive medium, passive and indiscriminate, and yet these gigantic posters, aspiring on some level to public art, a space-age legacy of ancient cave paintings, inevitably inspire awe and command our attention. The cleverest billboards take into account the context of their placement. Whether in a London tube station or on a Californian freeway, they can make sly inferences about the people looking at them, and say something knowing about how the brands they hawk can fit into the lifestyles of their viewers.

Direct mail 

Ever since David Ogilvy proved the efficacy of direct mail, with penny postcards advertising a local hotel, our mailboxes (and more recently our e-mail inboxes) have been flooded with junk mail. Direct mail takes advantage of the fact that most of us still think of our mailboxes as a personal space through which our friends and families communicate with us. We tend to be receptive to any message arriving there. Mailers and spammers consider even tiny response rates successful.

Perhaps surprisingly, direct mail will work for almost any brand. Although most “junk mail” is perceived as common, if the item being mailed is fancy enough, and sent to the right people, it can succeed at selling luxury items. Some direct-mail pieces are elaborate and expensive, and very effective.

Web 

Web advertising, which started out with simple banners, is now run by highly sophisticated software that conjures a miniature, full-featured website within the banner itself. Web advertising not only plays video and animation, interacts with viewers, provides customized content, and gathers information about viewers, it also bills advertisers based on such things as how many telephone inquiries or purchases result from the ad.

Web advertising offers extraordinary opportunities for creating fuller brand experiences. The most effective come from combining the web with another medium— or the product itself—to drive viewers in a happy circle from web to store to product and back to web for follow-up that may include customer care or a better way to use the product.

Wearable 

For some reason, people seem to enjoy wearing logos on their T-shirts, caps, and jackets. They act as free, walking billboards for the logos’ owners, on top of generating sales revenue for them.

Many writers have explored the sociology from the wearer’s side, looking at how having a logo emblazoned on your chest/ back/head gives you a sense of belonging, an association with a glamourous brand, or a way to identify yourself through your own conspicuous consumption.

What fewer people have looked at is how wearable advertising affects brands. Seeing an unwashed slob in an Emporio Armani shirt doesn’t do much to raise the perception of that brand. Shouldn’t Armani be more careful about who they sell their shirts to? In fact, fashion brands do take care by setting the retail price of the clothing item at a level that’s meant to function selectively. Non-clothing brands, from Budweiser to T-Mobile to Caterpillar, have less control because they’re more likely to be giving the items away.

This is significant for branding, because while a product can be branded once and then benignly neglected for a while, a service requires the constant training (and motivation, support, and correction) of the people who deliver it to customers. This is as true for top corporate consultants as it is for staff at the local Burger King. Internal branding is critical to service industries. You must sell to your own people before you can sell to customers, because without employees who believe in the brand, it’s impossible to get customers to believe.

The hospitality industry is enormous, including not only hotels, resorts, spas, and restaurants, but also, in a broader sense, every retail establishment on Main Street.

Every restaurant in the world should pride itself on its cuisine, but a great restaurant also cares about the quality of its service, the skill of its maitre d’, the stylishness of its architecture and decor, and little things like fresh flowers on the table. Attention to these other factors is what turns a good restaurant into a great hospitality brand.

What distinguishes a popular downtown bar from a deadly dull one? If you list the things that make the good bar better, they’ll mostly fall into the “hospitality” category: the friendliness of the bartenders, the coziness of the seating, the lighting, the music … and inevitably, the other patrons who are attracted by these factors. This is another example of how customers share the role of defining a brand.

When people are asked what business McDonald’s is in, many say “hamburgers.” Some will say “family entertainment.” A few smart ones will even say “real estate,” on the assumption that acquiring lots of prime business locations is where the fast-food chain makes its real money. Yet McDonald’s, like every other restaurant, is in the business of providing hospitality. Plenty of restaurants make a better hamburger; plenty provide better hospitality. But none provide the two so cheaply, reliably, and ubiquitously. That’s where McDonald’s has built its historic brand strength.

