Brand essence - sense and nonsense

Steve Williams

Steve Williams, who runs Stratosphere, a planning and research consultancy, reckons that if you boil a brand down to a pithy few words encapsulating the brand essence, you run the risk of boiling out what made the brand distinctive in the first instance.

Brand essence – sense and nonsense

Steve Williams

We have all heard the mantra: if you cannot boil a brand down to a small number of words then you have failed to grasp its meaning. Ideally, we are told, this should consist of no more than two or three words.

The theory went public a few years back when in a television programme Robin Wight told the leaders of Rover that their brand stood for 'relaxed motoring' and that everything they did should reflect this. Now perhaps it might be termed 'standstill motoring'.

The benefits of this way of thinking...

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