What makes a good brand work?

It’s difficult to list the tenets of good branding without restating the obvious: Trust. Reliability. Something you can depend on. Consistency. It sounds like a Buick commercial. Allow me to brainstorm a few alternative descriptions that can be taken with or without a grain of salt. 

When you order Chinese Food, you know what to expect, right? Everyone knows what it is. You don’t even really need to look at the menu because it hasn’t changed in 50 years, and every place has the same menu. You know how it smells, you know how you’ll feel after. You know to ask for extra duck sauce and hot mustard because they never give you enough. You also know that they don’t actually eat that stuff in China. “Chinese Food” is greasy American comfort food. It’s delicious. If you haven’t eaten in 4+ hours, you might be getting hungry reading this. Why is that? You can imagine the whole experience of Chinese Food because it has delivered the same satisfying calorie bomb to your stomach for as long as you can remember. They give you a consistent level of quality in relation to the money you must spend, and it tastes good and makes you feel good. Imagine a world without Chinese Food…the humanity!

Let's shift gears.Take personality traits, which are an extension of your personal brand: A-Student, slacker, go-getter, suck-up, sweetheart, ladies man, loner, extrovert, bookworm. You know somebody who fits into each of these character profiles. It’s no big shock when they act a certain way because that’s how they’ve branded themselves, whether or not they know it. People create and perpetuate their personal brands every day. 

Let’s try comedians: Will Ferrell, Kevin Hart, Louis C.K., Jerry Seinfeld, Chris Rock. Consider each one for a few seconds…different brands of humor, right? They make you feel a certain way? What if Jerry Seinfeld told Chris Rock’s jokes. It wouldn’t work, right? What if Will Ferrell played a serious character? Oh wait, he did in Stranger than Fiction. He actually did a great job, which says something about his acting, and the fact that it was so eery seeing him not play a buffoon says something about the strength of the brand identity he has created.

These may be reaches, but this is what I was able to brainstorm when considering what makes a good brand work. It boils down to consistency, and occupying a niche. You want to be focused on your audience, and must always strive to produce quality work that is within your budget.