Hotels also base their brands on hospitality, since there isn’t much else to differentiate one clean bed from another. Retail stores distinguish themselves by the range of goods they stock, but the best ones also know that hospitality is what puts a store’s brand on a higher level. (The best retail chains have managed to apply their brands to the very products they sell: clothing chains such as Gap, H&M, Benetton, Mexx, and Mango are essentially extending a hospitality brand to sweaters and socks.)

At the heart of any hospitality brand are a well-designed environment and well-trained staff. The environment is the relatively easy part; it only needs to be solved once. Staff training is a continuous challenge, even at the best-run chains. Once staff are trained, they need to be motivated to embody the brand promise every day. Some restaurants are too cool to ask their staff to smile; but McDonald’s promises free food to any customer who isn’t greeted with a smile. Other ways in which staff become part of the hospitality brand include being well informed about the products they’re selling, acting out the brand personality, being helpful when customers have a complaint, and passing customer feedback along to managers who can fix things.

A brand is not going to overcome basic problems like bad food, lumpy mattresses, unstylish goods, or careless staff, but it can distill the experience of enjoying good food, comfy furniture, attractive merchandise, and attentive staff into an essential idea, different from the competitors, and present that idea to customers in a desirable way.

Financial services brands must do one thing better than any other brands—inspire trust. This was once accomplished through naming (First National City Bank sounds like an institution worthy of trust) and through architecture (imposing facades giving the impression of strength and longevity). Nowadays banks use subtler forms of image building. In addition to trust, competence, and permanence, a financial brand must stand out in a crowded field, encourage clients to diversify, and most of all, to break off relationships with competing banks.

Geico, an American insurance firm, offered a high level of efficiency and personal phone service at a cost well below other firms. They realized they could do better with a stronger brand image. Using humorous ad campaigns, including one with a talking gecko, Geico began pushing the catchy claim that “15 minutes could save you 15 percent” and “we just want to save you money.” But the brand goes beyond humorous advertising. A human, not an automated system, answers the phone, and the service is efficient. Plenty of brands have funny ads; Geico’s not only provide humor, they also make a relevant point about the brand benefits.

The ads of one competitor protest “No cute talking lizards, just lower rates,” but the competitor’s weak branding only serves to keep Geico uppermost in customers’ minds. The competition may offer lower rates, but the brand is uninspiring.

Telecommunications firms face the considerable challenge of making complex technology accessible and attractive to ordinary customers. Almost all telecom firms have similar offerings: their brands have to be built on ease of use and superior customer service.

The first breakthrough brand in telecoms was Orange, created by Wolff Olins in the mid-1990s. From the start, Orange was about simplicity and friendliness. Its advertising, website, and brochures sported a minimalist look, with slender, orange type offsetting abstract, black-and-white photographs of everyday objects. The logo was a simple square. The design has since evolved and adapted, but the friendly, “different” ethos of the brand remains.

The first Orange shops, opened in the late 1990s, were designed according to the principles of feng shui—the firm originated in Hong Kong—and included tanks of goldfish for good luck. More recent shops are marked simply “Not Another Phone Shop.” Inside, the walls are papered with pictures users have taken with their phones. Customers are offered coffee and free phone cleanings or support to encourage them to visit regularly.

Wolff Olins is also responsible for the identity of BeeLine, a leading Russian cellphone brand. The name BeeLine is a play on words: a beeline being the shortest distance between two people, and “line” picking up on the Russian word for mobile phone, the first part of which also means “honeycomb.” The absence of naming cliches like “-tel,” “-cell,” “-com,” or “-net” set BeeLine apart from its competition.

BeeLine’s original look was created in 1993. The logo launched in 2005—an elegant, abstract combination of a bee and a globe—is clean and stylish. Compared with the old version, the new identity is sophisticated and worldly, and reflects service rather than technology. The redesign showed that the brand was responsive to customers’ changing expectations, and fitted the image they desired.

