Product Branding vs Service Branding and How to Tell Them Apart

You must realize that there is always a feature of branding in every aspect of life. From the moment you open your eyes until the sun has set, our activity is always packed with dozens of brands of products and services that are trying to hypnotize our brain into remembering every one them.

Some people think that branding is merely the making of names and designing logos. Let me share some truth that a brand is more than just a logo as it is only a ‘small’ portion of branding.


Jeff Bezos, Amazon

Branding is one of the significant factors for customers in deciding whether to buy a product. It has become a means of identification of a product so that the customer will remember it easier through the selection of names, colors, and slogan or value of a brand. In addition to building the trust of customers, one of the advantages of branding is to develop customer loyalty. As for the customers, branding is ensuring the quality of a product or service.

Mostly, small companies that are capable of growing large is the result of their capability in building trust through their image of branding. It is apparent that in building a brand image, brand honesty (positive value) is essential. Branding is talking about a promise from a brand itself to its customers that can be fulfilled.

A good brand is the one that is capable of providing added value (positive) or benefits to its customers. It is not surprising that a brand that does not have any added value will soon be forgotten.

There are several differences in product brands with service brands:

Product BrandingService Branding
Resell-ableNot resell-able
Can be preservedCannot be preserved
Development is easyDevelopment is difficult and takes time
Usually sold with visual stimulation (packaging design, etc.) and audio for the customer to easily remember the product.Started with establishing the relation between brand and customer by building customer trust.
E.g.: clothes, foods, beverages, shoes, jewelry, vehicle, computer, gadget.E.g.: insurance, business consultant, school, electronic reparation, health services, advertising agency, studio design.

There are not many differences between the ‘process’ of branding of product and service. However, we need an ‘extra effort’ (in terms of time) in building that of service branding.

The reason is that services offer something abstract (cannot be seen physically) so that personal approach towards the customer is needed. Through emotional communication and experienced benefit, customer trust will grow.

Consistency is also needed in the process of branding so that the product or service will remain in customers’ mind.

The article has been translated & edited by Leon Munandar. This original article was here.