Re: Branding?

From: Michel Neray <michel_at_brandera.com>
Date: Sat 04 Mar 2000 00:33:40 -0500

KIM BROOKS WROTE:
> What is a Brand?
> Can you be successful and be Brandless?

Brand is the sum total of your product's or service's
reputation, quality, and positioning in the market. All
these factors are ethereal at best. Just because eBay
appears to simply provide a generic service, it doesn't
mean that it is brandless. Its reputation is big and
solid. The quality of service is 'dependable'. And it's
positioning is market leader.

It may not be an exciting brand emotionally, but it's
definitely a brand.

The same can be said of Amazon, which seems to be
trying to be all things ecommerce to all people.
Clearly, they are doing things right. When I
interviewed Guy Kawasaki on our site (www.brandera.com)
this was his reply:

"They (Amazon) have established themselves as a proxy
for ecommerce. That's a major accomplishment, and the
market has given the company the valuation for "all" of
ecommerce, not just its own business. As time goes on,
the market will probably adjust this valuation to
sub-gorillas if you will. But this accomplishment by
Amazon.com was massive."

Branding is also not unlike how you come across as a
person. (Business 2.0 had a feature by Tom Peters
called 'The Brand Called You', a couple of years ago.)
Your brand is affected by things such as the
personality you project, your accomplishments, what you
stand for, and the style of your clothes. I know a few
people whose brand is definitely 'bland'.

It's not the brand i would want for myself, but it's
still a brand.

Michel

--
Michel Neray
VP Product Development & Chief Content Officer
BRANDERA.com ICQ: 10007997
5255 Yonge Street suite 705 vox: 416-226-2800
Toronto, Ontario fax: 416-226-1931
M2N 6P4 Canada toll-free: 1-800-303-9277

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Received on Fri Mar 03 2000 - 23:33:40 CST