I’m not quite sure how to react to your comment about my recent blog about the definition of branding.

Did you get the point I was trying to make? Which was that branding is difficult to define comprehensively and that there’s, therefore, a natural tendency to try and simplify. But that most attempts fall short.

Your attempt being an example because it implies that brand managers are in complete control and that customer’s attitudes about your brand based on perhaps years of experience are irrelevant.

I’m not sure I agree with Martin’s comment. I find the definition “Defining why you are, so that you become the only logical choice for what you offer” hugely useful and insightful.

It says the best branding comes from the clear intent of the people behind the brand. That definition is what makes branding personal and compelling.

At the end of the day, you can’t trust a product or an organization, except insofar as it manifests the collective intention of people. If those people get off track, the “brand” loses its oomph as people figure it out.

I like this definition; it opens the door to making business human, rather than collection of micro-psychographic minutiae it has often become.