Does branding have a bad brand?

I wrote this post for an internal company blog and have re-posted here. I wrote this in the first place because the vast majority of people in high tech think of logos and colors when they hear the word "brand". When trying to communicate what branding really is and the power it can have, people's own first impression is a significant obstacle, which does lead one to question whether "branding" itself has a poor brand in B2B circles. Here's the post:

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I like Starbucks coffee but lately I have started going to Pete’s. It’s a little closer to where I live and has a better atmosphere. For me, and apparently many other people, Starbucks has lost the essence of, well... “being Starbucks”. When Starbucks was founded it strove to be the “third place” (after home and work). It was meant to have great coffee, knowledgeable baristas, and be a place where you could hang out and talk with friends or co-workers. Many people scoffed at the notion of $2 or $3 for a "cup of joe" but they succeeded because they lived up to their promise to the consumer. Today, if you walk into a Starbucks you will see vitamin water, lunch sandwiches and a team of frazzled baristas who are trying to serve hot meals in addition to poring coffee. Starbucks has become something not special.

In the mid to late 1990’s PeopleSoft went from a HR software specialist to being one of the top ERP vendors. There is no way that SAP and Oracle should have “allowed” this to happen. To compete against formidable foes, PeopleSoft positioned itself as the alternative. Where SAP was the stiff, hierarchal German software that insisted customers reengineer their businesses to fit its model, PeopleSoft was the flexible, friendly software more easily customizable to the customer's business. Where SAP's implementation approach was an expensive, "Big Bang", multi-year process, PeopleSoft stressed a speedier app-by-app rollout for more rapid return. It also lived this position internally. You will often hear people today saying that they loved working for PeopleSoft or “for Dave Duffield” during that era. Some of these people work at [my company] today.

Thanks to Michael Teeling’s blog “Buyer2Brand” for the PeopleSoft story:
http://buyer2brand.typepad.com/buyer2brand/top_tech_brands/index.html

PeopleSoft and Starbucks had great brands.

What does “brand” mean? Your brand is what people in your market think of you (regardless of what you would like people to think). Think emotion rather than rigorous logic. Companies can attempt to change their brand. To do this they need to figure out what their brand is today, what they would like it to be (assuming this is credible) and truly live up to what they promise every day. We are planning to figure this out in the year ahead and, if done right, I think it can have a big impact on [my company's] long term success.

There are many opinions as to what makes a successful brand. An article titled “Branding in Canada" (published in March 2004 by Interbrand) answers this question well. The article describes great brands as having the following characteristics:
• Possesses a distinctive positioning and promises a unique experience.
• Represents a resolute core purpose and supporting values that guide employee behaviour to consistently deliver the unique experience.
• Acts as the central organizing principle of the company, guiding decision-making and direction as to what is “on-brand” and what is “off-brand.”
• Fosters increased sales and captures a price premium by creating an emotional link that results in customer loyalty (selling more, more often, to more people, at a higher price).
• Attracts and retains the best talent because everyone wants to work with a winner.
• Is not complacent. The brand stays relevant, credible and constantly seeks new points of differentiation.