Marketing - Branding

The pivot of any exercise in Marketing would be branding! According to the AMA a brand is ‘a name, term sign, symbol or design, or combination of them intended to identify the goods of a seller and to differentiate them from those of competitors’. What helps to differentiate a brand may have its roots in various dimensions – rational, functional or tangible – relating to actual performance of the product or it may have its roots in the intangible - an emotional connection – symbolic and intangible –its what the brand represents.

The world’s strongest brands share certain attributes – they excel at delivering the consumers hearts’ desires – they stay relevant & in touch with the consumer, they are priced optimally and positioned precisely. They are consistent and create a seamless umbrella for all the brands in their portfolio, they capitalize on their brand equity, the brand’s managers know exactly what the consumers feel about the brand and how they can leverage that, the brand is supported and its sources of brand equity are constantly monitored.

A brand serves to create associations and expectations among a firm’s products, firms that are able to achieve affinity with their customers heap a host of benefits including greater price premiums and more efficient and effective marketing among other benefits such as those of improved product performance perception, greater loyalty, less vulnerability to competitive marketing actions and crises. It makes people less sensitive to price increases and buy more during sales or price decreases. A good brand results in support from trade, the avenue of licensing is much broader and possibilities for bringing out new products or extension are greater.

There are various brand equity models – one of them – the brand resonance model views brand building as a pyramid. A sequential series that can trace the journey of a consumer with a brand – this brand building journey has dual routes - what the brand does for you and what the brands represents. All steps involve accomplishing certain objectives with customers, both existing and potential. The first step is to ensure identification of the brand and an association of the brand in the customers mind with a specific product class or need – the second is to establish the meaning by strategically linking it to a host of tangible and intangible brand associations. The 3rd step is to elicit the proper customer response to this brand identity and brand meaning and the final step is to convert brand response to create an intense, active loyal relationship between customers and the brand. Creating significant brand equity means reaching the pinnacle of the pyramid achieving brand resonance requires eliciting the proper cognitive appraisals and emotional reaction to the brand from the customers.

A brand is a collection of images and ideas representing an economic producer; more specifically, it refers to the concrete symbols such as a name, logo, font, slogan, and design & color scheme, symbols, which is one of the main drivers of brand equity. Other drivers of brand equity include the product and service and all accompanying marketing activities and supporting marketing programs and other associations that are leveraged by linking the brand to another entity be it a place or a person. These brand elements are developed to represent implicit values, ideas, and even personality and thus have to be chosen carefully they should be memorable, meaningful and likeable. One brand element should be such that it can be applied to other extensions ass well, like the brand it should stay relevant and adaptable to changing times and of course it should be legally protected against theft. To manage brand equity we need to measure it.

Brand audits are in-depth brand examinations of the health of a brand and can be used to set strategic directions for a brand. A brand inventory provides a comprehensive profile of how all al the products marketed and branded – it is detailed and in depth brand exploratory as suggestive of the name is an exploration into the consumer’s awareness, feelings and knowledge of the brand.

A branding strategy identifies which brand element a firm chooses to apply across various products it sells. In a brand extension a firm uses an established name to introduce a new product. Potential extensions must be judged by how effectively they leverage existing equity. Brands can play different roles within the brand portfolio – there are flanker brands that are positioned to defend the flagship brand they are the fighters that serve as an armor for the champion brand – the pawns. The cash cows are brands that are kept around despite dwindling sales because they bring in cash without having cash spent on them. Then there are the low-end entry brands which are introduced so that the firm can attract more customers to the franchise – they are the means through which a firm gets customers accustomed to itself so tat they can trade-up when economics permit. The mirror to this is a high-end prestige brand; this brands role is to be the star of the portfolio, the prestigious this is the showstopper.

The key to making branding work is to clearly define your company’s branding goal and be consistent with your message, communications, graphics and all aspects of your business. Effective marketing requires an integrated communications plan. Communication can be two-way or one-way, personal and non-personal. There is a trade-off between reach and information dispersion – in mediums where there is high reach e.g. television information is low and vice versa. Under mass messaging we have mediums such as television, radio, newspapers and magazines and under two-way communications we have sales force and telemarketing; email, direct mail catalog and infomercials can be classified as mediums that are two-way but with a time lag.

The marketing communications mix consists of six major modes of communication: advertising, sales promotion, public relations and publicity, events and experiences, direct marketing and personal selling. To get their messages through marketers must encode them in a manner with which the target message is familiar and can decode easily, through efficient media that effectively reaches the target as well as relays feedback so that responses can be monitored. Consumer response to a communication can be modeled in three steps – a hierarchy which first starts with learning about something, this cognitive process leads to affections or feelings about the product, the penultimate of which is action. Developing effective communications involve various steps which starts from identifying target market and deciding what we want the communication to achieve whether it is to persuade or inform, then the communications has to be designed – what the message will say what will be its appeal will it be product related or extrinsic, whether the message is informational or aspirational – who will be the one to deliver the message and whether they will add credence to the brand or harm brand equity.

Research has led to interesting revelations, buzz can be created for any product not only outrageous ones, it doesn’t just happen has to be carefully created, countercultures can often start buzz as well, its not necessary to have first mover advantage, if you know when to jump in you can benefit from the buzz too. Word-of-mouth marketing is very effective and to use it properly one has to build a network of referral sources - involve your customers in delivering the message, solicit testimonials from them, tell them stories about your brand, educate them and most importantly handle complaints fast.

To asses whether your communications are truly integrated there are six criteria, the proportion of audience reached, the creation of desired response and awareness built, the consistency and cohesiveness of the brand image, the effectiveness with which complementary associations are linked and capitalized and carried through to all communications, the versatility and ability of the communications to work for different groups of consumers and last but not least the cost of arriving at this program.