In the past five years or so, few other words have been bandied about more than ‘branding’. It didn’t matter what a company did or which market segment it was in, branding was seen as the key to commercial success.

Unfortunately, branding exercises often place too much emphasis on visual identity. I daresay that a new visual identity doesn’t even feature very high up the branding shopping list. In fact, we ought not to confuse a brand with its graphic identity, as we often do.

Most of the time, what a company needs to work on is its brand experience and how that needs to be positive one for the customer. Often this is where it all comes apart, that very point of contact between the company and the world at large. And when you get down to it, it’s really all about how the people in an organisation relate to the customer.

A positive experience creates a positive domino effect of word-of-mouth referrals, customer loyalty, increased sales, higher profitability and so on. As for a negative experience, well, that can do disproportionately greater damage with the Internet today.

For another take on this, read this interesting post at ideasonideas.