Reputation is important in business as it is in life. Think of a few of the great American companies. What is the first thing you think of when you hear tractors? If you are like most Americans it is probably John Deer. What about retail stores? Do the names JC Penny or Sears Roebuck ring any bells? These are examples of branding.

Branding has a dual meaning. First, think of a particular manufacturer of a product. Take band aids for instance. Hah, I got you. Band Aid is actually a brand, not a type of product. We have simply gotten so used to associating these little bandages with the Band Aid brand that we have come to use the terms interchangeably. This is branding at its best.

You can also think of branding like that of marking livestock. When branding, you are putting your mark on something to let the world know it is yours. This is another consideration in branding.

Drug companies are among the best at branding their products. It is extremely common for us to go on using the name brand as a replacement for the generic name long after any patent protection has expired. This brand association then becomes free advertising for the branded product.

There are several things that companies hope for when they introduce a product or service to the market. Here are a few of the things they want to accomplish with branding.

Set themselves apart from competitors
Be consistent in marketing
Establish credibility
Create consumer trust and loyalty
Elicit emotional responses to the brand
Be able to quickly deliver a message using brand association

Though businesses try hard to establish their brand, it is actually the consumers who will have the final word. If a product is so good as to hold a major share of the market for a long period of time, consumers will begin to associate the product or service by that particular brand name no matter what manufacturer they are talking about. These days when we casually mention that we need to make a quick trip to a convenience store, we often say we need to go to a 7Eleven. We might actually go to another store, but our collective conscious associates 7Eleven with convenience store so strongly that we use the words interchangeably.

The way a business can establish this level of branding is either by offering a product that is so superior to the rest that natural market forces make it rise far above the others, or to saturate the market so fully with your brand that it becomes a household name. No one is saying that Starbucks doesn't make great coffee, but their branding strategy was definitely an example of the latter method.

Once you have successfully branded your company, you become immortal. What do you think would happen if Band Aid ceased to exist tomorrow? Do you think anyone would even notice that they had gone away? Probably not. They are so ingrained in our minds and culture that we will always reach for a "band aid" when we cut ourselves, regardless of whether or not the actual company still exists.