Eight Things Every Entrepreneur Needs To Know About Creating And Protecting Brand Identity

First in a series.

Every entrepreneur knows the importance of establishing a strong brand for a new business or product line.

"Brand" is a somewhat nebulous concept. It's been defined as the complete set of mental and emotional associations that consumers have with you and your products: not just who you are and what you sell, but what they think and how they feel about who you are and what you sell.

"Brand identity," in turn, is the visual and verbal expression of a brand communicated by names, slogans, logos, and the like. It's what triggers those mental and emotional associations.

Here's an example. What comes to mind when you see this symbol?

Cars, of course. Specifically, Mercedes Benzes. But other things probably come to mind as well, such as: Quality. Performance. Engineering. Luxury. When everything is working as it should, people don't want to just own the product, they also want to take on the brand identity. They don't just want the car,