Brand, Attributes, Outcomes Oh My

A product line purely a second-mover carbon copy of another emerging brand (e.g., Waterloo copying LaCroix) can scale based on grabbing established market share through sales wins. With a very experienced sales team and seed money. 

But this won’t create a consumer brand.

A brand is an outcome—an outcome of a social process that takes time. 

The social process involves fans collectively deciding that your offering delivers an outcome far better and in a more modern way worthy of retaining you in their pantry. At least on a specific occasion. Or it simply seduces consumers better into believing it can deliver better on that outcome. 

Regardless of how it forms, there is an emotional halo on top of the brand that comes from a socially shared consumption experience you enabled with the product. 

That emotional halo is what many agencies refer to as ‘brand.’ The problem is that it isn’t the result of graphic design alone. It’s a socially generated outcome. 

This is Kind bar.

This is NOT Waterloo sparkling water.  Brand is an outcome, not a logo, not an act of graphic design.