A logo is not a brand

Over at Business Insider, an informative article (originally in Harvard Business Review) titled: "There's Much More To A Company's Brand Than A Fancy Logo". The real strength of the article, in my opinion, is the emphasis, which still appears to be required, on the separation of brand and logo. Your logo is your logo but the brand is a set of intangibles and what these say about your business, despite what you or your team say about your business via publication or exhortation. The point is that your brand can completely undermine what you want your business to be. An example is a major bank that focuses on trying to build a brand around a customer service ethos but fails to do so as impressions gained by actual interaction negate these efforts.

Dental practices will probably benefit from logos and brands, and tying these two together. But they must be seen as separate entities. And branding must be consistent throughout strategy.