What even is “Brand”?

When I began working as an editor at Golf Digest in 2007, my colleagues and I had just one way to tell a story—via print. We used GolfDigest.com only as a way to push magazine subscriptions; Twitter hadn’t yet been invented; Facebook had just started to open up to “old people” who’d already graduated college; and Instagram and TikTok weren’t even seedlings on the brink of growth.

During those early years as a magazine editor, it was fascinating to watch new platforms become important journalistic tools. People were changing the way they consumed media, and we had to meet them there. I even went back to school part-time to get my Masters Degree in digital journalism from Columbia’s School of Journalism, mostly because I knew digital consumption was about to become a force.

As I created and oversaw Golf Digest’s shiny and new social and digital platforms, I found myself asking the following question: How can I ensure the experience Golf Digest delivers digitally mirrors the respected experience it became known for delivering via print? In other words, how can I ensure this brand unfolds consistently across all consumer touchpoints?

That’s when I became obsessed with brand.

A "brand" is the unique identity associated with a product, service, company, or individual. It encompasses the overall perception, reputation, and recognition that people have of a particular entity. “Brand” is a company’s personality. A brand goes beyond a logo or a name; it includes elements such as the company's values, messaging, visual design and, ultimately, the experience it provides to customers (ie, the way it makes a consumer feel).

Here’s the real key—a brand is a person’s gut feeling about a product, a service, a destination, a company, etc. In other words, as Marty Neumeier wrote in “The Brand Gap,” “a brand is not what you say it is, it’s what they say it is.” Of course, a company can’t control a consumer’s emotions, but a company can influence it by producing messaging and visuals that are concise, compelling and consistent. The tighter the message is across platforms, the stronger the brand is positioned to become.

When enough people begin to arrive at the same gut feeling about a product, a destination, etc., that’s when a company has successfully created a brand. What’s even better? A charismatic brand—one that evokes positive emotions and deep trust, no matter how it’s being consumed (in person, via a screen, on paper, etc). As Neumeier wrote, “a charismatic brand is any product, service, or company for which people believe there’s no substitute.” And here’s a little secret—every company can achieve this status of becoming a charismatic brand.