Branding for Products
July, 2025 | brand strategy, product marketing, storytelling, naming
“Products are made in a factory, but brands are created in the mind.” — Walter Landor
This quote—shared in the Branding for Products course at Cornell Tech taught by Rei Inamoto—set the tone for everything that followed.
At first glance, branding might seem like a surface-level discipline: a clean logo, a catchy slogan, some clever color choices. But in today’s world, branding is no longer a garnish. It’s the entire flavor profile. And most of it happens not on the screen, but in the minds of your users.
This article is a distillation of the lectures—covering what branding really is, how to build it from the ground up, how to make your product memorable, and how storytelling fits into it all. Whether you're creating a consumer app or pitching your first startup idea, this is the stuff that helps you connect—not just sell.
What Is A Brand, Really?
A brand isn’t what you say it is. It’s what people feel when they encounter your product. It’s the gut reaction, the emotional shorthand, the mental category your product lands in when someone sees it, hears about it, or uses it.
As Rei Inamoto explained, a brand is:
The collective feelings, beliefs, and perceptions around your product or service.
An emotional construct that lives in the hearts and minds of consumers.
Difficult to measure, but incredibly powerful—especially when it creates what he calls the “irrational margin.”
The Irrational Margin: Why We Pay More for Some Brands?
Let’s take a quick comparison
Brand
Model
Ferrari
812 Superfast
VM
Golf
Tesla
Elements
Positioning
Key Features
Model Y/3
Brand Promise
Outcome
Filters
Cost
High
Lower
Mid-range
Model
A Camera App
Instagram nailed all four elements: it was relevant, differentiated in its social mechanics, iconic in its interface, and consistent in its growth.
The Flywheel of Brand
Rei also introduced a simple but powerful idea: the Brand Flywheel. Here’s how it flows:
Product → Customers → Trust → Differentiation → Brand → Attracts More Customers
In other words, it’s not just about attracting people with a brand. It’s about earning their trust with your product, which feeds back into the brand’s power.
Branding Is Not Marketing
This is a subtle but critical distinction.
Marketing is how you promote your product.
Branding is how your product feels.
Marketing can be turned on and off. But branding compounds over time. It influences how much you can charge, who you attract, and how long people stay loyal. It also lets you resist being commoditized.
Just look at Apple: they spend 1/5 the ad budget of Samsung, yet consistently dominate global brand rankings. Why? Because they’ve built a brand that controls both price and destiny.
From Functional to Emotional: A Branding Shift
Rei referenced a framework from Post Corona by Scott Galloway, shifting the mindset:
From: Marketing a brand
To: Branding the product
In today’s digital ecosystem, you no longer need a million-dollar ad campaign to build a brand. You need a product that’s:
Emotionally resonant
Visually distinct
Unapologetically itself
And then—importantly—you need to repeat that identity consistently until people believe it’s who you are.
Brands Are Built by Behavior. Every interaction your user has with your product is a branding moment. The tone of your onboarding email, the 404 page, the first time they hit “share.” It’s all signal. And if done well, it can help turn even the simplest idea into something that people not only use—but believe in.
So the next time you’re designing your product, zoom out.
Ask not just, “Does it work?”
Ask: “Does it spark recognition, trust, and loyalty—without me needing to explain it?”
Because that, quietly and powerfully, is branding.
Price
$335,000
$33,500
~$50,000
“Make your photos look analog”
5M users, worth $42K (2016)
Percieved Value
Extremely High
Functional
High Innovation
Despite the fact that all of these are vehicles, the perceived value diverges sharply. Tesla, for instance, doesn't just sell electric cars—it sells a vision of the future. Apple doesn’t just sell smartphones—it sells status, simplicity, and ecosystem harmony.
That emotional layer—that irrational perception of value—is the brand.
Revenue
$70B
$76B
$590B
The Four Characteristics of a Strong Brand
To move from product to brand, Rei offered a framework I found super useful—especially if you're building something early-stage.
