Marketing : Branding Strategies

What is a Brand?

In Principles of Marketing, by Philip Kotler and Gary Armstrong a brand is defined as ‘a name, term, sign symbol or a combination of these, that identifies the maker or seller of the product’

P.Tailor of www.learnmarketing.net defines a brand as a ‘Marketing tool that allows consumers to recognize the maker of a product’.

Why brand?

A brand name helps an organization differentiate itself from its competitors. In today’s competitive world no product can go without a brand. Customers often build up a relationship with a brand that they trust and will often go back to time and time again. For example, some people may only purchase a Sony TV although there are acceptable alternatives on the market, because of a past positive history with this brand.

Brand Equity

How much is a brand worth? Brand equity refers to the value of the brand. Brand equity does not develop instantaneously. A brand needs to be carefully nurtured and marketed so consumers feel real value and trust towards that brand. Nike, Adidas, Harrods, have high brand equity. These brand command high awareness and consumer loyalty. But how much are these brands worth? It is difficult to put a value on these brands. But how much is a pair of Nike trainer’s worth without the logo on it?

Branding strategies

When a company manages its brands it has a number of strategies it can use to further increase its brand value. These are:

Line extension: This is where an organization adds to its current product line by introducing, versions with new features, an example could be a Crisp manufacturer extending its line by adding more exotic flavors.

Brand extension: If your current brand name is successful, you may use the brand name to extend into new or existing areas. For example Virgin extending its brand from records, to airlines, to mobiles.

Multi Branding: The Company decides to further introduce more brands into an already existing category. Kellogg’s for example having a number of brands in the cereal market and the cereal bar market. Multi-branding can allow an organization to maximize profits, but a company needs to be weary over their own brands competing with each other over market share.

New Brands: An organization may decide to launch a new brand into a market. A new brand may be used to compete with existing rivals and may be marketed as something ‘new and fresh’.