If you have ever purchased a product after seeing a commercial for it on television, or if you have ever had a jingle from a commercial stuck in your head, then you have experienced the power of brand identity marketing firsthand. Brand identity is defined as the desired perception of a product or brand in the mind of the consumer, and advertising and marketing agencies work hard to achieve what their clients define as the correct perception of a particular product or brand.

Agencies begin with a product, defined as something that is produced to function and exists in reality, or simply the idea for a product, and brainstorm to come up with brand qualities. These are the feelings, expectations, thoughts, and associations generated by a product. For example, a kitchen cleaning product creates very different thoughts, feelings, and expectations than a bag of dog food. The kitchen cleaner makes one visualize a clean kitchen, while the dog food creates images of healthy, happy dogs.

Brands speak to the needs of the consumer or audience. If you have dry, damaged hair, you will probably search for a shampoo that is specially formulated for your hair type. But which one will you purchase? This is where the concept of brand recognition comes into play. If a product has been properly branded and marketed, then you will associate it with clean, hydrated, healthy hair. You may remember the commercial that you saw for the product, or the packaging may be aesthetically pleasing to you, or maybe the jingle for the product is still stuck in your head. Either way, you choose one product over all of the others on the shelf and put it in your cart, usually without even realizing why you have decided to do so.

Brand identity marketing strategies are geared towards the concept of the brand as a valuable asset. A brand, unlike a product, does not have physical attributes. This means that the physical attributes of the brand must be shaped in the mind of the consumer, sometimes even before they see the actual, tangible product. You may have a clear picture of what XYZ shampoo is, based on the commercial that you saw, before you actually see a bottle of it in person. Maybe you remember the images of the models in the commercial with healthy, bouncy hair, or maybe it was the image of the poor woman with frizzy, fried hair who had hair just like the models by the end of the commercial spot. Either way, XYZ shampoo is on its way home with you, thanks to the power of brand identity marketing.