Branding Assignment 6j5826

Table of Contents

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1. Introduction of Branding----------------------------------------------

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2. Benefits of Branding----------------------------------------------------

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3. Process of Brand Building---------------------------------------------

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4. Branding – Its role in Competitive Advantage-------------------

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5. References-----------------------------------------------------------------

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Branding

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Introduction of Branding: The American Marketing Association (AMA) defines a brand as a "name, term, sign, symbol or design, or a combination of them intended to identify the goods and services of one seller or group of sellers and to differentiate them from those of other sellers”. In view with the above definition brand is a name or a symbol of a company’s product which distinguish them from others. According to the Matthew Healey (2008), “Human civilization depends upon signs and system of signs and the human mind is inseparable from the functioning of signs – if indeed materiality is not to be identified with such functioning”. The word brand originated from German word and its meaning is “Burn”. When we talk about a product we actually define the attributes of that manufacturing company. A well known brand is recognized by the people, even they don’t know about that company. Branding also includes the color, feature or the style of the product, e.g.  Red color is the symbol of Coca Cola.  The Nike using the  sign. Majority known about this sign. If this sign appear anywhere people will recognize the brand and the company as well.  The Adidas uses three strips on their products. People will recognize the brand by this symbol even if the company name and logo is not there. Therefore, branding is not only a symbol of marketing it delivers the value and attributes of the company. So, your product must be recognized in the market thru the brand and it also has a competitive advantage for the company. A good brand achieve following:     

Convey your message Strengthen your reliability Create linkage to target market Create loyalty Inspire the buyer

For a successful brand, company’s make sure that they should understand the needs and demands of the customer. They know what are going to deliver thru their product and their brand. Brand always be in the minds of the customer, if the brand or the product could not deliver the desired results to the customer that I will make a negative impact on the company’s other products or brand.

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For a good brand company’s should have to conduct researches, do their trend analysis, observe the change behavior and etc. by all means brand is the company promise to its customer to delivering continuously good and quality products. Branding is an important part of your marketing without this it will be very difficult to get recognized in the market. Branding is just like a new firm is going to be opened, everyone think about the company’s name because it creates the image and message is given in the market that what we are and what we do. Same with the case in branding in this way you are delivering the attributes and features of the product or services. Brand itself speaks what is it and what it will deliver to a customer. So, it is very important that the brand must be very simple and eye catching, that’s attracted the attention of everyone and can easily be understand at first sight. Following are some points which help in making a logo for any brand:      

Well built and objective according to the product Valiant and different which catch the eye of everyone Explicit image which suits to your business Match with your operations Delivers clear message Should be in different colors which attracts

If we see in the real world above steps are taken into consideration while deg a logo or a brand, e.g. if you see the crocodile sign, very quickly Lacoste name comes in mind and it tells that about the clothing outfits. Benefits of Branding: Branding is very beneficial in every aspect. Branding gives ease to the consumer in order to locate and selective buying. It reduces the decision making on different products and also the risk factor of using new product. Brand also shows the status of buyer when you buy like Lexus and Rolex (Patrick de Pelsmacker, et.al, 2007, p. 58). Branding is a good sustainable competitive advantage for the company. Below we will discuss the benefits or advantages of the branding. Basically there are four big benefits of branding which help a company such as; acknowledgement and fidelity, representation of magnitude, representation of value, representation of occurrence and consistency.

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1.Acknowledgement and Fidelity: Acknowledgement and fidelity is a big advantage for the company. Because customer know thru your brand about your operations. Your brand logo or image will be in the minds of the potential customers. The brand product of the company is sells in a bulk quantity, it means people know about the brand and trust on you blindly. If a company is well recognized thru a particular brand and they launched a new product, customer will buy that product without having and experience about that product just because of your name. Company have already satisfied their customer so, they have fidelity with your products. 2.Representation of Magnitude: A strong brand is deliver a good magnitude to the potential customers, that the company has a large scale of production and delivering the quality products. Customer usually know that when a brand is launched with the heavy investment in advertising and marketing, in the bank of mind they thought this brand is giving something to them and they go for buying your product. If the people are satisfied with your brand they must like to see you every where around them, because they want the brand in their reach, they don’t have to go too far to get the desired brand. Successful brand expect more from the company to be more sensitive in recognizing the demands and desires of the customers. 3.Representation of Value: A brand is a symbol of quality and value of your company. People believe that your products and services help in providing the quality and value. It is very obvious that if there are two similar products placed in front of a person, one is a well known brand and the other one is not familiar so, the choice must be the branded one because he/she knows that the known brand is a symbol of quality and values. A company’s brand is a having a good market share than it will reflect a quality in your business and standard of operation certainly will go up as well. Bad brand will deliver the negative a negative publicity among the people that will hurt the business and your future products also. For example : in the late 90’s Coca Cola change the ingredients of coke just to change the taste and wanted to make it more better, but people did not like that and the sale of the company goes down drastically. Then they realized that and switch to the old taste and get the desired results after a long time. Branding