Many countries’ local mobile/cellular/ wireless brands have been taken over by global giants such as Vodafone, Orange, and T-Mobile. Unfortunately, the multinationals have focused more on financial gain than on brand insights, so each has struggled to build a meaningful worldwide identity that is persuasive to customers in the local markets. Not everyone wants to be part of a global colossus; some customers prefer their own, local identity and are no longer certain what to expect from their switched-over telecom brands.

Airlines, cruise lines, train companies, and bus lines are in the business of getting people from one place to another. They can also be regarded as hospitality services.

Once upon a time, most airlines were national enterprises, flying the flag in a heavily regulated industry. This has begun to change, slowly, as low-cost carriers pressure the inefficient state-run companies to become more responsive to customers.

SAS is one of the best examples of an airline that successfully ditched its old way of thinking and developed a compelling new brand. The environments, both on board and in airport lounges, epitomize Scandinavian modernity. Luggage tags are inscribed with poetry rather than just a logo. The brand has become an identifiable mind-set for the whole organization.

One of the ways in which the airline industry has responded to its difficulties has been to form groupings between carriers, the major ones being Star Alliance, OneWorld, and SkyTeam. But while these partnerships may have some financial payoffs, the brand implications are more awkward. Although the attraction of national carriers persists— British Airways felt a serious backlash when it tried to reposition itself as a more worldly brand—a brand strategy that focuses more on customer experience than on cost-cutting would certainly be an improvement over the present situation.

The media, from giants like News Corporation and TimeWarner to bloggers and YouTube, began in seventeenth-century London coffeehouses. The telegraph, high-speed presses, radio, TV, and the Internet have all brought change, but the business model is the same: selling readers gossip, news, and critiques; and charging businesses to advertise. Journalistic standards are but one way of safeguarding a brand.

Old media brands are being challenged by specialized satellite and cable channels; magazines printed for niche audiences; and websites based on user content, such as Wikipedia and YouTube. Any bright child can set up a blog or podcast and reach much the same audience that Rupert Murdoch can. What are the prospects for big-media brands, hit by journalistic scandal, relegated behind the brands of their stars, their markets cannibalized? A brand should exploit every element to fulfill its goals (audience, point of view, content, revenue).

The name usually draws on a place name (Sydney Morning Herald), a founder’s name (Forbes), a name that conveys corporate power (Columbia Broadcasting System), or the special interest served (The Food Network). The Guardian began its life based in Manchester, England, but dropped the city name from its title in a successful effort to reach audiences farther afield. The New York Times has no such need: its full name has a strong association with quality journalism, and its association with New York, center of finance and media, doesn’t hurt. One future challenge will be what to do about the many other papers named “… Times,” as geographic separation of markets disappears and media become more global.

The context of the logo must also be considered. A logo in the corner of a TV screen must be legible but not distracting. A distinctive outline works better than a bold, simple shape. MTV was the first channel to use hyperactive logo animation in the US, and this has now been widely adopted.

Newspaper banner logos must remain distinct at a distance. The typeface has to reflect the values of the paper; be emblematic of the place in which it is published (if it is a local paper), or transcend national characteristics (if it aspires to be a global paper); be legible in tiny web banners; and above all, have a timeless quality. Readers will have to look at it every day for decades without growing sick of it.

Magazines face even greater visual competition for both nameplate and cover art. Each cover needs to grab attention with an enticing visual image, and to evoke recognition with a distinctive, familiar nameplate and typographic style. It needs to combine the timely elements of the magazine’s current coverage with the longer-term values that its readers expect. And it needs to be designed and printed quickly.

Broadcast media rely on presenters (anchors) to give them an appealing face. The best anchors achieve wide recognition and become brands in their own right. Walter Cronkite, often referred to as “the most respected man in America,” retired as anchor of “CBS Evening News” in 1981, and the show’s popularity declined. So which brand was driving the program’s success: CBS’s or Cronkite’s?

