In other words, a brand is whatever is in the mind of the target audience.

Marketers can write a description of what they want the brand to be, but that’s only an aspiration. Whether it becomes a reality depends on what people experience when they buy and use the brand or encounter communications about it.
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A brand is like anything else stored in human memory. It’s a set of ideas that have become connected together in the mind and the feelings generated by these ideas. Connections form between ideas if they repeatedly come to mind at the same time.

What to learn more? Try asking Virtual Dan White.