The word 'brand' is thrown around a lot in the corporate world. Your brand is your companies most important asset; it's much more than just a logo design, letterheads and compliment slips.

From a commercial point of view, your brand should be the image you try and project onto your target audience. Although the reality is that If your product is heavily consumer focused, then your brand is the image and lifestyle that your customers project onto you.

Luxury products such as computers, mp3 players and cars come in many different flavours but they all have their high end brands, many of which share the same ingredients as their low to mid range competition minus a few luxuries and, of course, that all important price tag. What really separates the big names from everyone else is not so much the marketing of a product, it's the marketing of a pre-made lifestyle.

The phrase 'Paying for the name' is thrown about a lot by cash savvy shoppers but it's the lifestyle of their peers that consumers are trying to buy into. Early adopters will buy into a brand if it suits their lifestyle. The mass market will follow suit if they want a part of that scene. How did Apple build such a strong brand for it's iPod? They sent hundreds of their mp3 players to 'A' listers and celebs, who were photographed running, working out or just going for a stroll with their new gadgets. Without these initial inadvertent celebrity endorsements, the iPod would just have been another flash in the pan gadget with a user base made up of tec-savvy early adopters and die-hard Apple fans. Dissecting the brand even further will show you that pretty much every visible aspect of the iPod has been carefully designed to project a lifestyle image. The now famous white headphones, although aesthetically pleasing, also tell passers by how that consumer wants to be perceived by them and what lifestyle he/she is buying into. The most successful brands of 2007 pretty much confirm this, with the likes of Google, Coke, Marlboro, Toyota, McDonalds, Nokia, BMW, Apple, American Express and Louis Vuitton dominating the top 20.

Building a brand for your company, product or service doesn't have to be complicated. It can start with a clean, simple typeface that's followed through all corporate materials. You could go all out with a clever logo, well thought out and in-depth brand guidelines, corporate fonts and specific colours that hold meaning to that all important target audience. More important than appealing to your board of Directors, your brand has to appeal to your target audience. Something you only get one shot at.

Is your brand working for you, or have you been wasting time pushing your image onto your customers? Maybe it's time to contact us.