Brand is everything, and everything is brand.

" All the things a business does, not just its logo and visuals, but also its strategy, call to action, customer service, communications with customers, and people combine to determine what it stands for. Thus Dan Pallotta concludes, "Ultimately, brand is about caring about your business at every level and in every detail, from the big things like mission and vision, to your people, your customers and every interaction anyone is ever going to have with you, no matter how small." A brand is essentially a performance promise incarnate. But I would add that there is more to "everything" than this would imply, and it's what determines how much a brand is actually worth. If a brand is shaped by everything its owner does, it is also shaped by everything else associated with the brand in the minds of its customers. Brands are important to marketers because in a competitive context, a brand marks an offering's differentiation from alternatives. It is what drives customers' predisposition to buy an offering and pay a premium for it. Differentiation is most meaningful when it is intrinsic; that is, based on relevant, tangible, and positive performance that can be experienced through the senses. Intrinsic differentiation can come through in the look, feel, sound, smell, or taste of a product. A case in point would be Red Bull, a brand that promises to enable you to do anything with its slogan "Red Bull Bulleh!" Whatever the effect of ingredients like taurine, any tired mind or body will receive a boost from the extra sugar and caffeine the brand contains. However, meaningful differentiation can also be extrinsic; that is, not based on the attributes and ingredients of the product or even of its provision. Distinctive communication, provenance, a track record of innovation or, increasingly, social and environmental responsibility can all form the basis of a brand's perceived, positive edge. The success of Johnnie Walker in the last decade was driven by the association it established with a changing ethos in its customers. Its "Keep on Walking" message tapped into an emerging sense that success was marked not by status for its own sake but by continued personal development. Part of the triumph of this branding was in the adaptation of its execution for local cultures around the world.

A brand is the ideas, the memories, and the feelings evoked every time someone thinks of the brand. When those mental associations make the associated product or service more salient, more interesting, or more compelling than the alternatives, they create value. So, "everything is brand." And everything a brand does should be aligned to deliver a meaningful experience. But the sensory experience of transacting business with a brand, while it may be the cornerstone of the brand experience, is far from the totality. Brand experience encompasses everything from the first impression of a brand to the latest interaction with it, from a positive association with it created by its funny TV ad to a negative one from a neighbor's discussion of its shortcomings. It is the job of marketing to shape expectations, frame experiences, and keep as many associations as possible both positive and salient. If they do their work well, the result will be the creation of value for both brand owner and brand buyer.
But where in the world is the consumer going to put the brand except in his or her mind? To

file something in the mind is conceptually no different than filing something in your home or apartment. Clothes in the closet. Books in the bookcase. Food in the refrigerator. The car in the garage. "A place for everything and everything in its place," goes the old saying. Today, we have many well-known brands with no places in the mind to put them. For decades, IBM dominated the mainframe computer market with a market share in the 70% range. Mainframe is the electronic nerve center of every major corporation in the world. IT managers may not be buying a lot of mainframes, but they certainly depend on them to keep their companies running efficiently. Xerox is one of the very few companies to have put a word in the dictionary. (Xerography: a process for copying printed material.) COPIER & PRINTER come first to mind when people hear the bran XEROX. Shielded by patents, the 1960s were boom years for Xerox. By the end of the decade, the company started down the expansion route. First step: Spending nearly a billion dollars to buy a mainframe computer company, Scientific Data Systems.

"Only Team Xerox can offer you a complete line of copiers, of Memorywriter typewriters, of electronic printers, of facsimile machines, of computers and professional workstations and an Ethernet network that can tie most of these machines together right now." For Google, the perception of SEARCH ENGINE are the main positioning that stuck in our head. Almost no company has grown as rapidly as Google, nor has any company expanded its offerings as rapidly as Google. Today, there's Gmail, Google News, Google Maps, Google Templates, Google Groups and Google Applications. Then there's the Google operating system (Chrome OS), Google mobile computing (Android) and the Google smartphone (Nexus One.) And I should also mention Google's efforts to sell radio ads, print ads and TV ads. An "Apple," like a "Procter & Gamble," is a company, not a product brand. Nobody ever says, they bought an "Apple" unless they have just visited a supermarket. Instead they say they bought a "Macintosh," or an "iPod," or an "iPhone." The way to keep a brand narrowly focused and still expand the company, as Apple did, is to launch second, third and even fourth brands. "Apple" used to be a product brand, the first 8-bit "home" personal computer. One of the key decisions that started Apple down its winning way was to give its "business" computer a different brand name (Macintosh.) Each of Apple's brands fills a separate hole. Macintosh is the "high end" personal computer. The iPod is the "high capacity" MP3 player. The iPhone is the "touch screen" mobile phone. Many marketers instinctively know that a new brand requires a unique idea or concept if the new brand is going to become successful. That's difficult to do. So they take the easy way out and introduce "me-too" line extensions, hoping to trade on the power of their brand names.