Strong brands are:
🤝 Relevant
Does the product address something people care about?
Is there a genuine product-market fit?
✨ Differentiated
Does it stand apart from the competition?
Is there a unique benefit or philosophy?
👀 Iconic
Is it easily recognizable in both design and behavior?
Does it have signature moments or visuals?
🧭 Consistent
Does it stay true to its tone, look, and values across every touchpoint?
Quick Case: Hipstamatic vs. Instagram
Both were launched around the same time. Both had vintage filters. But only one became the photo-sharing network of a generation.
A social network of photos
Filters + Sharing + Validation
“Make your photos beautiful and share them”
300M users, worth $1.1B (2016)
TL;DR (Part 1)
A brand isn’t a logo or tagline—it’s the perception people carry in their minds. Great brands are emotionally sticky, not just visually memorable. Think Ferrari vs. VW, or Apple vs. Samsung. Products are made in factories; brands are built in minds.
The Six Building Blocks of a Brand
So you want to build a brand that feels intentional? Here’s the toolkit we used:
Brand Identity =
Positioning + Promise + Principles + Product Moments + Interface + Name
Let’s break that down.
1. 🎯 Positioning: What Space Do You Own?
Your brand positioning is your stake in the ground. It's the mental category you want to own in your customer’s head.
Nike positions around performance and victory.
Allbirds around natural comfort and simplicity.
Starbucks isn’t just coffee—it’s “the third place” between home and work.
Ask yourself:
“What specific emotional or functional territory does my product claim?”
2. 🧭 Brand Promise: What Do You Stand For?
Your brand promise is what people should reliably expect from you. It’s the essence of your product’s value.
A well-crafted promise answers this:
“What experience are we delivering—and how does it make people feel?”
Example:
Audible’s sleep product Moonshot was built around this line:
“Delivering you to better mornings, every night.”
Simple. Emotional. Repeatable.
3. 💡 Principles: What Do You Believe?
Brand principles are the values that drive your decisions—both internally and externally.
Moonshot’s principles were:
Expert (backed by audio + sleep science)
Customized (personalized experience)
Accessible (easy for everyone to try)
These aren’t just fluff—they influence product design, marketing tone, and even hiring.
4. 🎬 Key Product Moments: Where Does the Brand Shine?
Every great product has signature moments—the moments that users remember, and that carry emotional weight.
For Instagram, it was:
The filters
The ease of sharing
The social validation
These moments don’t just serve functionality—they signal your brand’s values. They become part of your user’s identity.
Ask yourself:
“What are the first 3 moments someone will remember about using my product?”
If they can’t recall anything distinct, that’s a branding opportunity.
5. 🖥 Interface as Brand
Today, your UI is your brand.
Think of Google’s homepage. Or Apple’s packaging. Or Spotify’s playlist tiles. These aren’t just design choices. They are behavioral signatures.
Rei introduced the “ARC” of good design—a cheat sheet for founders and non-designers:
Alignment: Everything fits together visually and conceptually.
Restraint: Don’t clutter. Use less, say more.
Consistency: Stick to your voice, visuals, and vibe.
When your product feels the same everywhere—from app to email to support—it builds trust.
6. 🧠 Naming: The First Mental Shortcut
Your product name is often the first brand impression—and it can make or break perception.
There are three effective naming routes:
Existing Words (Amazon, Uber, Robinhood)
Fabricated / Blended (Spotify, Instagram, Fitbit)
Acronyms (IBM, ESPN)
A strong name evokes your positioning, but it also has to feel right—easy to say, spell, remember, and search.
Great names are:
Short
Meaningful (or metaphorical)
Emotionally evocative
The Audible sleep product explored names like:
Candle, Coo, Goodnight, and Sleep by Audible
—each capturing a different emotional tone.
Good Brands Feel Like People
If I had to summarize the first three lectures, it would be this:
Good brands aren’t made. They’re felt.
