There are tons of books and experts out there who can tell you the marketing strategies and how to build up your brand. However, branding is not a simple thing to do. Branding is not as just a project creating a unique name, logo and image for a product in the consumers’ mind. What really matters most is that your values, and what you really value in life as well as business, then it will certainly steer your business branding. Why? Simply because your brand is also a part of you, it represents you, and it is how others see you.

It is a human-to-human marketing era now, whether you like it or not. It doesn’t matter how much marketing fund you have budgeted, if your brand doesn’t resonate with your customers, it will be just a waste.

But what precisely does it mean to be a “Human Era Brand”? According to the “Welcome to the Human Era” report: “Being a Human Era brand goes beyond merely saying that one is more “human.” It requires an authentic story delivered consistently through an inspiring experience. It requires hard work — establishing organizational values and commitments that are customer driven, while also driving them toward daily leadership decision-making and employee behaviours.”

These are three exceptionally important keys in building a powerful human era branding in 2015 and beyond:

Key #1: AUTHENTIC. Authentic means genuine, real and not copied. A human era brand should remain true rather than faking, and now it has become a branding imperative. The authentic one is genuine to something rather than just profits, and profits. It has higher ambition and purpose without compromising its core values. Think about AirAsia, Alibaba and Zappos were just startups, they have indeed undoubted convincingly argued that its profit-making is only a by-product to serve a larger purpose, from the beginning.

Key #2: INTEGRITY. Integrity means no empty talks, from your end. It means honesty, trustworthy, sincerity and consistency of a brand character. Ask yourself why do some brands grab our hearts? Why some brands would just leave us browsing around to find alternatives? Brand isn’t just high budget advertising or flashy logos. Brand is about delivering promise, it’s all about experience. For instance, a brand with its self-claimed “luxury” promises about its product qualities and features but failed to deliver them in the end. Eventually the customers would feel disappointed and cheated, and so its credibility is at stake!

Key #3: RELATIONSHIP. Relationship means customer relationship; it is vital and imperative in building a “humanized” brand. Many people prefer doing business with someone they trust, they like, and they know. So, to build a close and long-term relationship, trust is the key that mediates variables and necessary ingredients for a powerful humanized brand, this lies significantly on your authenticity, integrity as well as credibility.