What is the difference between branding and marketing? To put it simply: branding is you, marketing is what you need to get in touch with your customer.

Others also say: branding is your strategy, marketing is tactics. Compare it to a football team. In the beginning you decide how you want to play and that's how you put together your team. You then use a specific tactic for each match. something like that.

Now, nothing is simple or black and white. So a little nuance. Because you will undoubtedly have asked yourself the question: I have a problem, but which type of agency can I turn to for that specific question? Do I need a branding agency now or rather a marketing agency? We're going to be honest. The outcome of this piece is not that you need a branding agency like ECOBRAND anyway. So don't worry.

branding goes deeper than marketing. Branding is about your core, the core of your company and therefore the core of your brand.

This is about the basis of your existence, your values, your personality... But make no mistake about that. You are not the only one shaping your brand. Your customer also contributes to your brand.

If you don't know that customer well enough, then you have work on your brand. And then you definitely need a branding agency. Many brands also gradually lose touch with that customer. Because that customer changes, but also because the brand has changed in perception and is only linked to a succession of campaigns that may have gone in all directions.

A mistake often made in explaining the difference between marketing and branding is plotting both on a timeline. You get the impression that branding comes first and then only marketing. That is not true.

Your brand needs to be cared for and maintained. And often you need extra identities because you discover that you need to start communicating with your target audience in different ways and places.

To give a simple example… you have a web shop. But suddenly you decide to open a pop-up store. You need different tools, but you are also someone else. You need an interior, but there is more: different touch points with your customers. You step into a new story. If you cleverly expand your brand system, you can strengthen your entire business.

Often the adjustment in your business is not so drastic. Suppose you are launching a new product. What does that do to your brand? are you right brand architecture for example, still, and what place does that product occupy within the whole of your parent brand? Does that new product change the broader story? Or does it just reinforce that?

If you take it directly to your customer, so immediately plot a launch campaign, without thinking about such things, you will sooner or later run into problems.

Customers link products to each other. When Apple launched the iPod one day, they sold massively more computers in the months that followed. However, nothing had changed about those computers. But suddenly they were hip because the iPod and the accompanying iTunes were so hip. That's called the Halo effect. People make associations that cannot be explained rationally. That can turn out well, but it can also go completely in the wrong direction. One day your customers may suddenly say, “Sorry, but I don't understand you anymore. What do you actually stand for?” That day is the day when it is already too late.

A lot to say that your brand is constantly evolving, also because the market, society and the world do. And so this is not a linear story, where branding comes first and then marketing. No, branding is a constant concern to stay on track. Anyone who uses a marketing budget year after year for purely campaigns will one day encounter themselves. The campaigns will have taken over the perception and consequently the brand.

Your customer can no longer remain faithful, because he or she no longer knows what to remain faithful to. You lose your most important ambassadors, because they don't understand you anymore.

In other words, branding will always remain at the heart of your marketing strategy. So watch out for your brand. And let it evolve constantly. With the market and with your business. Because a brand is all about loyalty. You want your customers to stay loyal to your brand, to stay connected to it. So you can say it like this: with marketing you lure people to you, with branding make sure they stay. An explanation of the value of the latter is not necessary.