What is a brand? And how important is the mojo behind it?

Andy Hunt, Managing Director of marketing agency, Quick Thinking aims to find out...

What is a brand?

Ask a sample of the average-Joes and most will reach for one of today’s star brand icons. They’ll probably google a Coca Cola logo. Or point to a Nike trainer flash. Or show you the shiny Apple adorning their i-phone. Of course, these are all correct answers, but only partly right. As any brand marketer will tell you, brands are really a subtle mix of ‘10% logo and 90% mojo’. The lion’s share of any brand sits not in its physical identity, but in the much fluffier and less tangible attributes that surround it. Its real value lies not in its appearance, but the associations and behaviours it excites in people.

That’s why a branding agency will invest so much time (and charge so much money) to understand the ‘mojo’ of a brand before crafting its brand bible. Without knowing the essential back-story it’s impossible to engineer an identity that fits the bill.

For Branding Agency Mat Dolphin, the question that repeatedly comes up when they first start talking to potential clients is: “Where are you based?”. Creative Director, Tom Actman explains that the answer really doesn't have to be that complicated.

“Where are you based?”

It’s a completely reasonable thing to ask and it’s understandable that someone we’re working with would want to know where we are whilst doing the work.

Although often the question isn’t exactly about where we’re based, it’s actually about how close we are, geographically. For clients it would all see to be about the 3 L’s: Location, location, location.

Whilst we completely appreciate that someone might want the reassurance that we’re just down the road, it is something we feel is becoming less and less important. Whilst it’s by no means revelatory to point out that technology is making the tools we use to communicate more accessible and easier to use, it is something we can’t ignore. The requirement to be in the same room as the people a branding agency is working with is becoming less and less important.