Wherever you are, you are probably within touching distance of some hallmark, classic brands. The single most commonly recognized word in the world is Coca-Cola. It is marketed in every country in the world.

You might have had a glass of Minute Maid orange juice this morning, another Coke product, or a cup of Maxwell House coffee. You're likely not far from a McDonald's, which is the leading restaurant brand in the world. If I get the sniffles, I'll reach for a handy Kleenex, a brand name so successful that, like Xerox, it has come to describe the product category itself.

Branding is a powerful, yet elusive product attribute that companies must try to build and sustain if they hope to successfully compete in the marketplace. Bad branding can also ruin a company. For example, how many would buy a Yugo? Or how many would buy a car from some company they never heard of as opposed to the ones they already know?

For some products, does branding even count for much? For example, when it comes to gasoline, I'll buy whatever is the least expensive. The same for milk at the grocery store.

If you search for a concrete explanation of the concept of branding, you often find it defined in superficial terms such as the look of the company's logo.

I have a complete branding manual for a family of products by a U.K. company. It shows exactly how the logo is to be displayed, the standard positioning on all company materials and the exact color and fonts to be used, how e-mail addresses must be displayed and every other detail of how any communications with the customer or public must appear, down to how much space the logo must have to set it apart from other text. It is over 20 pages long.

Other experts go a bit deeper, and say that branding is a form of emotional equity with a product or company. They speak of the "product experience." One executive was quoted as saying a brand "is a bridge between you and your customers."

I heard the CEO of YUM Brands, the company that owns Pizza Hut, Taco Bell and KFC, talk about the customer's "dining experience" when visiting one of their stores. You might not have known when you ordered something from the drive-through window that you were having an "experience," but I can assure you that a lot of people in suits are trying to make it a good one. Having a nice logo, a good color scheme and an acceptable experience are all well and good, but why do you keep coming back or why do you stay away?

Building a Brand Compared to a Marriage

Jacques Chevron is a partner in a consulting firm that specializes in branding strategy and new product development. He made an interesting correlation between the process of building a brand and marriage.

In Mr. Chevron's words, "Brands sold for their physical attributes live with the permanent obligation of justifying every sale with performance or price. Attractive physical attributes are reason enough to date on a day-to-day (or purchase-to-purchase) basis. Alone, they are not enough to justify long-term commitment and marriage."

It would be easy to say that I'm not married to what gasoline I fill up with, even though I have been buying it for 35 years. But in a sense, we become married to the brands we have come to regularly buy to the exclusion of brands we regularly refuse to buy. But regularly buying one product and regularly rejecting a competing product is much more than just liking the logo, color scheme or purchasing experience, isn't it?

We make the choices we do because we are sufficiently attracted to the product's attributes to the exclusion of other similar products. We also have judged that there is a sufficiently high level of probability that the product will perform like it did the last time we bought it, or we have gotten a feel for the personality of the company and we like the way they do business or design their products. That is why some people will always buy a Chevy and some will always buy a Ford. We like the company's character.

A Matter of Character

I found Jacques Chevron's comments buried in the middle of a daily newsletter for the securities industry. The newsletter author, Tom Dorsey, went on to say something that both surprised and delighted me:

"I think Mr. Chevron defines character in this context perfectly. 'Character is what exists when you are confident that you can anticipate a person's or a brand's actions even when it faces a situation you've never seen it face before. Character is based on the observer's understanding of the brand's values. It is the base on which long-term relationships are built. Character cannot be communicated proactively. Nobody can tell his character. We must witness it ourselves to be convinced. Communicating character takes time. Consistency is essential for creating character perception.'"

Now we're getting somewhere—branding is what results when people have so much experience with a product that they start to really know its true nature. A company cannot tell you what that character will be—it can only be discovered through actual experience with the product. We are not here to understand more about the Kleenex brand. We are here as part of the process of attaining salvation. Consider how branding relates to the process of salvation. I'm not being flippant, like the God Brand or the Devil Brand either. But please consider that in the case of having a productive relationship with God, what I have just said about the principles of branding relates in both directions between man and God as well as between God and man. In business, some people approach branding as how well the superficial aspects of a product are crafted. To them, what counts is how things appear.

I'm sure you can think of brands that are "all show and no go." Christ reproached the Pharisees for how artfully they practiced a superficial relationship with God. That approach can still be found today. Their religion was all show, for sure. Some people are trying to have a positive God experience, and when they do, they keep coming back.

Conversion Is More Than Show

But conversion is more than this. Otherwise everyone who stood at the base of Mt. Sinai when God shook the mountain would have been converted, as would everyone who was fed from the loaves and fishes blessed by Christ and those He healed.

Today, we have some people who appear to be religious hobbyists, going from church to church, or who try to whip up the spirit so they can "experience" it. In the end, that is all they want and all they will have. Both these types of people are in Jacques Chevron's first branding group. It's superficial and short-term.

Sometimes a person thinks God must do certain things for us or it will affect our relationship.

Did not Cain become angry when God did not favor his offering? God is not bidding for our affection and neither does He want us to think we can bid for His. The Bible has several examples of justifying the relationship based on price or performance. Consider the story of when Simon the sorcerer tried to buy the Holy Spirit in Acts 8.

Let me repeat what Jacques Chevron said about character: "Character is what exists when you are confident that you can anticipate a person's or a brand's actions even when it faces a situation you've never seen it face before. Character...is the base on which long-term relationships are built."

God's Character

His wonderful definition applies to how God relates to us and how He wants us to relate to Him. You don't have to read the Bible for very many chapters before you start to be able to anticipate God's actions even when something new comes up.

The more we read, the more we understand God's values, which leads us to understand His character more completely. God can tell us all day long about His character, but our understanding of it comes in large measure by how others have recorded how God acted. We must see character in action to really know.

Recall what God said to Abraham in Genesis 22:12 after He ordered Abraham to not lay a hand on his son, "For now I know that you fear God."

As I was mulling these ideas over, the touching story of Esther came to mind. God placed the physical salvation of the entire nation in the hands of Esther, based on her character. And it was not just God who had faith in His understanding of her character. It was also Mordecai, who asked her, in chapter 4, verse 14: "Who knows whether you have come to the kingdom for such a time as this?"

Who put her in such a position with confidence? The one who had witnessed her over time, the one who came to know her character.

People who insist that all God wants from them is to love the Lord do not understand the entire issue of character. God would not grant salvation, let alone give power, to a person whose future behavior He cannot understand and anticipate.

Paul tells us in several places such as Philippians 2:5 and 1 Corinthians 2:16 that we must have the mind of Christ. That means we must come to internalize Christ's values and character within us.

As Jacques Chevron said, "Character is what exists when you are confident that you can anticipate a person's or a brand's actions even when it faces a situation you've never seen it face before."

So, as you go through life in this brand-filled world, hardly a minute will pass without some brand of product being visible.

I hope from time to time you think of these principles of branding, particularly with respect to character and to how God is working to bring many sons to glory. UN