Branding. The Art of Image Management. Explores the two image instances of a product, company or organisation; the physical and tangible instance represented by the brands, logos, symbols etc., and the abstract instance that inhabits the human imagination. Its entire perception occurs only by the complement proportionate by one another.
3. Visual perception is not
an exclusive human beings
sensory phenomenon.
But the visual perception
along with language played
an important role in the
cognitive development,
what allow us by the use
of symbolic representation
to distinguish us humans
from others animals
throughout our evolution.
4. Maybe the sources limitation in the period
we lived in the caves had motivated our
paintingstorestrictitselfin pictographfeatures.
And that may be the luck of our specie.
The pictographic painting, in this period of
time, had acquire a so sophisticated symbolic
sense that has transformed it in the bases of
what is used today as visual communication
and written language.
5. Today, we live 24 hours surrounded
by world of visual codes that
influence the greatestamount
ofourdecisionswithoutnotice.
Thebehavioursciencesevencoined
atermforit,blendedreality.
The codes used in this silent
communication allow
us to recognised immediately
a product, a company and
its marketing environment.
6. The outer general appearance of a persons are, in a whole, the more
immediate features to distinguish and set it apart from the crowd.
The Visual Identity, being it of a product or a company, also do the
same for its recognition and the understanding of what it has to offer.
7. It is important to understand, however, that in this process
the eyes plays only a camera hole in the image being captured.
The visual code interpretation, and consequently the transmitted
message are subject to the receptor cultural background.
Besides equipped with organic apparatus responsible for the vision,
each culture decod the conveying information guided by the value
that it is based.
8. The more complex
and intriguing part of
the process is how the
brain — this powerful
machine that control
us — explore, analyse,
filter, select, combine
and recombine all the
attributes and features
fromtheobservedobject,
so it can distinguish
it among the others.
9. Is in this scenario of
emotional complexity
were we construct
what is call product
image or brand.
To understand that a brand
or image exist in both of this
world, a physical and tangible
and the other completely
abstract, is a key knowledge
for a good brand promotion.
10. Those physical and visual instances
just evoke the abstract one already
present in our mind.
It goes beyond that: it is a complex blend of appearances and
emotional attributes perceived and cataloged by our mind.
With this vision we could finally understand that a brand
is not what we see in trademarks, logos, symbols and other
names we call it.
11. Without to make use of any rational motivation, the process is
based on a set of coded attributes, permanently saved and updated
in a sort of library of appearances and sensations ins our memory.
The content of this library is handled merely by emotional
motivations. It is the user experience that counts in this process.
12. Quick mental
combinations that take
place in our brain give
us precise feedback about
the the soul and character
of a product, service
or company that we
have contact with
in the day by day basis.
13. On the other hand, whatever experience we have with a new
object or situation takes more time to be entirely absorbed. In
this moment when the brain still don’t have any register about
the new object or situation, it concentrates all of its sensorial
resource to analyse, understand, differentiate and record in
memory the visual stimuli it is receiving.
14. That is the situation
where a new product, or
the one that still don’t have
a demographic knowledge
need to make favorable
decisions. The choosing
of a perfect marketing
and communication arsenal
certainly will set it apart
in the market place
and call attention
of the consumers.
15. When finally a bunch of registers
associated with a product are
acquired, the brain let aside
the analytical awareness process
and star to orient by experiences
already registered. It is less difficult,
less tiring and quicker for it.
16. For marketing and communication, the consolidation of an image
is the most important and necessary effort required to make it survive.
Their main work is to enhancing its attributes, highlight the positive
aspects, increasingly promote its distinction among the others and,
especially, to value the closest concepts to the emotional appeals and
to remember the character or soul of the product, company or institution.
17. Branding is a interdisciplinary work
and refer to every effort employed
in image management, with the scope
of concepts here addressed.
18. The brand term originated from
the cattle branding irons used
by american farmers to assign
distinction between their livestock
from the rest of other breeders.
With the same purpose of
establishing distinction, the
term brand was adopted by the
marketing, communication and
all the business involved in image
management.Today the legal
term used is trademark.
19. No idea to promote a brand should result
from a occasional insight or just because it
is charming or meet some person’s vanity.
Ideally is to keep it in accordance with
the image history, and aligned with the
audiences emotional universe.