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4.Representation of Occurrence and Consistency: In this competitive era, company takes time to get aware thru their brands in the market. It will come after a long time of providing services and products. The successful branded companies are more likely to be more specific and deliver continuous innovated product for the customers. People rely on the branded and well quality products rather than unfamiliar brands. It is justified to say that the brand reflect the quality and values of the business. It also represents the occurrence and consistency in providing the quality products and services. Process of Brand Building: In the context we will discuss the branding building process that how the brand are build with their values there are seven steps involve in building the brand values (David Jobber & Geoff Lancastar, 2009, p.365). He defined the process thru the below figure;

Process of brand building Branding

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1.Quality: Quality is sustainable factor in your brand building. Every consumer likes to have quality products. So the quality is an important part of your brand building. The main benefit of the brand is to provide the best what you can deliver according to the demand and desire of the customer/consumer and that must be delivered continuously. The quality products can be delivered thru research in the market, getting statistics about the changing behavior and demand of the people. With all the considerations then go for a complete brand making process which includes the quality, values and image that you know the taste and demand of the consumers. That will create a distinguish image among your competitors. 2.Positioning: Positioning of the brand means that where your product is lies in the market, what is the market share it has captured. Positioning of the brand occupies the place in the market and in the mind of the customers. Successful brand always have a eye catching position in the market and it gives to analyze the target market of the product. Positioning of the brand consist on the several factors like brand name, products features, attractiveness, company’s guarantees and etc. successful positioning of the brand heavily dependent on these factors. 3.Repositioning: Repositioning of the brand is when the product is matured and its market share going to drop a bit. Then the companies redesign their strategies that how can it regain its position in the market. Every product have its life cycle and when the maturity stage comes then the product downfall starts because the competitors have their new products or the same products but with the different and better advantages. So the change is required in the product to get the market share again. The current example of the repositioning of the brand is the Lucozade a sweet drink for children is now a leading sports drink.

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4.Communications: Communication is a major part of the brand building. It indicates that the company should engage themselves with the customer or consumer about their brand its efficiency and other features. Positioning is important from customer’s aspect but if the company is not developing the product and not enhancing the efficiency then nothing will be happened with doing all above steps. Every company knows their target markets and target audience who likes their products. So they have to communicate with them about the brand and get the clear picture of the audience about the brand. In the communication the big challenge is to create the awareness and afterwards create brand quality and strengthen the views. 5.Credibility: In branding the company’s credibility is important. People know about you and give respect to your products. If the new company come and sell it products then it will be very difficult for the consumer to get aware of the new product because of lack of knowledge. New comer has to create the awareness of the product and show some responsibility and assure the consumers that their products are very reliable and having good quality. They also, give the guarantee for the product credibility. People must be getting their message and get aware of new products and services. 6.Long Term Perspective: Brand is not for short term benefits and results. It talks about for long term aspect. Brand needs huge investment and continuous innovation. Brand take time to get market share and customer attention. In the competitive markets this will take too long to get the recognition by the consumer. In the same industry there are so many similar products are available then its company’s marketing and advertising techniques which can create the difference in the mind of the consumers or the people. 7.Internal Marketing: Internal marketing is about the getting full awareness of the brand by the management. Marketing is not all about in the external environment it also include the internally with in the organization. Everyone should know about all the features of the product or the brand.

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Branding – Its role in Competitive Advantage: In this competitive era, competition is very intense. Every market players have different to play in the market with some competitive advantage. Every company wants to have a big market share for the market. In this era market share of any company changes overnight with the other competitor innovative products. Competitive advantage is not enough it has to be consistent and sustainable. The strong brands companies are always ready to innovate and emerge the current situation with their innovative and improved product quality. In competitive market it is very important to know the trends of the market and consumer behavior. Threats of competition depend on many sources geographical changes, diversification in sectors and technology imbedded products among others. Datuk Jackson Tan, Managing Director of Silver Bird Group Berhad (one of Malaysia’s most successful home grown brands), had this to say: “In this global marketplace, the battle for competitive advantage is unending. We need to constantly ask ourselves how we can attain and sustain that advantage in such a competitive environment.” Company’s can secure their places by the sustainable competitive advantage. Marketing field has been extended to a variety of ways to communicate and introduce many products in different ways. Marketing speaks the attributes and a clear picture of the product. It’s all about the brand games. Brands itself represent the image of the company. Branding appeals in the mind of the people about the company. If a brand is distinguish in the others products it will give a competitive advantage to the company and it will comes in to real when the company must evaluate the every bit of the brand and continuously monitor the market situation and their competitors behavior. Brands give a competitive advantage a company like Sony, Coca Cola, Pepsi and etc. these brands are a separate entity of the market and they are ahead in the other competitors products. Brand of the company does not sell only the product but its sells so many other values with it. Following are some key brands selling values to their products.  • • • •

