I was chatting to a friend of mine recently and mentioned that my sister, whom she’d never met, was home to visit.

Instinctively, I felt the noun ‘sister’ didn’t do her justice, so I followed it with a few words that I felt encapsulated her as a person “she’s a do anything for anyone, a loves to laugh, strong character but she’s also a complete softy”. I smiled as I said it, naturally because of the feelings and memories that her ‘image’ had evoked.

‘Branding’ can be disregarded cynically as corporate speak for manipulation and trickery but in reality emotional evocation through identity applies to everything and everyone – even sisters.

Reputation/branding is one of our most valuable assets.

When building and managing a company or an organisations’s identity, it’s incredibly effective to personify it so that it elicits the same positive thoughts and feelings among its consumers. A solid brand identity is established through brand values that are built and communicated with passion and consistency and, importantly, over time.

We work with not just companies and organisations, but individuals and even regions to help them define and harness their brand. We do this by helping them tell their stories, by mapping out their core values and by highlighting what makes them truly special.

That then helps us to devise and implement strategies/a unified behaviour that represents and firmly establishes and illuminates this brand. We explain how it needs to be carried through everything; logo, signage, marketing materials, CSR activities, internal and external communications and its people.

The power, potential and evocative nature of branding hit home to me again recently when I was wrapping up on a tourism project for a destination branding initiative, which involved the creation of two tourism brochures for West Cork.

Throughout the project the goal was to convey the region’s sense of identity as distinct, authentic and compelling, encouraging visitors to immerse themselves in the landscape enriched with a deeper knowledge of the region’s past and present. During the course of my work I learned so much myself about West Cork’s history, folklore, landscape and sights and how woven together they create this truly compelling, evocative and inspiring identity.

Each of those tens of thousands of brochures, distil not just information, but they tell a special story, they convey an experience, a unique identity, a reputation and a promise.

Branding is where the tangible and the intangible meet.

She’s a lot more than my ‘sister’.

Aoibhinn Twomey

Aoibhinn Twomey is a Senior Account Director with Fuzion PR & Marketing which has offices in Cork and Dublin, Ireland