By Masekane Nkwana

The communications industry has developed an interesting habit. Every few months, we return to the same debate: *What is a brand? What is branding? Is branding different from marketing? Is public relations simply storytelling? Is marketing selling?* We define, redefine and defend our disciplines until the lines between them become more confusing than illuminating.

The irony is that the people we are trying to reach rarely think this way.

Consumers do not experience branding, public relations, advertising, design or marketing as separate disciplines. They experience organisations as a single relationship. Every interaction, whether it is a logo, a press interview, a product launch, a customer service interaction, a social media post or a founder speaking at a conference, contributes to one impression. They experience trust or distrust. Credibility or doubt. Belonging or exclusion. In short, they experience a brand.

Perhaps the question is not whether branding and public relations are different disciplines. Perhaps the better question is this:

Why do we continue separating disciplines that the public experiences as one?

That question sits at the heart of Good Humans.

We are not a publication about branding alone, nor public relations, nor marketing, nor design. We are interested in the people who build brands, regardless of the discipline they call home. Because brands are not built by departments. They are built by people.

Beyond the Definitions

Brand scholars have spent decades helping us understand what a brand truly is.

David Aaker introduced the idea of brand equity, arguing that brands derive value from awareness, perceived quality, loyalty and associations. Kevin Lane Keller expanded this thinking through customer-based brand equity, demonstrating that brands ultimately exist in the minds of people. Jean-Noël Kapferer reminded us that brands communicate identity through culture, personality and relationships, while Marty Neumeier distilled the conversation into one of the most quoted definitions in modern branding: a brand is not what you say it is. It is what they say it is.

Although each scholar approaches the subject differently, they arrive at a similar conclusion.