As I sit here looking at my newly delivered corporate pens it takes me back to the time that I started Capable People. I had just left a company that had quite a weak brand image and I’d decided that I wanted Capable People to be stronger. I quickly realised I had no idea what “brand” actually was. Fortunately these days we don’t have to sit and wonder about anything anymore. We have search engines. So after typing “what is brand” into Google (and scrolling past a few references to that tiresome and ubiquitous prick Russell Brand) I started getting somewhere

Lesson one was “it’s not the logo”. Apparently lots of companies think that it is. Well, it’s not. Brand is about everything you do. It is what identifies you, what defines you and ultimately what differentiates you. In that respect it can work for good and for bad

If there was one nugget of wisdom that stuck with me it was the advice that consistency was the key. People trust consistency and mistrust inconsistency. It means that, so far as visual queues go, that consistency in your colours, fonts, use of language and your style etc need some firm “do” and “do nots”. For me it also means that I have to be able to walk the talk. So no fibs and no wild exaggerations in other words

Our trust, and ultimately our loyalty, in brand relates to the way we are wired as human animals. In our human relationships we prefer people to be consistent. Truth is more consistent than lies you understand, and we prefer consistency because this is much more likely to be the truth. Inconsistent people are likely to be liars – so we see inconsistency in brand as an indicator or unreliability

So anyway, if you understand nothing else about “brand” this may get you started. It certainly helped me a lot, and continues to do so. Like so may things, it is the simplest of principles that deliver the most valuable lessons