It is not uncommon to find different definitions of branding, some more correct than others. This is the onus of becoming a fashionable term, everyone wants to do it, offer it, seize the moment.
It is not uncommon to find different definitions of branding, some more correct than others. This is the onus of becoming a fashionable term, everyone wants to do it, offer it, seize the moment.
In the middle of all definitions, the that I like the most and I use most often is that branding is the management of the relationship dynamics between people from brands and people from the audience. At the end of the day, it is always about people wherever they are.
This anthropocentric thinking can further expand the not so well-defined limits of branding. The urban environment, the city, is the ultimate expression of our Zeitgeist. Not so long ago, brands began to look to the cities, a subject not familiar to most branding practitioners. Urban, cultural and territorial characteristics are beginning to be essential for understanding audience behavior. At this point, “traditional” branding with minor adjustments is able to understand the needs of brands consumers. But the Zeitgeist does not stop, does not accommodate, and it was imperative to understand their own places, cities, communities, neighborhoods, countries as brands. Understanding their identities, promoting their uniqueness, managing their images are no longer a task for “traditional” branders.
Companies and places are not the same.
While in one we have executives, employees, suppliers, customers, in another, we have citizens, taxpayers, society, government ...
By Caio Esteves
Place branding Expert, Founder of Places for Us in Brazil. Author of "Place Branding", 1st book about Place Branding in Brazil, and runs the Idealized Place Branding MBA, as well as teaching place branding in several postgraduate courses.