What exactly is it that separates a business from a brand? Is it the number of locations? Is it revenue? Is it something you can measure in hashtags and retweets? What does one have to do before one can legitimately say, “We’re not just a business anymore. We’re a brand.”
The idea of branding is muddled at best. Ask 10 different people what a brand is and you’ll get 10 different answers. On Wikipedia, a brand is defined as “the name, term, design, symbol or any other feature that identifies one seller’s product distinct from those of other sellers.” That sounds impressive, but it really just means you need to be different from others.