At social gatherings or parties, such as a wedding party, we meet different people. Some we know and others are strangers to us. By speaking to them, we find out things about them, some that stand out and others that don’t. Next time you see that person on the street, you relate his face to the one that you met at the party and you recognize him. You remember all the qualities he had and things he had said. You relate all of this to his face as you see him. For a company, a brand is like that face that you can recognize anywhere on the billboard or TV and relate it instantly to all the things you like and dislike about the company. A brand is like a hot button, it recalls everything that you relate to it.
Companies use brands for recognition. They are the small symbols or graphics that are used for visual stimulation to relate it to a certain company product or service. A prime example of branding is how Ralph Lauren uses the symbol of a man playing polo on his clothing line. Anytime you see that symbol on the shirt you know it’s made by Ralph Lauren. It also can be a sort of authentication of the company, like a stamp.
It is simply a communication tool that is used by companies to visually remind you of them. Brands are something the general public takes a lot of pride in. They like wearing a certain brand and become loyal to it. A brand that is marketed well can be very effective in reminding people about that product and helping consumers use it as visual aid in identifying products with its company. For example the windows symbol used by Microsoft is so popular now that people who are looking for software compatible with this operating system only look for the Microsoft windows logo on a product before they buy it. For them it’s a necessity and kind of assurance that this product will work with their system. A small logo can yield quite a lot of power.