They’re consistent, but never robotic.
They’re differentiated, but not gimmicky.
They’re memorable because they care about what the customer cares about.
You don’t need to be Apple. But you do need to define what makes your product feel intentional, emotional, and human.
Start with that. Then scale the story.
TL;DR (Part 2)
A solid brand identity is made of six parts: positioning, promise, principles, product moments, interface, and name. Each plays a role in shaping how users feel, from the first click to their long-term loyalty.
Naming, Voice & Brand Architecture: Giving Structure to Personality
So far, we’ve unpacked what a brand is and how to build its foundation—from positioning to principles and key product moments. But now comes the fun (and sometimes frustrating) part: giving your brand a name, a voice, and a system to grow with.
Because a brand without a name is invisible.
A brand without a voice is forgettable.
And a brand without structure? Chaos.
🏷️ Naming: More Than Just a Label
“The name is the first story your brand ever tells.”
When you name your product, you're not just labeling it. You're planting the first emotional flag in your customer’s mind. So how do you choose a name that sticks?
Three Common Naming Paths
Real Words
Amazon, Robinhood, Venmo
These are metaphorical or literal names that evoke meaning instantly.
Made-Up or Hybrid Words
Spotify, Instagram, Fitbit
These feel unique and are easier to trademark and search.
Acronyms
IBM, ESPN, KFC
Useful when names are too long or come from legacy systems.
What Makes a Great Name?
Short and memorable
Flexible across geographies and cultures
Evokes emotion, function, or transformation
In Lecture 1, the Audible team brainstormed names for a sleep product:
Candle — soft, warm, slow-burning
Goodnight — soothing and familiar
Coo — intimate, nurturing
Sleep by Audible — clear, trustworthy
Each name sets a different tone. Each one tells a slightly different story—even before the product is used.
🧭 Brand Architecture: Organizing the Chaos
As your product grows—features, partnerships, sub-brands—clarity becomes critical. That’s where brand architecture comes in.
There are typically three models:
Branded House
Everything under one brand
Apple: iPhone, iPad, iMac
Pros: strong master brand. Cons: less flexibility.
House of Brands
Multiple brands under one company
Procter & Gamble: Tide, Gillette, Olay
Pros: each brand has freedom. Cons: no brand halo effect.
Hybrid/Endorsed Model
Sub-brands supported by a master brand
Nike and Nike Training Club
Balances cohesion and autonomy.
Ask yourself:
“How will new features, services, or partnerships live within my brand system? Will they help or hurt clarity?”
🗣 Tone & Voice: Branding Through Words
A brand's tone of voice shapes how it communicates across every channel—product copy, ads, social media, even error messages.
Think about:
Slack – Friendly, a little playful, always helpful.
Nike – Motivational, bold, no-nonsense.
Mailchimp – Quirky, confident, approachable.
Why Voice Matters:
It builds trust by sounding consistent.
It reflects your values and personality.
It influences how customers feel, not just what they do.
A good test?
Read your product copy aloud. If it sounds like a human your audience would enjoy talking to, you’re on the right track.
🎯 Quick Exercise: Write Your Voice Traits
Try defining your voice in 3 adjectives.
Example for a sustainability venture:
Optimistic, Informed, Empowering
Example for a fintech tool:
Confident, Clear, Calm
Now ask:
Would your product’s onboarding email, homepage copy, and error messages all reflect these traits?
If not, it’s time to refine.
Personality + Structure = Scalable Brand
Naming gives your brand a hook.
Voice gives it life.
Architecture gives it order.
You don’t need all the answers right away—but making early, intentional decisions will help you build a brand that doesn’t just function… it feels human.
And the best part?
Once the foundation is strong, you can grow without losing yourself.
TL;DR (Part 3):
Your brand’s personality shows up in its name and tone of voice. The name should be short, sticky, and emotionally aligned. The tone should be defined by 3 core adjectives and consistent across every touchpoint—from website copy to error messages.
