What is Your Brand Story?

"Many companies think a brand is the new identity, tagline and brand standards they've created."

I've read and heard this statement a number of time recently.  In this case, a SF agency stated this in their eletter.  I can't believe in today's sophisticated world there is a marketer left who really thinks like this - am I wrong?  Who in the business world today doesn't understand that brands and branding are about what your brand stands for, how it is relevant to your customer, or how you're providing a compelling and relevant product or service to a specific segment of the population?

Branding is importantly also about communications.  What is your brand story?  Today we cannot push our message out and expect it to be received, heard, or understood.  We have to develop a story that provides the listener, our brand target, a reason to connect to our message.  Then we have to deliver that message at a time and place when the listener, again our target, is ready and willing to listen. 

The age old joke about the ugly American who is not understood in a foreign country yells louder in hopes of being understood, has been the story of marketing in the past.  But aren't marketers now savvy enough to get it - when in Italy you have to speak Italian to be understood?  I think so.  There are still many mysteries about marketing, but I can't believe that "thinking a brand is an identity, tagline or logo" is still one of them.