“Coca Cola does not sell soft drinks, it sells enjoyment Harley Davidson does not sell motorcycles, it sells freedom Singapore Airlines (SIA) does not sell air transportation, it sells service Microsoft does not sell computers, it sells possibility Starbucks Coffee does not sell coffee, it sells experience”

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“Practice what you preach”, “Talk the talk and walk the talk”, these two phrases are taken too much at a wrong side. Company has to very methodical and clear in their approach by delivering the brand message. Competitive advantage is all about consistency in their competitiveness and communication and better service delivery. A successful brand is not the guarantee for the company’s success; there are so many problems and barriers involved in it. Company faces many problems in making the brand so effective. The major problem is not having values which elaborate the brand itself. A brand cannot be established until and unless their employees have a clear mission and vision, share the ideas to develop and company’s own give intakes in the development of the brand. This has to be a combined effort to all of the staff. Also, the company should take the opinion of the customers as well to modify the brand and make more effective according the needs and desired of the customers. Professor Michael Porter says that branding is now a advantage to identify and utilize the potential competencies of the company. Brand competitive advantage is distinguish in many aspect such as it talks about the product attributes, price, time, quality and status. A successful brand gives the consumer to promote the product in their circle. The consumer states about the brand as a trusted brand in the competition. The strong brand is a relation between the consumer and the company that they continuously produce the quality product and services for the betterment of the product and innovate in different ways. Companies use five brand strategies to have a sustainable competitive advantage, which are as follows: 1. Company has to develop the product line extension, in which they can introduce new items in the product category line. If one product could not get the good market share then other product can replace it at the same time brand image may be in danger of loosing its image from customer minds. This product line extension will give more cushions to the company to attract new customers. 2. Brand extension is another strategy to use for a completely new kind of product. such as Coca Cola and Unilever has many product lines e.g. The Coca Cola company launched different kind of soft drinks such as Coke, Coke Zero, Fanta and etc. as long as the new products gets customers attraction and built a good reputation in the market this strategy can help organizations to introduced more new products in the market. 3. Multi branding creates a variety of brands with in the same product line, e.g. McDonald has different kinds of burgers such as, veggie, chicken and fish. This help to appeal to different audience, it indicate the target market for the company.

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4. Emerging practices are also successful for the companies, this called co-branding. In which to well known brands emerge to create new product that boost both companies share, e.g. Glaxosmithklienebeecham is a merger with five different pharmaceutical companies and made one identity to produce great results. At the moment they are the market leaders in the medicine industry. 5. Packaging is another key element for successful branding and it affects on consumers views that how they view the brand. Customers often identify the brand by its packaging. Many factors are involved for good packaging concept because it reflects the company reputation. The package should be carefully designed with the attention of size, color, shape and the type of material used for the product. Pricing, marketing and advertising strategies are based on packaging development.

Companies worth based on the value of brands which represent the overall company. Many organization are involved in business to business and fail to understand the importance of brands. They need to understand the importance of stronger brand and to create and built consumer preferences. Customers are spoilt for choices now days. Companies should understand the need and demand of customer because customers are constantly surrounded with their own ideas. Branding is far from selecting the right language and packaging, and it requires dedicated personnel and budgets, as well as time and expertise.

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References: What is branding? Matthew Healey, 2008, p. , copyrights Roto Vision SA, Star Standard(Pte) ltd, Singapore. Marketing communications : A European Perspective. By Patrick de Pelsmacker, Maggie Geuens, Joeri van den Bergh,2007, third edition, FT prentice Hall.p.58 Selling and selling management , 8the edition, david jobber & Geoff Lancastar, 2009, FT prentice Hall.p.365 Capodagli, B. & Jackson, L. 1998, The Disney Way, McGraw-Hill www.sbinfocanada.about.com www.bizhelp24.com www.tutor2u.net www.articles.directorym.com www.webpronews.com

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