What does your brand mean?
Mark Batey
How a company 'positions' a brand is not necessarily how the consumer perceives that brand. Brands allow marketers to add meanings to products and services, but it is consumers who ultimately determine what a brand means. Simply put, while companies create brand identities, people create brand meaning.
Given that brands exist in a permanently evolving socio-cultural context, and that their meaning for consumers is mediated by constant direct personal experience, it is not unusual for divergence to occur between company-intended and consumer-perceived brand meaning.
Moreover, today's fragmented and diversified media landscape exacerbates the...