So what exactly is a brand? I’ll give you a hint: it’s not a company’s advertising or logo. Those things are controlled by the company. Instead, a brand is the customer’s gut feeling about a product, service, or company. People create brands to bring order out of clutter.

There really is no other word that can truly encapsulate the richness and complexity of this concept. “Reputation” is the only word that comes close. Your personal reputation, like your company’s brand, lies outside your control. The best you can do is influence it since it’s not what YOU say it is—it’s what THEY say it is.

Today’s competition—competition that’s so pervasive we can’t even see it—doesn’t come from direct or even indirect competitors. It comes from the extreme clutter of the marketplace. There are five forms of clutter: (1) product clutter which is too many products and services, (2) feature clutter which is too many features in each product, (3) advertising clutter which is too many media messages, (4) message clutter which is too many elements per message, and (5) media clutter which is too many competing channels.

So how does the human mind deal with clutter? Simple—by blocking most of it out. Stuff that does manage to get in, those items that seem most interesting and useful, are labeled and stored in little mental boxes. Once a label goes on and a box is filled, the mind resists making changes to it. This simple fact has a profound effect on how businesses now compete.