Marketing Vs. Branding: What is the Difference?

Marketing and branding are often confused with each other. Both terms play an equally important role when one is building a business and trying to spread awareness. Below is an explanation of both business activities.

What is Branding?

Branding is defined as the identity or personality of your company. It is a combination of your image, values, mission, position, purpose, logo, name, slogan, taglines, brand style guidelines (fonts, colors), reputation, and visual identity. These elements distinguish your business, products, and services from competitors’. Examples of good branding are seen in businesses like Apple, McDonald’s, and Nike.

• Apple: Their branding personality focuses on lifestyle, imagination, and innovation. The company’s logo is a bitten apple and their tagline is “Think Different.” 
• McDonald’s: Their branding personality focuses on lifestyle, imagination, and innovation. The company’s logo is two golden arches and their tagline is “I’m lovin’ it.” 
• Nike: Their branding personality focuses on athletes and active lifestyles. Their logo is the “swoosh” and their tagline is “Just Do It.”

These companies’ logos and taglines are known worldwide because they are memorable, unique, and stand out amongst their competition. The shaping of your brand is important. It plays a crucial part in building a reputation, customer loyalty, customer retention, and customer perception. 

What is Marketing?

Marketing is the activity of building awareness and promoting a product or service. Within marketing, different types of research are conducted, such as market research and customer research. Results from the research are used to produce the best strategies for a company to use when communicating with their audience. These marketing strategies share a brand’s identity and personality when promoting their product or service. In other words, marketing emails, ads, graphics, videos, etc. often include the brand’s logo, tagline, and brand fonts and color guidelines. 

Branding vs. Marketing

As mentioned above, branding is the identity of a business from logo and tagline to reputation and purpose. Marketing incorporates a business’s brand into ads and videos when they are actively building awareness and promoting a product or service. Both play an essential role when building and promoting a business. 

Learn About How Raze Media Can Improve Your Brand and Marketing Strategy

The utilization of both branding and marketing defines the future success of your business, but it can be difficult and time-consuming. As a digital marketing agency, Raze Media has years of professional experience in both brand and marketing strategies. If you are interested in learning more about how Raze Media can help your brand, visit our website or contact us today!