[Branding Knowledge Dictionary] What Is 'Brand Culture'?

"Hermès."

If, from a distance, you recognize this string of characters and any kind of image associations come to mind, you are (at least) someone who knows the code this brand sits within.

Doing branding — the series of tasks that expresses a company's intended message or philosophy through a logo, product design, service, and marketing strategy — is much like coding: assigning meaning to symbols.

When a product or service coded that way (with its philosophy, mission, and vision) is introduced to the market, customers who recognize it (whose code matches) pay attention, and soon it wins them over. The brand and the customer, drawn to each other, begin to dig into each other more deeply, throwing themselves into a dense relationship; from that, various rituals (their own little culture of play) naturally emerge.

Brand culture is what is born from a brand coded that way, the consumers who recognize that code, and the relationship between them.

— Branding = Coding, from <Vol.23 Branding Knowledge Dictionary>...
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(*Image source: http://bit.ly/X8Mj3y)