What Is Your Brand Bro?

Welcome to another EBWS blog. At EBWS, we don’t sell apparel. We sell Stories. We sell ideas, aspirations, inspiration, and beliefs. Wearing our apparel serves as a reaffirmation of your greatness. At EBWS, every design has a story. We don’t create our apparel only to look good. We want our designs to mean something. Simply put, our swag is designed to serve as a mindset changer.  Check out our featured statements. 

This blog is the first of four blogs where I hope to break the branding and marketing best practices down to their very last compound. I am frequently asked why I blog as opposed to doing a YouTube channel or Instagram live feed? The answer is simple, knowledge and the ability to process information are vital to a business’s progress, especially as an entrepreneur. As an entrepreneur, you typically wear many hats and often dabble in areas that are not your expertise. Thus, although it may sound cliche, for an entrepreneur, reading is fundamental.  

Before I explain the difference between branding and marketing, we first must dive into understanding what a brand is. At a high level, a brand is a sophisticated term for reputation. Just like your personal reputation, your brand should represent what you are best known for? Your brand is what you embody. How does the world identify with you as an entity? Everyone has a brand because everyone has a reputation, good or bad. Since everyone has a brand, the real issue is if your brand can be monetized, and if so, how do you monetize it. One of the biggest mistakes I see new businesses make is focusing on marketing without actually building their brand. Why should people buy your product if they don’t identify with your message? Companies fail left and right for various reasons, but many companies never actually get off the ground because the founders failed to understand what a brand is. You can’t sell something to your potential audience if your brand isn’t credible. The first goal of any entrepreneur, especially selling a physical product should be to identify what their current brand is and if it is compatible with what they are trying to sell. If not, then it doesn’t mean your business is doomed. It simply means that you have to start customizing your brand to what you are trying to sell. What is interesting is how companies are trying to circumvent the brand credibility issue. To get around the problem of brand credibility, companies have begun trying to leverage the idea of “brand ambassadors.”  I’m sure you have seen that term tossed around on social media. The goal of Brand ambassadors, in many instances, is to help make up for the lack of credibility in the seller’s brand. “I mean, if such and such is rocking with it, then it must be dope, right?” Unfortunately, the idea of using Brand Ambassadors typically doesn’t work. One of the big reasons is, people with a high level of brand credibility won’t recommend or represent just any company. Remember, your brand(reputation) is the most crucial thing in business so protect it with your life. Brand credibility is homegrown. It takes time, effort, and dedication to establish a lasting brand.  

Now that we have established what a brand is, let’s start talking about what is branding. Branding, in a nutshell, is about selling yourself to people. Branding is not about selling any products. I repeat, branding is not about selling any of the stuff that makes up your business. Branding is all about selling your vision, motto, attitude, or view. Outside of essentials, people tend to buy products based on the emotion of feeling a particular product garners in them. For example, Apple is one of the most restrictive platforms there is for tech. If that is true, why do people still rock Apple?  

Rocking Apple is dope, that’s why. Same reason why people buy expensive ass Starbucks. Sitting at one of those little wooden Starbucks tables while eating a bran muffin and sipping on a caramel frap screams “ you are elite.” Branding helps to establish that emotional tie to the brand. For example, check out this commercial from Apple. Now, full disclosure, I am already an Apple fan, but if I weren’t, this damn commercial would have sold me. After watching this commercial the first time, I said to myself, “self, I want to graze greatness. I want to be a ground-breaker. To take up space. I feel like I am the person who never got a seat at the table. I am that dude that never takes no for an answer…you know what self? I need to buy an Apple product because Apple gets me.” Okay, that was kind of cheesy, but you get my point. Branding is all about getting people to identify with your vision, your reputation, i.e., your brand. One of the most important things I have learned while owning a clothing brand is that people will buy a lesser quality product, less attractive product simply because they can identify with the brand.  Thus, branding is all about getting your customers to develop an emotional affinity for your brand. 

Lastly, marketing is about trying to sell products as a byproduct of your brand. In actuality, these steps tend to be the most mechanical of all because if you have done your first two steps correctly, this step is simply about getting your products out in front of the people who already identify with your brand. Thus, marketing is essentially basic blocking and tackling in regards to selling products. This is where the analytics and tracking comes in that will help you drive recommendations, sales, pricing, and advertising. By now, you have already established your audience’s profile. The only thing left is to formulate a way to reach them, and that is marketing. On the flip side, if you haven’t identified your brand or handled the branding properly, this step will cost you a lot of wasted time and money and bear very little fruit. 

Check out my following three blogs, where I dive deep into each topic. Until next time….deuces.