Let me start off by saying that yes, sales are more important than branding. Without a doubt, sales are the lifeblood of any company. If you don’t have any sales, your company won’t be in business for long. So why is everyone always talking about the importance of branding?
While everyone realizes that it’s important to allocate resources to creating a brand identity by designing a logo, creating a website, social media marketing etc…, you won’t be any further ahead if you haven’t laid a solid foundation or a brand image. Hopefully a company determines its brand image or how it wants to be perceived by consumers before it launches. The biggest challenge a company faces is aligning the brand identity to match its brand image as closely as possible. When a misalignment occurs, sales fall and we all know the resulting consequences.
What is the brand image that you have for Apple? Some people will say that Apple makes the coolest high tech products on the market. Others will say that they never have any problems with Apple’s products. Different people might have different perceptions but they all have something in common, they are all based on innovation, imagination, design quality, reliability, accessibility etc… For the last 15 years Apple has been able to align its brand identity with its brand image with awesome results. Forbes has valued the brand at $154.1 billion, almost double the value of its nearest competitor Google at $82.5 billion.
Apple has been able to tap into something that few marketers do correctly – emotion. Consumers buy on emotion and justify with logic later when they get home and have to explain to their husband or wife that they needed a new tablet. And your business should be no different. Determine what your brand image will be and then create the right branding tools that convey the right message consistently.