A company's brand has very little to do with the company logo. A brand is the perception the public has about your products and service. That perception may be right or wrong, based on fact, falsehood or anything in between.

Here is a short quiz. What companies come to mind when you read the following words?

1. Search
2. Cheap
3. Sexy
4. Fries
5. Motorcycle

We all know the right answers here: Google, Walmart, Victoria's Secret, McDonalds and Harley. Those words sum up in the brand for each of those companies. In every case, those companies, almost literally, own that word.

Get Your Own Word

It's the goal of every business (or it ought to be) to have an inextricable link to a word or phrase that describes them best in their market. Does that mean the company invented the product category? Nope. Is the best at it? Not at all! Does it more often than their competition? Again - the answer is aresounding no.

Quick, name a sandwich joint. Subway. Best sandwich ever? No. Did you say it? Probably.  It's their word.

Take Google and the word "search." When Google started in 1998, it had a web page with little more than a search box and a GO button. Who thought Yahoo! would be knocked off their throne? No one...and certainly not Yahoo!. While Yahoo! had hundred of links, services, specialty portals, news, email, chat, and oh yeah, a search box - Google did one thing: Search. That's it.

Now they own it.

Burger King has fries. So does every 9 of 10 food establishments in America. But McDonalds...they own the fry. Period. Is it better than every other fry? Probably not. They are delicious but I've had better. Still - the fry belongs to Ray Kroc and probably always will.

Potato-Potato-Potato

This is not continued discussion of the fry. That's sound of Harley behind you at a red light. Go ahead, say it out loud, "potato-potato-potato." You hear a Harley right? They own a trademark on that sound and the own the vision of motorcycling Americana.

So how does a company establish their brand? Simple. Say so. That's right: just say so. Over and over and over. Always pair your company name, product or service with your brand. Be the best at something and own it like your life depended on it (It just may).

Fair and Balanced

Does that even describe Fox News' brand of reporting? While you consider that - remember, you only have to put it out there. A lot.