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Write A Short Note On Branding
Growing and sustaining brand equity
Write A Short Note On Branding
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I. INTRODUCTION
• Branding is a plan for earning product reputation and for making sure that the world knows about it and believes in it too.
• “Branding is the process by which companies distinguish their product offerings from the competition. Brands are created by creating a distinctive name, packaging and design.” (Egan & Thomas, 1998)
• 1st Brand name= Bass [beer], because British were the 1st with trademark registration.
• Customers (particularly consumers) view a brand as an important part of a product and branding can add value to a product. A brand can provide a guarantee of reliability and quality, in fact.
Ex. Chanel perfume bottle.
II. BRAND EQUITY
• Brands vary in the amount of power and value they have in the market place. Strong brands have high brand equity. Brand equity is the value of a brand based on the extent to which it has high brand loyalty, name awareness, perceived quality, strong brand associations and other assets such as patents, trademarks and channel relationships.
• According to Barwise, et. al. (1990), measuring the actual equity of a brand name is difficult.
“The only time you can be sure of the value of your brand is just after you have sold it” - Jeremy Bullmore, WPP Group [London-based advertising holding company]
• Therefore, perhaps it is better to define brand equity as “the extra value that customers perceive in a brand that ultimately builds long term loyalty.” (Burk, 2007)
Brand Equity Pyramid by Keller (2003)
• Higher brand equity provides the business with many competitive advantages: (1) products become more price inelastic, (2) lower marketing costs, (3) more leverage when bargaining with retailers.
• Interbrand list of most valuable brands 2007: (1) Coca Cola $65 billion, (2) Microsoft $58 billion, (3) IBM $57 billion
• Brands increasingly viewed as the major enduring asset of a company, outlasting the company’s specific products and facilities.
“If this business would be split up, I would give you the land and bricks and mortar, and I would keep the brands and trademarks and I would fare better than you”
-John Stewart, co-founder of Quaker Oats [one of the first companies to have its products branded in USA]
• Companies therefore sometimes appoint brand equity managers to guard their brand’s images.
III. BRAND DECISIONS
1. BRAND POSITIONING
If a company treats a brand only as a name, it is missing the point of branding. A name ‘becomes a brand.’
Customers associate the brand with a set of intangible and tangible benefits [rather than attributes] that they obtain from a product.
A brand can also say something about the buyer’s values, and represent a certain culture.
In every given business, the name itself portrays different meanings. This serves as the reference point and sometimes the basis of customers on what to expect within the company. Since personality affects product image (Langmeyer & Shank, 1994), the presence of brand helps in the realization of this concept. Traditionally, brand is a symbolic manifestation of all the information connected with a company, product, or service (Nilson, 2003; Olin, 2003). A brand is typically composed of a name, logo, and other visual elements such as images, colors, and icons (Gillooley & Varley, 2001; Laforet & Saunders, 1994)). It is believed that a brand puts an impression to the consumer on what to expect to the product or service being offered (Mere, 1995). In other application, brand may be referred as trademark, which is legally appropriate term. The brand is the most powerful weapon in the market (LePla & Parker, 1999). Brands possess personality in which people associate their experience. Oftentimes, they are related to the core values the company executes.
Branding is defined as “the promot[ion] of a product or service by identifying it with a particular brand” (Merriam-Webster, 2015). Branding is also used to create a corporate image or brand by utilizing logos, corporate statements, and other images that will be associated with or displayed on all of that company’s products (Wolak, 2002). A brand is a valuable, enduring asset that is essential in creating and maintaining competitive advantage in an industry (Wolak, 2002; Murphy, 1988). This corporate asset can be just as important as the product or service behind it, because it carries name recognition and peace of mind to customers in the purchase decisions they make everyday (Hall, 2008). Brands essentially work as a “shorthand device” for consumers to evaluate product decisions by conveying a message of uniform quality, credibility, and experience
The word “Brand” owes its origin to the Norwegian word “brand” which means to burn. Farmers used to put some identification mark on the body of the livestock to distinguish their possession. Products are what companies make, but customers buy brands. Therefore marketers resorted to branding in order to distinguish their offerings from similar products and services provided by their competitors. Additionally, it carries an inherent assurance to the customers that the quality of a purchase will be similar to earlier purchases of the same brand.
