Clear and Consistent Branding

Importance of Branding

According to Strategic Planning for Public Relations, branding is “the creation of a clear and consistent message for an organization.” It is what an organization attempts to create but Publics finalize. By this, I mean that companies do brand themselves and it is important to do so, to communicate their thoughts about the company to the public. Rather they spend their time creating this brand or not the public will ultimately determine what the brand means. Public perception is crucial to the full analysis of a brand. Their views affirm the values and opinions of the company. This is because branding is a message built to inform the audience. The message the audience deciphers is how the public sees the company. An article from Forbes goes further to say that “Your brand gives you personality”. As a personality describes the internal nature of people branding has a similar effect. Going back to how the audience comprehends these messages, clear and consistent branding is an important factor in the outcome.

What Will Clear Branding do for your Company

Clear branding defines and differentiates your organization in the minds of publics, particularly customers. It also provides a structure to convey a consistent message (Strategic Planning for Public Relations). A clear brand will separate your company from competitors. It will understand and express its differences and unique aspects. People will know what a company stands for and how they would likely behave. Branding provides a way for a company to build connections with its audience. This is done through consistent messaging. A brand should not be all over the place where one cannot decipher what a company is.

It also shows that a company understands itself. They stick with one idea and stand by it, consistency helps to build confidence in a company. The publics know what they will get every time. A great example is Everlane, a women's clothing brand that uses “radical transparency (ReferralRock)”. They are known to show the entire process from making to selling their clothing as well as showing their pricing structure. People who shop from this store know they are buying an ethically produced and fair-priced item because that is what the company has branded itself as.

Importance of Branding in a Public Relations Campaign

These points help explain a company, making it a crucial element to include in a PR campaign. A PR campaign is used to for any number of reasons but it is a process used to change public perception in a certain preferred manner. A clear brand will need to be used in this campaign so that the campaign and the company are consistent with each other. The campaign would not be as effective if it didn’t relate to the already determined brand of the company. Publics would not immediately merge the two ideas and the messages would be lost in thousands that bombard people every day. Clear branding builds connections and differentiates a company from its competitor.