Branding vs. Marketing

CEOs should know the difference…

Gul Azeem
2 min readApr 8, 2021

“Your brand is not what you sell.” — John Iwata

As a key stakeholder, it’s important to understand the difference between marketing and branding and to effectively use them in order create a profitable business.

difference between branding and marketing rlabgroup.ca
Image Credit: rlabgroup.ca

The most long term successful brands we’ve worked with or worked for have had all of these characteristics in some measure:

- Audience Knowledge

- Clear Promise

- Unique Proposition

- Consistency

- Story Telling

- Engagement and/ or authenticity.

Major differences between marketing and advertising

1. Where branding brings reputation, marketing increases sales.

2. Marketing is a set of activities done to bridge the gap between the customer & the company, while branding is the bigger picture story you’re telling through language and design; it’s something that ideally you’re consciously developing with every piece of content you release.

3. You make a brand for the customers, but you do marketing for the company.

4. Marketing adds customers, while branding builds trust & customer loyalty.

5. Marketing promotes the value of the product or service, while branding creates the value.

6. Marketing targets potential customers, branding targets emotions and what you stand for.

EXAMPLES

Branding:

When you post a tweet you’re “branding”

When you send out emails you’re “branding”

When you launch your new website you’re “branding”

Marketing:

Search Engine Optimization is “marketing”

Social Advertising is “marketing”

Promotional emails are “marketing”

#branding #marketing #backtobasics

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Gul Azeem

Writer. CEO of RLAB Group. Outside of work, I play the violin, prefer stone fruit, and running by the beach.