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Introduction: The ‘Brand’ word derives from the Old Norse Brandr meaning “to

burn”. It means, practise of producers to burning their mark on products [ CITATION

kev10 \l 1033 ]. The American Marketing Association (AMA) defines brand as a “name,

sign, term, sign, symbol or design or 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”. Therefore, branding is not about choosing target markets for

competition, but it’s a method to make your product as an only solution to satisfy

consumer needs[ CITATION Lau10 \l 1033 ]. Consumers always look for brand which

make them feel unique and memorable, that’s why brand experience comes in

existence which becoming greater interest to marketers’ [ CITATION Zar10 \l 1033 ]. A

famous phrase by Walter Landor,’ Products are produced in factory, but brands are

produced in the minds of customers’[ CITATION Zai10 \l 1033 ].

Brand is complex symbol that consist of six levels of meaning [ CITATION KOT \l 1033 ]:

1. Attributes: A brand brings some attributes in mind of people. Nokia, for well

built, durability, reliability.

2. Benefits: Above mentioned attributes must be translated into functional and

emotional benefits. Like, Durability, people won’t have to buy another mobile

for years. The attribute reliability, people knows Nokia is reliable, because its

increases reach ability among individuals.

3. Values: The brand also says something about the producer’s values. The

reason for buying BMW is reliability, speed, safety etc. The customer

identifies above mentioned values with BMW brand which helps him in

choosing among other brands available in the market.


4. Culture: The brand may represent a certain culture like, BMW represents

German culture.

5. Personality: the brand resembles personality like, BMW shows executive

class vehicle.

6. User: Brands defines kind of user who buy and uses like, BMW resembles,

Boss, top-executive not like college going student.

Above mentioned attributed differentiate brand from product. Brands play an

important role in consumer buying behaviour, and made them feel good, like, Calvin

Klein, Armani, Gucci etc, consumer feel luxurious after purchasing these brands, a

sense of luxury that’s why they willing to pay premium amount.

Brands value for the companies more than their tangible assets. “Amazon.com will

sell its fixed assets to focus on managing its brand, becoming the ‘Coca-Cola’ of the

web” (Jeff Bezos, CEO, Amazon.com). Tangible assets like plants, equipment and

real-estate is not valuable then intangible assets such as management skills,

marketing, financial and operations and most important brands. “When choices

become vast, the only things that matter are brand names”(Michael Eisner, CEO,

Disney). John Stuart, CEO of Quaker Oats (1952-1956), said, “ If this company were

to split up I would give you the property, plant and equipment and I would take the

brands and the trademarks and I would fare better than you” [ CITATION Kel93 \l 1033 ].

The below mention table shows top ten brands in 2010 [ CITATION Bes10 \l 1033 ]:
TOP TEN BRANDS IN 2010

1. Coca-Cola 70,452 ($m)


2. IBM 64,727 ($m)
3. Microsoft 60,895 ($m)
4. Google 43,557 ($m)
5. GE 42,808 ($m)
6. McDonald's 33,578 ($m)
7. Intel 32,015 ($m)
8. Nokia 29,495 ($m)
9. Disney 28,731 ($m)
10. Hewlett-Packard 26,867 ($m)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

World is dynamic in nature which keeps on changing according to time, that’s why

companies brand manager’s need to develop strategies according to the change.

Branding concepts comes with both advantages and disadvantages which as

follows:

Advantages of branding:

Brand provides distinct benefits, promise, and delivers high level assurance to

customer. Powerful brand has high brand equity, one of its measures extend to

which customer willing to pay more for the brand. For example, if we compare

specification between Dell Inspiron 15R and Apple MacBook Pro, both have have

same specification, however, Dell Inspiron is more value for money but pricewise,

Dell laptop cost’s between $429-$450 and Apple MacBook $880-1100, [ CITATION

Lap10 \l 1033 ] that’s huge price difference, that’s difference is called premium, which

Brand enjoys by providing psychological satisfaction to the customer. A brand shows

choice and social class of person and its value orientation. So the customer has to

make choice between different brand on laptop, he chooses Apple MacBook for

speed, design, reliability, durability , class and experience, although speed he can
get in Dell but Apple MacBook has its own class and customer experience with a

sense of durability and reliability.

