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"Branding" has been one of the most prominent of corporate buzzwords in recent years. But what is it all about? Although opinions will vary dramatically, there are some fundamental issues that underpin it.
Branding is about distinguishing yourself from the competition. It is about creating tangible and intangible characteristics that make your offer unique. It is about developing a name and image that can provide quality and satisfaction, whilst at the same time taking account of individual lifestyles and beliefs.
"A successful brand is one that generates genuine loyalty and affection because it provides a level of quality, trust, convenience, assurance and allure for which customers are willing to pay a premium."
- http://www.landor.com
The brands that we choose as individuals can often be a reflection of our personal sense of identity. In this respect, organizations have the opportunity to use branding as a process for creating and sustaining a mutually rewarding relationship with customers.
Therefore, branding presents a significant challenge to marketers. How can brand 'X' be made to stand out from brand 'Y' in a homogenous market? One way is through creative advertising. Branding is closely linked to advertising, as adverts can be used to communicate messages about a brand to the target audience. For example, Stella Artois beer built an upmarket brand in Europe through advertising campaigns that declared it to be "reassuringly expensive."
Brand names are the first point of call between a company and its customers, and for this reason yield a remarkable amount of power. Spare a thought to think about General Motors plans to sell vehicles abroad when it realized that its Chevrolet Nova vehicle literally translated into "doesn't go" in Spanish!
Brand names can therefore directly influence how consumers perceive a product or service. For example, a motoring programme in the UK blind tested three similar sized cars. It turned out that a Skoda car scored equally as well as a Volkswagen model. The participants in the tests were extremely surprised to find out that they had highly rated a Skoda, a brand that has suffered plenty of degradation in the past (Skoda's are in fact made by Volkswagen!). Interestingly it was noted that if the testers had known beforehand that the car they were driving was in fact a Skoda, their judgement may have been clouded by Skoda's relatively poor brand image as compared to the strong image commanded by Volkswagen.
So does branding hold the key to influencing how consumers look upon your product or service offering? Certainly it is a significant piece of the puzzle. But what are the most important issues when deciding how to build a brand? This Briefing addresses the key issues of strategy, positioning and the Internet.
Articles:
Online branding: the case of McDonald's
This article explores the approaches to the delivery of brand messages through a website, taking one of the leading brands, McDonald's, as a case study. The role of brands and branding in the new economy that is characterised by digitisation and globalisation is attracting considerable attention. McDonald's recent "I'm lovin' it" campaign, is being integrated through every element of the business, including its website; this campaign therefore presents a useful opportunity to analyse the contribution of the Internet channel to brand building.
Originally published in British Food Journal
Volume 106 Number 3, 2004
Corporate marketing and service brands - Moving beyond the fast-moving consumer goods model
This article examines the issues associated with the creation and development of service brands in corporate branding. It considers the increasing importance of the services sector, the appropriateness of corporate versus individual branding and how service organisations have challenged the traditional approach to business.
Originally published in the European Journal of Marketing
Vol. 35 No. 3/4, 2001
Bringing the corporation into corporate branding
This paper describes corporate branding as an organisational tool whose successful application depends on attending to the strategic, organisational and communicational context in which it is used. A model to help managers analyse context in terms of the alignment between strategic vision, organisational culture and corporate image is presented.
Originally published in the European Journal of Marketing
Volume 37 Number 7/8, 2003
Silence of the brands
Since the late 1980s, brands have gained centre stage in marketing and in the managerial discourse. From having been a mere marker that identifies the producer or the origin of a product, the brand is today increasingly becoming the product that is consumed.
Originally published in the European Journal of Marketing
Volume 38 Number 1/2, 2004
Positioning and branding your organisation
This article opens by exploring the changing relationship between customer value and how it has been traditionally interpreted within the organisation. Business leaders today acknowledge that the traditional 4Ps approach to brand marketing needs to be transformed in order to realise a broader vision of customer value across the organisation.
Originally published in the Journal of Product & Brand Management
Volume 13 Number 2, 2004
IBM's Think strategy - melding strategy and branding
When operations are consolidated to simplify product lines and to gain efficiencies in practices and marketing, can the brand identities also be consolidated? This was the question that IBM PC Division marketers faced. This article explores their approach to answering it.
Originally published in Strategy & Leadership
Volume 32 Number 2 2004
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