The New Breed of Brander, Post-COVID

If you do a quick google search of 'Marketing vs. Branding', you will find:

"Marketing is the set of processes and tools promoting your business. This includes SEO, social media, PPC, local search, mobile, and traditional promotional methods and tools. Branding, on the other hand, is the culture itself, the message that permeates and rules all the process of your business."

So, many then will ponder which is more important within the business — Marketing or Branding? Is it possible to separate the two? In order to answer that question, it is first necessary to delineate exactly what each expertise entails, as stated by a prominent online marketer below:

"Branding is at the core of your marketing strategy, so branding must come first. Even if you are a startup, it is essential to clearly define who you are as a brand—before you begin to devise your specific marketing methods, tools, strategies, and tactics."

So, to break it down to its core essence, (1) unique brands create and store value, (2) marketing is the deployment of the brand outward to 'cast the net' under a specific listing of goals and objectives.

A brand therefore becomes more valuable through a firm's marketing, depending on how that marketing relates to, and reacts to, the brands intrinsic value. The only clear differentiator, it can be argued, is that marketing seeks immediate results, prompting a customer to buy, register, or act immediately, while branding is a slower build up, a long-term strategy that adds value to everything your business represents.

The branding and marketing relationship is inseparable, forever connected, with only the timeframe separating out the terms clearly.

So why then is it important to keep these two terms as separate entities, especially in an ever increasing online presence after COVID?

"Branding is a marketing practice in which a company creates a name, symbol or design that is easily identifiable as belonging to the company. There are many areas that are used to develop a brand including advertising, customer service, promotional merchandise, reputation, and logo."

The above strikes me as a bit of a trend over the last 5 years or so, where technology is blending the lines of historic and future brand value. With the advent of social media, and instant return on key branding roll-outs, marketing campaigns, and increasingly digital methods to interact with clients, these two mega terms 'Marketing' and 'Branding', seem to be slowly drifting together like massive galaxies getting caught in each others gravitational forces.

In conclusion, my two cents:

'To me, branding and marketing, has always been one topic. Each relates to and is dependent on the other. If one is unsuccessful, the other will also fail. It is impossible to extract one from the other even by micro-surgery."

This topic is not going away anytime soon, in fact the debate will only heat up more as we move away from in-person traditional marketing towards online/virtual brand platforms. To read more on these topics, click the below articles specific to this debate. Enjoy!

• Why Is Brand Even More Important After COVID? | 10to8

• Purpose will be central to rebuilding brands, post-Covid – Marketing Week

• Ready to Relaunch? How Brands Can Build a Post-COVID-19 Strategy (madebrave.com)

• 7 Trends to Look for in a Post-Coronavirus Brand Landscape | AdRoll Blog

• Transform magazine: People and purpose: how brands can navigate the post-Covid-19 world - 2020 - Articles