Introduction
What comes to mind when you hear the term “brand” or “branding” in marketing? Nike? McDonalds? Five dollar foot long? Whatever it is, the importance of branding in the marketing mix should not be argued against, instead, it should be studied further to reveal what makes this aspect so important. Therefore, the following is an assessment of what a brand means to consumers and the effect it has on their purchasing behavior. This will also evaluate the importance of brands to the companies that own them and the qualities each company hopes to attain when creating their brand. Lastly, this assessment will uncover reasons for brand failure and offer suggestions on how businesses may build a stronger brand.
THE IMPORTANCE OF BRANDING IN THE MARKETING MIX 3
Consumer Effect of Branding
Many people associate a branded anything with a widely-exposed, big company or product commanding a premium price, compared to an unbranded or private-label offering at a lesser cost (Post, Gitomer & Tchong, 2004.) Brands may not, however, be equally important in all categories. For example, some consumers are content with generic laundry detergent or paper towels, but would not consider purchasing or using a generic hair product. Brands play an important role to consumers. Without them, people are unable to distinguish one company’s offerings from another’s. Brands impact culture, create lasting memories and serve as needed fuel for thriving economies everywhere. Consumers generally stick with brands they are familiar with, usually patronized by family and friends. Brands are not just a logo or some catchy tagline anymore. They are an expectation. The expectation that the product they have purchased is supe...
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...brands reap significant benefits for the companies that own them. The time, money and effort that go into creating and marketing a reputable brand should be respected and appreciated by consumers and organizations alike.
Works Cited
Clifton, Rita & Simmons, John. (2003). Brands and Branding. London, GBR, Profile Books Limited.
Haig, Matt. (2005). Brand Failures: The Truth about the 100 Biggest Branding Mistakes of All Time. London, GBR. Kogan Page Limited.
Keller, Kevin Lane. (2001). Building Customer Based Brand Equity: A Blueprint for Creating Strong Brands. Working Paper Report No. 01-107.
Post, Karen, Gitomer, Jeffrey & Tchong, Michael. (2005). Brain Tattoos. Saranac Lake, NY, USA. Amacom Books.
Wreden, Nick. (2005). Profitbrand: How to Increase the Profitability, Accountability and Sustainability of Brands. London, GBR. Kogan Page Limited.
Companies realize what people need and they take it as sources to produce commodities. However, companies which have famous brands try to get people’s attention by developing their products. Because there are several options available of commodities, people might be in a dilemma to choose what product they looking for. In fact, that dilemma is not real, it is just what people want. That is what Steve McKevitt claims in his article “Everything Now”. When people go shopping there are limitless choices of one product made by different companies, all choices of this product basically do the same thing, but what makes them different is the brand’s name. Companies with brands are trying to get their consumers by presenting their commodities in ways which let people feel impressed, and that are some things they need to buy. This is what Anne Norton discussed in her article “The Signs of Shopping”. People are often deceived by some famous brands, which they will buy as useless commodities to feel they are distinctive.
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.
A customer’s response falls in two categories, judgment and feelings. Consumers are constantly making judgments about a brand. These judgments fall into four categories: quality, credibility, consideration, and superiority (Keller, 2001). Customers judge a brand based on its actual and perceived quality, and customers judge credibility using the perception of the company’s expertise, trustworthiness, and likability. To what extent is the brand seen as “competent, innovative, and a market leader,” “dependable and sensitive to the interest of customers,” and “fun, interesting, and worth spending time with” (Keller,
Borden, N. H. (1964), "The concept of the marketing mix", Journal of Advertising Research, Vol. 4 No. June, pp. 7-12.
We propose a branding strategy which takes into account the brands capabilities and competencies, strategies of competition brands and the outlook of consumers experience in their respective societies. As an international brand there is the challenge of staying connected with local customers. We will overcome this by adapting marketing strategy to local needs using a variance of standardized marketing mix and an adapted marketing mix.
Tanner and Raymond (2014) describe branding activity as “strategies that are designed to create an image and position in the consumers’ minds” (c.6). When branding messages coincide with its offerings’ characteristics, it establishes consumer trust, and brand strength. For example, when first introducing Dove brand in 1957, by labeling its product as a “beauty cleansing bar . . . [with] ¼ moisturizing cream, that rinses cleaner than soap” (Unilever, 2016), we can see that marketers associated the brand to moisturizing and beauty, and disassociated the brand from common soap. Over the years, this consistent message coinciding with product performance has strengthened the Dove brand. Strong brand equity is derived from consistent, strategic branding that establishes perceived quality and emotional attachment (Entrepreneur, 2016); therefore, consumers are more likely to pay higher prices, as well as purchase new offerings connected to the
[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 practice of brand management is a key component of marketing and performs an integral function by motivating the wants and needs of consumers. It is known that marketing can shape consumer needs and wants, however, consumers today appear to be more knowledgeable about the information regarding products. Consumers lead busy lives and have therefore gone to the internet as one of the many channels to learn about products in order to make informed decisions. This paper will discuss the argument that marketing should reflect the needs and wants of consumers rather than shaping these attributes. Due to the speed and ease of obtaining information, consumers do not take at face value strong marketing efforts that appear to be overly aggressive and push a brand rather than just being informative. Brand managers have to be aware of these changing dynamics and carefully craft brand management practices to meet the demands of consumers.
Aaker, D.A., (1991), “Managing Brand Equity: Capitalizing on the Value of a Brand Name”. New York: Free Press. P. 134-140
The shifting of the consumer’s taste of simple products to high quality branded products is not sudden. It grew out in the middle of the 20th century and the companies selling various products needed a new way to differentiate their products from the others giving it a unique identity.
A brand identifies a seller’s product from a competitor’s product. There are three main purposes for branding product identification, which is the most important purpose, repeat sales, and new-product sales. Branding has a lot of terms that marketers use there is brand equity, global brand, and brand loyalty. Marketers also have different brand strategies that they use for different products or customers. It all depends on the consumer for them to decide which strategy they will use. The different strategies are generic products, manufacturer’s brands, private brands, individual brands, family brands, and co-branding. The branding purposes and the branding strategy make up the importance of branding.
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.
...& MAKLAN, S. 2007. The role of brands in a service-dominated world. Journal of Brand Management, 15, 115-122.
Branding on consumer purchase decisions. In order to comply with this a questionnaire was prepared and survey has been conducted among 100 respondents and data revealed that brands have strong influence on purchase decision.