As a faculty in marketing deptt in a management college I see a lot of students. Noticeably, most of them err in distinguishing between marketing and branding during case studies and brain storming sessions. Not just students, even some senior pros from reputed interactive advertising agencies and branding firms make this mistake often. Yes they are different!

While marketing a product is like bottling a can of soda, just put in a little fizz and pizzazz, ergo you got yourself a working campaign (whether it would work or not is different story), branding on the other hand is like making a single malt scotch.

Just like scotch requires years of aging and careful handling with just the right environment and ingredients to produce a masterpiece which will be consumed reverently and remembered fondly, branding too needs precise positioning, conceptualization, visualization and promotion to build up a significant brand equity for the product and high recall for the campaign.

To elaborate - marketing requires quick and single-minded communication as communication is expensive and consumer’s attention span is short. This would make a skilled marketer to seek to convey a message that has the ability to trigger a quick response.

Right across the road moves branding, which is slow and multi-faceted. That's because communicating about what a brand entails can be likened to communicating a person's character, it cannot be done proactively; you have to build it, with your actions.

For example, you do not trust somebody overnight just because he/she says “trust me!” No my dear, you will trust that person only when he/she displays trustworthiness and integrity in real life situations. This takes time. Communicating the character of a brand takes time for the same reason.

And, contrary to the rather simple and one point focus of propagating the USP (Unique Selling Proposition) of the marketed product or service through the marketing message, branding is complex by design: a rich brand is a gestalt consisting of multiple messages each telling a different characteristic not of the product but of the entity behind that product, the company.

One corporate branding message would be telling about the company’s corporate identity, another would be elaborating on ethics standard of the company, yet another might be telling about the company’s policy about its employees, and so on…
This plurality of messages, which is a liability to the marketer, is an asset to the brand. A good branding firm will intelligently employ all of these corporate branding messages to tell you effectively what you might expect from the company.

For example what picture does the brand name ‘Apple’ conjures up in your mind – cutting edge products, years ahead of its peers technology, niche but worth aspiring for offerings, and a little snobbish attitude which gets rubbed on the owners of those products. You getting the idea?

To conclude, branding and marketing are closely related business tools, so closely related that they are too often intermingled but while marketing is about telling, branding is about implying.

Source: Dalab.com.au

thank you for that insight, it is certainly something which i have known for a while but struggled to convey to others

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"if you think education is expensive, you should see how costly stupidity is."

yes i agree...well written jennie. basically branding iss to create an image of yourbrand hich is associated wth something such as reliability or quality etc. you should choose a strategy focusing on one or more of the particular images you want to be related to your brand name from as early as possible, and ensure that you focus on maintaining that iage, and it can do very powerful thingsfor your business, and reduce the amount of marketing you need to do in the long run.

Isn't this a double post of a previous thread you'd submitted?

If you're not quite sure what direction your business is taking, or feel that you have deviated from the right course. Take corrective action! Brainstorm about:
• The Future: What you as a company want to be five years out?
• Strengths: Where you are doing right?
• Weaknesses: Where not so right?
• Markets: What opportunities and challenges are inherent to the markets you serve?
• Strategic Options: What are your basic alternatives and their implications?
• Selection: Which strategy should you opt for considering the prevailing and future business environment?
• Implementation: How and when to get the components in place to implement the chosen strategy?
More such grey matter tickling issues will be discussed at a seminar hosted by Hoey Associates on how to craft and execute winning strategies in February and April, 2008.
visit HoeyAssociates.ca for details.

Right this is a double post of the same subject. Perhaps one should be careful of double posting, it could be mistaken as spamming. I mean no offense. Good day to all!

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Christian Dinopol
learning Import/Export
http://www.import-mentor.co.uk/

Well, at least i enjoy the article