I've been thinking about the need for branding since last Friday, when I saw a band that didn't know who they were.

It looked like a girl band, but why the gray-haired guy with shades on guitar? The girls' bustier costumes and headbands were sort of Janis Joplin lite, but they didn't write or play hard rock. The girl on fiddle promised country, or new age, or something other than what I was hearing.

I spent the half hour before I left, trying to figure out who they were, rather than listening to their music.

Anyone who appears before the public needs to know how they want that public to perceived them. Beginning with the "costume"–walking out in a tux sends a different message from walking out in vintage Converse hightops; walking out in both tells the audience something else.