Steem has no brand.

It does. Its Steemit. lol. When you say Steem, they think Steemit.
"Oh Its that blogging thing".

The fact of the matter is that they fucked up with the name. Its simple as that. The only thing to do now is to change it. Eliminate "Steemit" from the equation or its an uphill battle of trying to explain to everyone that comes here what the difference is between Steem and Steemit.
Ive seen people that been here more then 6 months not know the difference and confuse the two.