Mark Hurst on Branding

Mark Hurst has his summary of branding today in his Good Experience blog. With this in mind, let's simplify that definition: The brand is the customer experience. And that's all it is. It's not primarily a story, or a logo, or a style, or even a value proposition. Primarily the brand is just what customers tell each other about: their experience. So if you want to create a good brand, the best - perhaps the only - investment to make is in the customer experience. This means learning from customers through direct observation, and crafting a strategy built from that customer input. I encourage you to read the whole thing.