Is branding different to marketing?

Branding and marketing are often mistaken for each other, or used interchangeably by mistake. 

Conflating them can lead to investing in the wrong things at the wrong time and wondering why the return isn't there, particularly for small to medium sized businesses looking to make an impact, fast. Marketing is, in very simple terms, the ways you communicate what you do to the right audiences, showing them how your product or service is going to solve their problems. It can be direct and targeted, or it can be more general and aimed at building AWARENESS of your brand. But the brand itself is something deeper and needs real thought if your marketing is to work as effectively as you need it to.

Here's a way to think about it. I don’t know if you’ve ever used dating apps? I apologise for the crudeness (and even awkwardness) of the example, but the metaphor works really well!

Someone’s dating profile – the photos, the prompts, the way someone describes themselves – is doing the job of marketing. Carefully considered, best foot forward, designed to get someone to swipe right. A bad profile will push people away, a good one will attract. A really vague one won’t usually compel, whereas a super-specific one will have a great impact on a very small (and usually ideal) audience. A niche, perhaps.

That’s all well and good. But a dating app is meant to lead to something else (different things to different people…). It’s not meant to stop on the app. 

That first date is where the brand shows up. Personality and values in action. The genuine interest you show, the way you treat the waiter, the things you actually care about. If those things match what the profile suggested, there's a good chance of a second date. If they don't, there isn't. That's the difference. Marketing is how you present yourself. Brand is what you actually are in real life, beyond the shimmer and shine of carefully selected words and pictures.

Both matter. A lot.

This isn't an argument against great marketing. SEO, content, advertising, social media – these things matter enormously and a business without a great marketing and sales strategy will struggle regardless of how strong the brand is. The best brand in the world won't find its audience if nobody knows it exists. 

But Fiona Graham, Director of Devonia Spring Water, put it well after going through the Identity Clarifier Process™: "If you're a business that wants to grow, you're going to need to market. And if you don't start with the brand story and foundations, your marketing budget is going into a black hole."

Basically, investing in marketing a weak or poorly conceived brand is a waste of money. There are just too many pitfalls and options that create uncertainty, inconsistency and ubiquity without a clear brand to lean on.

Every campaign feels like starting from scratch because there's no consistent thread underneath it. Or customers find it hard to really tell what you’re trying to sell because it looks and sounds like everyone else.

A strong brand is what makes marketing compound rather than just accumulate. And it sits behind more than just marketing in your organisation.

Why the order matters

Most businesses come to brand through marketing. Something isn't working – campaigns aren't landing, the website isn't converting – so they look at the marketing and try to fix it there. 

Sometimes that's right. But more often the marketing isn’t the big problem. It's the brand underneath it that's unclear. The profile looks decent enough, but the first date keeps disappointing. No amount of better photography or more targeted ads fixes that. It just makes the mismatch more expensive to distribute.

The practical test

If your team has to make a judgment call about tone or message and there's no clear answer because it depends on who's doing it that day – that's a brand problem presenting itself as a marketing problem.

Fix the foundation and the marketing gets easier. SEO performs better when there's a clear, consistent point of view running through the content. Advertising lands harder when the message is rooted in something true. Social media finds its voice when there's actually a voice to find. The profile and the person become the same thing. And that's when the second dates (and even full relationships) start happening reliably.

Not sure whether your challenge is a brand problem or a marketing problem? Our Brand Health Check is a good place to start. Or book a 30-minute intro call to find out more about it.

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