Monday Morning Memo – Name Recognition isn't Branding

“Getting your name out” isn’t worth much when there’s no mental image attached to your name. Unaided recall and top-of-mind awareness are excellent ways to measure name recognition, but they don’t tell you anything about the strength of a brand.

York, Lennox, Rheem, RUUD, Carrier, Bryant, Trane, Armstrong, Friedrich and Fedders are leading brands of air conditioners; you’ve probably heard of some of them. But do you have significant feelings about any of these companies? Although their executives would never believe it and their advertising agencies would violently deny it, these companies’ branding initiatives have failed.

But each of them thinks they have a strong brand.

Branding is much more than name recognition, a color scheme, a logo and a slogan. Brand essence is the complex mental image summoned by a name, even when that name is heard only silently in the mind. (Unlike a mere visual image, a mental image is a complex composite of sight, sound, smell, taste, touch, opinion and mood.) Brand essence is everything a brand stands for in the heart of the customer.

What does your brand stand for in the heart of your customer?

continue reading…..Wizard Academy – Monday Morning Memo

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