The Brand
The brand is a name, a sign, a picture or a combination of these elements that is used to identify the goods and services of a certain company and differentiate them form competitors'.Imposing a brand demands:
- Quality products, appreciated by the customers
- Sustained promotional activities – building the brand image
- Brand name chosen carefully
The operations related to imposing the brand consist in an entire series of promotional activities that aim at associating the brand to various elements, such as:
- Product traits (for example, Mercedes – reliable, well built, elegant, expensive)
- Product advantages
- Reliable – doesn't require often service
- Elegant – indicates a special, appreciated person
- Expensive – exclusive, not everyone can afford it.
- Buyer's values – affiliation to social groups and personality traits
- Manufacturer's culture – German culture: exceptionally high quality products, reliability.
Brand components
The brand has 3 main components, strong interconnected.
- Brand name – consists of words, has the role of an audio stimulus
- Brand sign or emblem – is a combination of graphic elements, used as a visual stimulus. It facilitates the brand association in customers' minds. Can also be marked on products as a distinctive sign or for design purposes.
- Brand certificate – offers legal protection, granting the exclusive right of usage to the certificate owner. Having such a certificate is very important because imposing the brand requires extensive costs that would vanish in case of other competitors' unauthorized usage of the brand.
Choosing the brand name is a crucial activity, on this element depending the brand success on the market. The brand name has to meet certain requirements:
- Distinctive and unique
- Easily pronounced, memorized and remembered
- Suggestive for the offered products
- Familiar, warm, polite, so that the customer likes it
- Should not be offensive or obscene
- Can be pronounced in foreign languages without distorting its meaning.
The brand has a crucial importance for both the consumer and the company, because it generates a series of advantages for both categories.
It is important for the consumer because the brand:
- Simplifies the buying process – associating the brand to a certain product quality
- Offers safety and warranty
- Indicates a certain social status.
The brand is important for the manufacturer because it:
- Assures a loyal customers base
- Allows superior prices due to the added value the brand brings
- Can be a start for new products, more easily accepted on the market
- Causes the promotional activities to be more effective, because they comprise all the products that carry the brand
- Can be sold as a separate product, as a brand name or goodwill.
Brand classification:
- Manufacturer brand – products sold under producer's brand(IBM, Philips, Canon)
- Commerce brand – set by intermediary suppliers. The product is no longer identified with the manufacturer.
- Generic brand – products that don't have a brand.
Options for adopting a brand:
- Individual brand – companies assign different brand names to each product, depending on the quality, based on market segmentation.
- Collective or family brand – given to all product categories. It is usually the company name(Philips, Bosch, General Electrics)
- Family brands for distinct product categories, for example, Toyota – average cars, Lexus – luxury division of Toyota
- Mixed brands – a combination between the company name and the product's individual brand.
Brand strategies:
- Expanding the brand
- to the product line – more products from the same category have the same brand
- to other product categories – Honda extended its brand name from motorcycles and cars to lawn mowers.
- Multiple brands strategy – in the same products category the company uses distinct brands, so that they are differentiated inside the same class.
- Commune/Dual brand strategy – creating a brand through associating 2 or more notorious names.
- New brand strategy – creating a new brand for new products.