Starting with the “basics”, Marketing Week’s article quotes UCLA’s Professor Richard Rumelt who describes strategy as: “how you overcome the obstacles between where you are and what you want to achieve.”

If we apply that to branding, what we want to achieve is closing the gap between how your brand is defined today and how you want it to be seen, your reputation, how people can relate to your brand, why they should care about you. The creation or (re)definition of your brand fundamentals, like purpose, mission and brand’s values and the translation of these into a proper brand identity.

Marketing, on the other hand, is the overall process of how you create and capture value for your brand. It includes communication, sure. But it’s much broader than that: it means knowing who you want to speak to, what their expectations are, how you position yourself versus competition, what your value proposition is, how you structure your portfolio, the definition of measurable objectives, and so much more. Ultimately, this translates into communication campaigns and assets.