Your brand strategy is how, what, where, when and



to whom you plan on communicating and delivering

on your brand messages. Where you advertise is

part of your brand strategy. Your distribution

channels are also part of your brand strategy.

And what you communicate visually and verbally

are part of your brand strategy, too.

Consistent, strategic branding leads to a strong

brand equity, which means the added value brought

to your company's products or services that

allows you to charge more for your brand than

what identical, unbranded products command. The

most obvious example of this is Coke vs. a

generic soda. Because Coca-Cola has built

powerful brand equity, it can charge more for its

product--and customers will pay that higher price.

The added value intrinsic to brand equity

frequently comes in the form of perceived quality

or emotional attachment. For example, Nike

associates its products with star athletes;

hoping customers will transfer their emotional

attachment from the athlete to the product. For

Nike, it's not just the shoe's features that sell

the shoe.