Companies use a collection of brand equities to represent their products in the market (Voolnes, 2012). Brand equity refers to the commercial value that is derived from the perception of consumers on any given brand name of particular products in the market as opposed to the product itself. Ataman (2003) notes that the effect to the consumer is in the brand name and not the product itself. Companies use logos, trademarks and a collection of other symbols to present this information to the customers. The use of these symbols is meant to try and capture the customer mindset so that they can be thinking about the company products at all times through the items they possess at home (Estes, Gibbert, Guest, & Mazursk, 2012). This can well be explained by use of the customer-based brand equity model that brings together the requirements for a publicly renowned brand in the market.
Marketers assert to develop branding and packaging strategies that signify the brand’s products in a way that establishes lasting impressions in consumers’ thoughts. Because brands distinguish the many product offerings in the marketplace, brands help consumers choose between product offerings. When branding and packaging strategies clearly illustrate worthy product expectations, and products remain true to branding messages, positive consumer perceptions ensue, and brand value is strengthened.
Brand equity is crucial as it implies that the brand itself is an important (financial) asset and can be calculated in financial terms (Barwise, 1993). This is particularly important in the luxury sector as from a behavioural viewpoint, brand equity can differentiate a company or product from other competitors, adding to their competitive advantages based on non-profit competition (Aaker, 2004). The model created by Aaker (1992) states that there are four categories of brand equity; Loyalty, Awareness, Perceived Quality and Associations. Luxury branding relies on a high level of perceived quality, loyalty and associations, although potentially less so for awareness, as it is thought that consumers choose luxury brands based on their exclusivity and as such the more the awareness that surrounds the brand, there is potential for it to become less valuable (Phau and Prendergast,
Branding; - branding is the process of creating name, image or logo for the product in consumers mind through advertising theme. In H&B branding gives the ability customer to recognise them through their business name, design and healthy products. The benefit of branding in H&B is customers are likely to remember their products and their strong images and their colourful colour of the store to recognise them. Other benefit of branding for H&B is it serves convenient container for reputation and good will. Loyalty when customers have experience with brand and customers are likely to buy their products again.
What is brand? Brand is a trade name which can distinguish from other product or service (Intellectual property office, 2013). Another meaning of the brand is to convey the promise or message to the customer (Intellectual property office, 2013). A powerful brand can lead the company to go further in the industry and it can develop the company's potential (Temporal, 2010). Therefore, brand is a signifying of the company.
[1] Aaker, D.A. and Jacobson, R. (1996) Building Strong Brands. New York: The Free Press.
A company’s brand is one of its most valuable assets (Green and Smith 2002). Brands owners invest millions of dollars every year in advertising and promotion to raise awareness and create demand for their brands.
The source of the brand features is in a connection between customers and companies that sell services or products. Consumers who choose a specific company fundamentally acknowledge to prefer that brand more than other brands rooted from the recognition of the brand’s worth.
Today's modern concept of branding grew out of the consumer packaged goods industry and the process of branding has come to include much more than just creating a way to identify a product or company. Branding is used to create emotional attachment to products and companies. Branding efforts create a feeling of involvement, a sense of higher quality, and an aura of intangible qualities that surround the brand name, mark, or symbol.
Product is the core of marketing, which including tangible goods like food or drinks or intangible services, as it is the major way to embody customers requirements; and, branding is directly associated with it. In fact, branding is all about decisio ns of products, like brand names or trademarks. Stork (2007) asserted that a brand is a unique business identity which represents the personality, quality or origin of products. And, such a product which added value by branding would appear in every activity of marketing, namely, branding is actually react on the whole marketing system directly and indirectly.
Branding and marketing are both buzzwords that to the uninitiated seem interchangeable. After all, they’re both methods businesses can use to increase their profits and productivity. Despite this end goal, there are subtle differences in how and why the tactics are used.
The term 'branding' in modern marketing is generally originated in the agricultural practices of the medieval age. The farmers 'branded' their animals with the iron and then they were able to identify to whom a particular animal belonged. Artisans 'branded' their products, for example, expensive silver tableware. Smiths 'branded' their swords. The role of the brand is to identify products by the same way as for medieval farmers and for modern corporations as well.