by Peter Knight - Wednesday, 5th September 2007 -

A few years ago I had the misfortune to be in a meeting with the marketing director of a major financial services company, who stated: “Our endgame solution lies in synergising our channels of distribution, thereby upping the priority for brand sanitation when it comes to populating our marketing collateral.”

She was deadly serious. If you have ever wondered why marketing confuses the hell out of most business people, well, there you have it!

Over recent years the vocabulary of marketing has evolved from the simple and straightforward to the pretentious and confusing. I believe this actually harms business.

The most misunderstood marketing term of all is “brand”, which seems to mean different things to many people.

One wordy definition offered by encyclopaedia Wikipedia is: “The symbolic embodiment of all the information connected with a product or service. A brand typically includes a name, logo, and other visual elements such as images or symbols.

"It also encompasses the set of expectations associated with a product or service which typically arise in the minds of people. Such people include employees of the brand owner, people involved with distribution, sale or supply of the product or service, and ultimate consumers.”

Well, that’s clear then. But if you’re still confused (and I certainly was), then try the straightforward Real Business definition: Brand = Reputation.

Now I fully accept that this isn’t the whole picture. But I prefer to keep things simple. I believe that what people mean by brand is everything that leads to the formation and development of a reputation.

Certainly, in my experience, business people will more readily recognise the importance of building and enhancing their “reputation” than their “brand”.

Whichever word they choose, some business people may not realise that a company’s reputation is affected by just about everything they think, do and say.

It’s also influenced by many things outside their immediate control. For example, perceptions of Great Britain – good or bad – will have an impact on the reputation of all British companies.

So which aspects of your reputation can you manage and how?

First you should identify the reputation you desire for your company. State it as clearly as possible.

Next make each of your employees (particularly those individuals who deal with customers) understand that you expect them to help create and reinforce this reputation.

Re-examine your marketing. Every single communication, be it your press advertising, website, company brochure, office decor or even your “on hold” music, should help to underpin the reputation you want.

Often, the little things, the extras, add much more to a reputation than any advertising slogan or brochure statement.

For example, I was staying at The Four Seasons Hotel in San Francisco recently and was surprised when my napkin was removed from my lap a few moments after I’d placed it there.

My waitress changed the linen from white to black when she noticed I was wearing dark trousers – a small detail but one that gets people talking. And that’s my point: the best companies’ reputations are made by anecdotes of legendary service or product detail.

Tesco state in their advertising, “every little helps”, and here’s a company that consistently innovates with both big initiatives such as the loyalty card and smaller ones such as opening extra tills if they see more than three people queuing.

They understand how it’s the delivery of their advertising strap line that builds their reputation as opposed to the statement itself. If you think of your branding like that, the slogans will take care of themselves.

I suppose I should explain that the marketing director I referred to at the start of this article wasn’t entirely wrong.

My understanding is that she wanted all her company’s brochures, mailers, point-of-sale posters and sales team’s presentations to look the same – as if from one “brand stable”. I applaud her intentions.

But I think that she would have been much more successful by keeping things simple. In fact, I’m prepared to stake my reputation on it.