Storytelling That Sticks: Writing Brands People Actually Remember
“Spring is coming. But I won’t see it.”
— Jacques Prévert (reimagined sign on a blind man’s chest)
This single sentence, shared in Cornell Tech’s Branding for Products class, struck a chord. It’s raw, emotional, and unforgettable—and it perfectly illustrates what great brand storytelling can do: turn facts into feelings.
In this post, I’m diving into the storytelling and copywriting insights from Lecture 03—where we looked at how brands go beyond messaging and into meaning. Because while products solve problems, stories create connection.
🪞 Why Storytelling Matters in Branding
Features are rational.
Stories are emotional.
And emotion is what makes people care, remember, and buy again.
When we think of iconic brands—Nike, Airbnb, Apple—we don’t just recall what they sell. We remember what they stand for. That's the job of storytelling in branding.
It takes us:
From features to benefits
From specs to experience
From transaction to transformation
As Rei put it in class:
"Your story is the software that runs in your customer’s mind."
🧱 The Structure of a Good Brand Story
To keep things practical, we studied a formula often used in children’s books like Mr. Men & Little Miss. It’s surprisingly applicable to startups and product branding:
The 5-Part Narrative Arc:
Introduction
Who is the character? What are they like?Problem
What challenge are they facing?Realization or Insight
What shift or truth do they discover?Solution / Turning Point
How do they act on that realization?Resolution
What’s the outcome—and what did they learn?
This isn’t just for Pixar or Procter & Gamble. It works for any brand trying to connect with an audience on a deeper level.
Example Exercise: The Astronaut Who Can’t Get Home
In class, we did a live writing challenge. One example:
Title: Home Is a Dot in the Sky
Character: A lone astronaut
Problem: His return mission failed
Realization: He’s not afraid of dying—he’s afraid of being forgotten
Turning Point: He records one final message
Resolution: Years later, his signal is discovered—and remembered
You could replace “astronaut” with your customer.
Replace “home” with their goal.
And boom—you’ve got the start of a brand story.
✍️ Turning This Into Brand Copy
Let’s say you’re launching a mental health app. You could go the generic route:
“We offer clinically proven mindfulness tools and CBT exercises.”
Or...
You could tell a story:
“You’re not broken. You’re just overloaded. We help you find your way back to calm—one breath at a time.”
See the difference?
Same product. Different feeling.
⚙️ Formula: Get → Who → To → By
Another practical framework we learned for writing a brand brief:
Get [target audience]
Who [describe mindset or desire]
To [take the intended action]
By [delivering unique benefit]
Example:
Get young professionals struggling with sleep
Who are tired of quick hacks and want real change
To reframe rest as a form of self-care
By offering personalized guidance from bedtime to morning
This is the seed of a story. From here, you build tone, visuals, copy, and behavior.
A Good Brand Tells the Same Story Everywhere
If your homepage says “empower,” your app copy says “optimize,” and your ad says “disrupt”—you don’t have a brand. You have confusion.
Strong brands use storytelling not once, but everywhere:
Your onboarding flow tells a story of welcome
Your pricing page tells a story of value
Your error messages can tell a story of empathy
Your story is how you earn trust, how you differentiate, and how you scale meaningfull
TL;DR (Part 4)
Stories turn products into emotions. Use narrative structure to frame your customer journey. Write brand copy that doesn’t just inform, but moves. Great storytelling builds connection—and that’s what people remember.
Final Thought 💬: You Don’t Need to Be Apple. You Just Need to Be Clear.
Most brands don’t fail because they lack vision. They fail because their message gets lost in the noise.
So here’s your cheat sheet:
Know your positioning.
Make a promise—and deliver on it.
Build principles that guide everything.
Craft product moments that leave a mark.
Name it with intention.
Speak like a human.
And tell a story that resonates.
Do that consistently, and you won’t just have a brand.
You’ll have something people remember.