Some of the fiercest forms of brand loyalty pertain to sports. Whatever the psychological reasons, identification with a team and with one’s fellow fans can be so intense that metaphors like “nation” and “tribe” are routinely used to describe sports fans. In larger cities which boast several teams for a given sport, the rivalries can be intense. Some interestingly subtle factors separate one set of fans from the other, such as class, education, income, and family background.

For example, New York’s two baseball teams, the Yankees and the Mets, appeal to different groups of fans according to class, local geography, and personality. The parameters of these groups do overlap, but generally speaking, the Yankees appeal to working- and upper-class New Yorkers; the Mets appeal to the middle class. The Yankees draw fans with aspirations for success and little tolerance for mediocrity; the Mets, whose players seem to rotate more often, have toiled stoically at the middle or bottom of their league for most of the team’s history. Yankees fans value the club’s long history, which includes legendary players Babe Ruth and Joe DiMaggio, and a record number of championships. The Mets, established in 1962, have won the championship only twice. Their slogan is “Ya gotta believe.” Yankees fans generally tolerate the Mets as one would a pesky younger sibling; many Mets fans despise the Yankees.

Brand image reinforces both teams’ loyalties. The team colors, the hospitality they show to fans, public pronouncements of the team’s players and management, and players’ behavior all reinforce the team brand. Several observers have noted that the appeal teams hold for their fans can be instructive about the appeal of brands in general as “tribal” identifiers.

Many residents are aware that the way outsiders perceive them could do with a little improvement. The bigger the place, the more people have a stake in building its brand, and the longer it takes. A building can be branded in a matter of weeks; a country may take a generation or more to alter its brand image.

The birthplace—or origin brand—is a fundamental component of many exports. Nationality is a key attribute of German cars and Swiss chocolate, English clothes and American sportswear, French wine and Japanese electronics. Many people believe Italian olive oil is the best in the world; while many other Mediterranean nations produce olive oil of equal or better quality, the Italians have done a superior job of developing their olive-oil-origin brand.

Many local brands take their nationality with them when they go global and use it to differentiate themselves from their international competition. For example, many countries brew good pilsner, but the Czechs have managed to exploit their status as “the birthplace of Pilsner” to make their brand successful.

What is the difference between clothing “made in China” and clothing “made in Italy” to people around the world today? What do the Chinese hope their origin brand will mean 20 years from now? One of the issues that countries like China, India, Russia, and Brazil need to deal with as they establish their local brands in a global market, is how to turn their nation-brands from being a hindrance to being a help.

Taiwan went through this in the 1990s. The slogan “It’s very well made in Taiwan” was a clear attempt to deal with the fact that many people around the world viewed the “made in Taiwan” label as an indication of low price and quality, even though the quality was often fine. In Taiwan’s case, the problem was mostly with foreign perception, so an advertising campaign was an appropriate solution.

Ironically, developing nations often seem more aware of the need to develop their destination brand than their Western counterparts. Brand development needs to be well coordinated among authorities at all levels. It is sometimes more of a challenge to get this focus in a developed, liberal democracy than in other societies which have more at stake. Some of the best examples of destination brands come from small, developing countries, such as Guatemala and Estonia.

Sometimes it seems as though every architect and real-estate developer wants their building to be a brand. This is easily achieved if the location is already a prime one, if the architect is a well-known brand in his or her own right, or if the developer has an established market presence. In other cases, it is necessary to start from scratch. A building can benefit from a strong micro-destination brand in obvious ways: more visitors, higher rent, a higher rate of occupancy. But a good building brand also benefits the brand of the city or region the building is in, and vice versa, and naturally the tenants’ own brands gain by association.

The elements of a building’s brand can include a prestigious address, good architecture, an attractive identity (mostly expressed through signage and advertising), and the right mix of support services for tenants and visitors. In some cases, the association with the developer or architect also has lasting value for the brand.