Customer choose BMW car can be speed, safety, reliability, and driving pleasure,

the customer finds above mentioned values in BMW which helps customer to choose

from other brands.

Brand helps customer in decision making by building trust and assurance of

standards. A brand helps companies in building strong customer base like e.g.

Quaker Oats, McDonalds, Harley Davidson and Kellogg’s. Customers are ready to

accept line extensions like Apple and Microsoft. A brand provide customer and

employees who works for them a feeling of pride, if someone is working with Infosys

and Microsoft, company brand name motivates employees that they are working with

some branded institution. Technology never remains same, its keep on changing,

same like brands which keep on innovating to become successful. Consistently

reinventing and remain on its promise is the quality of brand which customer

appreciate. Loyal set of customer base helps brand to enjoy monopolistic advantage

over a period of time. Customer enjoys quality of products and services because

brands create healthy competitions among competitors which indirectly benefits

consumers. For example, Gillette, Coca-cola, Brooke Bond Tea, Colgate toothpaste

and other are leaders in their product categories, due to continuous innovation

[ CITATION Kev08 \l 1033 ]. Ten most innovative brands listed below.


RANK COMPANY

1 Apple

2 Google

3 Toyota Motor

4 General Electric

5 Microsoft

6 Tata Group

7 Nitendo

8 Proctor and Gamble

9 Sony

10 Nokia

Source: [ CITATION The10 \l 1033 ]

Branding helps in product identification which is a critical advantage of branding, and

it helps marketers to differentiate product from competitors. According to Kotler and

Keller, Strong brands help marketers in many ways, listed below:

- Improved Perceptions of Product performance


- Greater Loyalty
- Less Vulnerability to Competitive Marketing Actions
- Less Vulnerability to Marketing Crises
- Larger Margins
- More Inelastic Consumer Response to Price Increases
- More Elastic Consumer Response to Price Decreases
- Greater Trade Cooperation and Support
- Increased Marketing Communications Effectiveness
- Possible Licensing Opportunities
- Additional Brand Extension Opportunities

Source:[ CITATION Kot06 \l 1033 ]


Disadvantages of Branding:

Brands are very important for consumers as well as marketers but, nowadays, brand

management is becoming more and more difficult for both. Consumer need to pay

high prices as premium for brands, as well as for marketers, they need do lots of

investment on advertising, Research and development etc in order to position their

brand in current competitive world. Brand building and managing is very costly

process and consumer has to bear the cost with companies of no surety of

successful positioning of brand in market. Consumers trust brand blindly that’s why

sometimes manufacture comprise with the quality to increase profits. Customer’s

expectations are always high for brands and they expect the same positive response

from company side. If customers get negative response from the companies brand

dilution occurs where customers starts losing their interest in brand. None of the

company affords brand dilution that’s why concept of internal branding with

employees occurs in order to make them understand the values of brand and

promises which brand makes with customers.

Living in a global world, nowadays key business will India, China, Brazil and Russia.

In order to make brand, as Global brand, marketers need to remove the

concentration of west and focus on world as a global village [ CITATION Dav10 \l 1033 ].

Making global is not easy, it requires large investment both on advertising and

promotions which indirectly going to increase the product price. Investment on Brand

promotion is consider social waste which increase cost of production and making

brand price higher. For example, Nike, Adidas and Puma, these brands are
expensive than Slazenger, Umbro and Converse. All these brands make sporting

cloths for youth and Nike, Adidas and Puma make huge investment on

advertisement and other promotional activities but Slazenger, Umbro and Converse

does not invest much on promotional activities that’s why they are cheap and in

reach of everyone. The main disadvantages of branding is when one brand

perceived in a one way then it is difficult to change it an alternative way, even though

due to change in dynamic environment. Coca-cola made this same mistake; Coca-

Cola is a very strong and 124 year old brand. They made mistake by making their

flavour sweeter in order to give competition to Pepsi. Because of this, Coca-Cola

faced huge criticism from consumers. After 3 months launch of New Coke,

Company’s announced the return of Coca-Cola classic. According to Mark

Pendergrast, “Coca-Cola was really a symbol of something that was seemingly solid

and it represents something that wasn’t changing” [ CITATION Bla08 \l 1033 ]. Coca-Cola

took a risk and they suffer, they forget that people need Coca-Cola not because of

refreshing taste; they need because Coca-Cola is a part of American culture.

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