Brand stakeholders

Brand is a misunderstood term and is misused frequently. Some believe it's about a logo.

This photograph explains what brand is about.

It's about what was once nailed to this stake driven into a grass verge by an estate agent erecting a sale board.

It's about the lads who kicked it down.

It's about the council that mows the grass around the stake and has now used weedkiller to kill off the grass around its base to avoid sending out a man with a strimmer.

It's about the felled sign left in the garden now the house sale has been agreed. And the rusty nails protruding from the signpost. And the estate agent's logo still there gathering moss.

It's about how brands are nothing to do with a logo. It's about how brands' stakeholders muddy the pitch if they don't manage the totality of the process.

A brand is not a logo; a logo is not a brand. And, as Confucius said, 'what is said is not what was meant'.