Insights And Inspiration from 50+ Notable Branding Quotes

In search of branding quotes to fuel your creativity? This is the right blog post to follow. Here you’ll find 50+ nuggets of wisdom shared by some of the most powerful business leaders from around the world.

Branding is storytelling

Branding is nothing more or less than narrative-shaping. You shape your brand’s story and character when you design your company logo, identify its key competitors, and decide its tone and feel. Using elements of branding, you tell people what to think about your brand, and how to perceive it. Inspirational branding takes place when you build this perception from a place of authenticity.

Whether your consumers follow that perception or not depends on how closely your brand conducts itself according to that persona. When reality matches the outward expression, branding becomes successful.

50 Inspirational Branding Quotes That Save the Day

Building a brand is no easy feat. With so many branding elements to get right, it’s natural that you’ll struggle with some. For days when you can’t get the brand’s tone right or when the team argues about the best logo style for the company, these inspirational branding quotes can save the day.

1. “A brand for a company is like a reputation for a person. You earn reputation by trying to do hard things well.” – Jeff Bezos

2. “Mass advertising can help build brands, but authenticity is what makes them last. If people believe they share values with a company, they will stay loyal to the brand.” – Howard Schultz

3. “Brand is just a perception, and perception will match reality over time. Sometimes it will be ahead, other times it will be behind. But a brand is simply a collective impression some have about a product.” – Elon Musk

4. “A brand is the set of expectations, memories, stories and relationships that, taken together, account for a consumer’s decision to choose one product or service over another.” – Seth Godin

5. “Every advertisement should be thought of as a contribution to the complex symbol which is the brand image.” – David Ogilvy

6. “Branding is the art of becoming knowable, likable, and trustable.” – John Jantsch

7. “Your brand is what other people say about you when you’re not in the room.” – Jeff Bezos

8. “Too many companies want their brands to reflect some idealised, perfected image of themselves. As a consequence, their brands acquire no texture, no character and no public trust.” – Richard Branson

9. “Every interaction in any form, is branding.” – Seth Godin

10. “Branding adds spirit and a soul to what would otherwise be a robotic, automated, generic price-value proposition. If branding is ultimately about the creation of human meaning, it follows logically that it is the humans who must ultimately provide it.” – David Aaker

11. “Design is the silent ambassador of your brand.” – Paul Rand

12. “Brand is the holistic sum of customers’ experiences, composed of visual, tonal and behavioral brand components, many of which are shaped by interaction design.” – Kate Kaplan

13. “If you don’t give the market the story to talk about, they’ll define your brand’s story for you.” – David Brier

14. “It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently.” – Warren Buffett

15. “Overall, because branding is about creating and sustaining trust it means delivering on promises. The best and most successful brands are completely coherent. Every aspect of what they do and what they are reinforces everything else.” – Wally Olins

16. “Identities are the beginning of everything. They are how something is recognized and understood. What could be better than that?” – Paula Scher

17. “People relate to people, and if your brand feels like people, they’ll relate to you, too.” – Laura Busche

18. “Define what your brand stands for, its core values and tone of voice, and then communicate consistently in those terms.” – Simon Mainwaring

19. “Your premium brand had better be delivering something special, or it’s not going to get the business.” – Warren Buffett

20. “A brand is no longer what we tell the consumer it is — it is what consumers tell each other it is.” – Scott Cook

21. “When you look at a strong brand, you see a promise.” – Jim Mullen

22. “Products are made in the factory, but brands are created in the mind.” – Walter Landor

23. “Your brand is a gateway to your true work. You know you are here to do something—to create something or help others in some way. The question is, how can you set up your life and work so that you can do it? The answer lies in your brand. When you create a compelling brand, you attract people who want the promise of your brand—which you deliver.” – Dave Buck, professional coach and CEO of CoachVille

24. “The future of branding is marketing with people not at them.” – John Morgan

25. “The key is, no matter what story you tell, make your buyer the hero.” – Chris Brogan

26. “Be so good they can’t ignore you.” – Steve Martin

27. “Make every detail perfect, and limit the number of entails to perfect.” – Jack Dorsey

28. “A brand is not a product or a promise or a feeling. It’s the sum of all the experiences you have with a company.” – Amir Kassaei

29. “Marketing is no longer just about the stuff you make…it’s about the story you tell.” – Seth Godin

30. “Focus on building the best possible business. If you are great, people will notice and opportunities will appear.” – Mark Cuban

31. “If you are not a brand, you are a commodity.” – Robert Kiyosaki

32. “A brand is the set of expectations, memories, stories and relationships that, taken together, account for a consumer’s decision to choose one product or service over another.” – Seth Godin

33. “Your brand is a story unfolding across all customer touch points.” – Jonah Sachs

34. “It’s important to build a personal brand because it’s the only thing you’re going to have. Your reputation online, and in the new business world is pretty much the game, so you’ve got to be a good person. You can’t hide anything, and more importantly, you’ve got to be out there at some level.” – Gary Vaynerchuk

35. “Even individuals need to develop a brand for themselves … Whatever your area of expertise, you can take steps to make people think of YOU when they think of your field.” – Accelepoint Webzine

36. “Brand is just a perception, and perception will match reality over time.” – Elon Musk

37. “Branding is the art of aligning what you want people to think about your company with what people actually do think about your company. And vice-versa.” – Jay Baer

38. “A product can be quickly outdated, but a successful brand is timeless.” – Stephen King

39. “All of us need to understand the importance of branding. We are CEOs of our own companies: Me Inc. To be in business today, our most important job is to be head marketer for the brand called You.” – Tom Peters

40. “If people like you they will listen to you, but if they trust you, they’ll do business with you.” – Zig Ziglar

41. “If you’re your authentic self, you have no competition.” – Scott Stratten

42. “If you don’t give the market the story to talk about, they’ll define your brand’s story for you.” – David Brier

43. “Branding is the process of connecting good strategy with good creativity.” – Marty Neumeier

44. “Design is the silent ambassador of your brand.” – Paul Rand

45. “Brand should never be a deception; it should be a delightful expression of a product’s truth, and ultimately a positive force in people’s lives.” – Emily Heyward

46. “Your brand is the single most important investment you can make in your business.” – Steve Forbes

47. “Brand is the sum total of how someone perceives a particular organization. Branding is about shaping that perception.” – Ashley Friedlein

48. “Your personal brand is a promise to your clients… a promise of quality, consistency, competency, and reliability.” – Jason Hartman

49. “Products are made in the factory, but brands are created in the mind.” – Walter Landor

50. “If no one hates it, no one really loves it.” – Jessica Walsh

51. “You too are a brand. Whether you know it or not. Whether you like it or not.” – Marc Ecko

52. “The most important thing to remember is you must know your audience.” – Lewis Howes