Branding is a way of clearly highlighting what makes your offer different to, and more desirable than, anyone else's. Effective branding elevates a product or organisation from being just one commodity amongst many identical commodities, to become something with a unique character and promise. It can create an emotional resonance in the minds of consumers who choose products and services using both emotional and pragmatic judgements

The big idea is perhaps a catch-all for your company or service. It should encapsulate what makes you different, what you offer, why you're doing it and how you're going to present it. The big idea is also a uniting concept that can hold together an otherwise disparate set of activities. Ideally, it will inform everything you do, big or small, including customer service, advertising, a website order form, staff uniforms, corporate identity, perhaps right down to your answer machine message. Once decided, the articulation of these ideas can be put into action through branding techniques such as design, advertising, events, partnerships, staff training and so on. It is these activities that set up the consumer's understanding and expectation of your company; in other words, its brand. And once you've set up this brand 'promise', the most important thing is to ensure that your products and services consistently deliver on it.

Brand names are an important aspect in setting the tone and personality of your brand, as well as being a key element in marketing activity. Along with design and tone of voice, a name can be a means of differentiation and should reflect the overall brand strategy you've developed. Choosing a name can be a difficult task in itself, but it's made even harder because so many are already in use and trademarked. By sure to check carefully that any names you're considering for a company, product or service aren't already in use and protected by law.

If you're launching a new business, you're in a unique position to operate as what is often called a 'challenger brand'. This means that you can take a look at a market sector from the outside, assess all the players, opportunities or gaps in the market and then launch your product with a brand that challenges and shakes up the conventions of the sector. It's hard to do this once you're established as there's more to lose, so think carefully about how brave and 'rule'-breaking' your product or service can be if you're about to launch to market. Another benefit you may have as a start-up is that the business is likely to be small and therefore responsive and adaptable, with no existing processes that have to be changed to create a new brand. In short: you’ve got one shot to do something exciting, relatively cheaply, so go for it.