What does "brand" mean?

The word "brand" gets thrown around a lot in today's lexicon. I have seen it used as a synonym for "trademark", as a way to describe a company's corporate culture, and I have even used it to describe individuals on social media.

But what does it actually mean? Scaring flesh with a hot iron? I don't think so. Not anymore. I decided to look up several modern definitions of the term "brand", and this is what I found.

1) From Urban Dictionary: What multinational corporations use to try and get consumers to buy essentially the same product as the other corporations have but for more money.

I actually really like this definition. Not just because it's facetious, but because at it's core, it's true. Brands are what companies use to separate themselves from the competition. In a sea of identical product, most people will choose a product with a brand they most identify with. Multinational corporations get people to identify with their brands through product and packaging design, advertisement, marketing narratives, and customer relations. They can often charge more money because people are willing to pay for the brand experience as well as the product itself.

2) From Wikipedia: A name, design, symbol or other feature that distinguishes one seller's product from those of others.

I like this definition too, especially because of the inclusion of "other features". Nowadays with the advent of lifestyle brands, "other features" can mean the intangible; like attitude, the corporation's sense of civic duty, and even association with other people who engage with the brand.

3) From Merriam-Webster: A category of products that are all made by a particular company and all have a particular name.

Not the worst definition...but it doesn't account for sub-brands. Gap, Inc. owns Banana Republic, Gap, Old Navy and Athleta. One company with four distinct brands. 

4) From Dictionary.com: To give a brand name to.

Thanks for that, dictionary.com. Very insightful. 

While the four definitions listed above begin to paint a picture of what a brand is, I actually think that Jerry McLaughlin phrased it best in this article on Forbes.com when he said marketers realized that they could create a specific perception in customers' minds concerning the qualities and attributes of each non-generic product or service. They took to calling this perception "the brand". 

And that's what marketers do. We spend time molding consumer perceptions of our product's qualities and attributes with the goal of separating ourselves from the competition. Brands are continually changing and evolving. As culture shifts and markets change, so must the brands that serve them. A brand today can look completely different 10 years from now. Just look at the evolution of Google. From a quirky search engine in the 90s to an omnipresent intelligence hub that will soon start driving us around.

So what does "brand" mean?

Obviously, scaring flesh with a hot iron. Was that not clear?