As brand marketers, we always seek to find businesses and organizations that have solid business models and a true unique quality that makes them better than the competition - and allows them to deliver a great brand experience. This makes our job much, much easier because we believe that a brand cannot survive on great branding alone. If we were in math class, it would look something like this:

Great branding + Great business model = Success
Great branding + Mediocre business model = Fail!

Unfortunately, not every business that seeks professional marketing help is backed by a solid business model. Many businesses simply exist, with no unique, compelling characteristics that consumers crave. I believe that these businesses, even with the help of a slick brand, cannot survive in the long-haul. And to add insult to injury, it’s a difficult fix that most business owners aren’t willing to embrace.

On the other side of the coin are businesses that deliver an amazing brand experience, yet aren’t supported by a healthy branding effort. The problem with this is consumers use a company’s brand image to decide whether or not they want to engage/purchase/patronize/etc (Think about it the next time you’re in the grocery store trying to decide which shampoo to buy). If the brand isn’t up to snuff, many consumers won’t give them the opportunity to deliver a brand experience because they’ll just move on to the next brand…That equation looks like this:

Bad branding + Great brand experience = Fail!

This happens too often. On a local scale, here in Maryland there are countless brands that I have come across that are truly remarkable brands. A couple that come to mind right now are Terracycle, Carols Western Wear, Chevy Chase Bank and Lemongrass (Thai food). Each of these are companies that I feel deliver a PHENOMENAL brand experience, but could use some help with making sure their brand communicates it. Luckily, I know just the right group of people to solve their problem…

Garret Ohm
http://www.orange-element.com

p.s. Thanks Alchemy for the image.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 30th, 2008 at 10:46 am and is filed under Blog Posts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.