Many businesses think their logo is their brand. Spoiler alert: it’s not. A logo, like a brand name, is simply a symbol that represents a brand, but it doesn’t define the brand itself. What makes a brand truly powerful goes much deeper than visuals or words. At its highest level, a brand is what people think of your company—the perception that’s shaped by your actions, messaging, and overall behavior. And that’s why great branding starts with the brand idea, the core thought that drives everything else.

Here’s how focusing on a strong brand idea can (and will) transform how your company shows up in the world.

The Brand Idea: The inspiration for everything

A brand idea is more than just a tagline or a catchy phrase. It’s the single, powerful thought that inspires every action your company takes. It’s what sets the tone for your products and services, how your company interacts with customers, and even who it hires. Without a clear brand idea, your company risks becoming a set of disconnected parts, rather than a cohesive whole.

Since a brand is what people think of you, the brand idea gives you control over shaping that perception. Whether it’s through marketing campaigns, product design, or customer service, everything your company does should be further proof of this core idea.

As branding expert Marty Neumeier says in The Brand Gap, “A brand is a person’s gut feeling about a product, service, or company.” It’s the brand idea that informs that gut feeling and turns a logo or name into something meaningful.

Conversely (I think), the brand idea becomes “the boss,” in that employees “channel” the brand idea into everything they do. It’s no longer what an employee would do in the marketplace, it’s what the brand would do in the marketplace.

The Brand Name: The Label, Not the Brand

It’s easy to think that a brand name is the essence of a company. I mean, think of names like Nike, Apple, GE, and McDonald’s. Talk about brand names! But all of those names started out meaningless. Names like these only become meaningful “brand names” over time and after the company consistently behaves according to the clear brand idea behind it. Without that, “McDonald’s” would just be some guy’s last name.

Consider Starbucks. The name itself doesn’t tell you much, but when tied to the brand’s idea of being a “third place” between home and work, the name starts to take on meaning. It’s not the name that defines the brand; it’s the consistent execution of the brand idea through their environment, service, and marketing.

Branding expert Simon Sinek’s Start with Why highlights the importance of this. Successful brands lead with their purpose—their “why”—and everything else follows. It’s not the name or logo that connects people to a brand; it’s the deeper purpose behind it.

Has your company name come to mean anything?

The Brand Logo: A Visual shorthand, Not the Brand

Just like a name, a logo is often mistaken for the brand itself. Logos are important—after all, they serve as the visual shorthand for a brand—but they don’t define the brand. A logo gains its power from the brand idea it proudly represents over time.

As legendary designer Paul Rand, who created logos for IBM and ABC, said, “A logo doesn’t sell, it identifies.” It identifies your brand, but it’s the meaning behind the logo that builds loyalty and trust. The Nike “swoosh,” for instance, didn’t become an iconic symbol of athletic achievement overnight. It took decades of consistently executing on Nike’s brand idea of empowerment for that logo to become what it is today. Applause for Wieden & Kennedy for much of that.

Without a strong brand idea, a logo is just somebody’s design idea on a particular day. It’s only when the logo comes to symbolize a deeper brand idea that it holds any power.

Random Acts vs. conscious Branding

So what happens if you don’t have a clear brand idea driving your decisions? You end up with random acts—random acts of marketing, random acts of advertising, random acts of goodwill, random acts of product development. Without a guiding brand idea, these actions may be well-intentioned, but they don’t build brand equity. In fact, they can confuse customers and weaken your brand over time.

Worse, random acts are just a series of expensive one-offs that build nothing.

A strong brand idea ensures that everything your company does is cohesive, intentional, and most importantly cumulative. It ties together your marketing campaigns, product designs, and customer service into one unified narrative. As Harvard Business Review notes, “Consistency is the key to successful branding. Every touchpoint with the customer should reinforce the brand’s core idea, creating a cohesive and recognizable experience.”

For example, Patagonia’s brand idea of environmental responsibility isn’t just seen in its marketing—it’s present in their product sourcing, their activism, and how they treat their employees. Every action Patagonia takes reflects their brand idea, which builds trust and loyalty with their customers.

business rationale

If you’ve got a new product or a new company and want to build a brand, avoid the temptation of jumping straight to the logo or the product/company name. Start with the brand idea. Always. Then, after you and your leadership team have agreed to the brand idea, begin work on names and logos.

Two reasons. One, you’ll save money. Having the brand idea fleshed out first means the designer and naming experts will have its purpose to inspire their work. Inspiration accelerates creativity (trust me). Two, your name and logo will be way better creatively when inspired by the brand idea. You don’t want random names and random logos, you want a name and logo that are creative expressions of your brand’s purpose.

Here’s how we do it

Ideasicle X gives our clients access to world-class creative and strategic talent (our Ideasicle Experts). In the case of brand building, we recommend three cascading IX Concierge projects, the creative outcomes of one informing the next.

We start with the brand idea (of course), then move to the naming project, and then utilize our freelance pool with IX Freestyle for the logo work. In fact, the designer of the logo would be assigned to the brand idea and/or brand name projects so there would be no learning curve when it comes to logo design.

We often go one step further and come up with advertising campaigns inspired by all of the above.

Whether or not you use Ideasicle X and our talent and resources, what’s important to remember is, when it comes to branding, the logo and brand name are a distant second to the overarching brand idea that will inform the logo and the name.

Then watch your brand idea inform and inspire your entire organization.

Will Burns is the Founder & CEO of the revolutionary virtual-idea-generating company, Ideasicle X. He’s an advertising veteran from such agencies as Wieden & Kennedy, Goodby Silverstein, Arnold Worldwide, and Mullen. He was a Forbes Contributor for nine years writing about creativity in modern branding. Sign up for the Ideasicle Newsletter and never miss a post like this. Will’s bio.