Brand performance thus transcends the “ingredients” that make up the product or
service to encompass aspects of the brand that augment these ingredients. Any of
these different performance dimensions can serve as a means by which the brand is
differentiated. Often, the strongest brand positioning involves performance advan-
tages of some kind, and it is rare that a brand can overcome severe deficiencies in
this area.
Brand Imagery. The other main type of brand meaning involves brand imagery.
Brand imagery deals with the extrinsic properties of the product or service, includ-
ing the ways in which the brand attempts to meet customers’ psychological or
social needs. Brand imagery is how people think about a brand abstractly rather
than what they think the brand actually does. Thus, imagery refers to more intan-
gible aspects of the brand.
Many different kinds of intangibles can be linked to a brand, but four categories
can be highlighted: