Branding Concept & Definition
Branding is the art and corner stone of marketing. The American marketing association defines a brand as: a name, sign, symbol, or design, or a combination of them, intended to identify the goods and services of one seller or group of sellers and to differentiate them from those of competitors.
Thus a brand identifies the seller or maker. Under trademark law, the seller is granted exclusive rights to the use of the brand name in perpetuity. Brands differ from other assets such as patents and copyrights, which have expiration dates.
A brand is a complex symbol that can convey up to six levels of meaning
Attributes: a brand brings to mind certain attributes. Mercedes suggests expensive, well-build, well-engineered, durable, high prestige automobiles.
Benefits: attributes must be translated into functional and emotional benefits. The attribute “durable “could translate into the function benefit “I wont have to buy another car for several years”. The attribute “ expensive “ translate into emotional benefit. “ the car makes me feel important and admire”.
Values: the brand also says something about producer’s values. Mercedes stands for her performance, safety, and prestige.
Culture: The brand may represent a certain culture. The Mercedes represents a Garman culture: organized, efficient, high quality.
Personality: the brand can project a certain personality. Mercedes may suggest a no nonsense boss (person), or an austere palace (object).
User: The brand suggests the kind of consumers who buys or uses the product. We would expect to see a fifty five year old top executive behind the wheel of a Mercedes, not a twenty-year-old secretary.
The word "brand", when used as a noun, can refer to a company name, a product name, or a unique identifier such as a logo or trademark. In a time before fences were used in ranching to keep one's cattle separate from other people's cattle, ranch owners branded, or marked, their cattle so they could later identify their herd as their own.
The concept of branding also developed through the practices of craftsmen who wanted to place a mark or identifier on their work without detracting from the beauty of the piece. These craftsmen used their initials, a symbol, or another unique mark to identify their work.
Not too long afterwards, high quality cattle and art became identifiable in the consumer's mind by particular symbols and marks. Consumers would actually seek out certain marks because they had associated those marks in their minds with tastier beef, higher quality pottery or furniture, sophisticated artwork, and overall better products. If the producer differentiated their product as superior in the mind of the consumer, then that producer's mark or brand came to represent superiority.
Today's modern concept of branding grew out of the consumer packaged goods industry and the process of branding has come to include much, much more than just creating a way to identify a product or company.
Branding today is used to create emotional attachment to products and companies. Branding efforts create a feeling of involvement, a sense of higher quality, and an aura of intangible qualities that surround the brand name, mark, or symbol.
A brand also stands for the immediate image, emotions, or message people experience when they think of a company or product. A brand represents all the tangible and intangible qualities and aspects of a product or service.
A brand represents a collection of feelings and perceptions about quality, image, lifestyle, and status. It is precisely because brands represent intangible qualities that the term is often hard to define. Intangible qualities, perceptions, and feelings are often hard to grasp and clearly describe. Brands create a perception in the mind of the customer that there is no other product or service on the market that is quite like theirs..
A brand promises to deliver value upon which consumers and prospective purchasers can rely to be consistent over long periods of time
Brand Positioning
The concept of perpetual space forms the theoretical basis for positioning . The consumer’s mind is thought of as geometric space and brands are plotted in that space to represent consumer judgments. This is done with the help of perpetual maps that helps a marketer to see which brands are closer to his brand and that helps him to find out his closest competitors.
The task of the marketer is to mould consumer perceptions so as to occupy the desired position for his brand. Some thoughts offered by various authors with respect to Brand Positioning are as follows:
1)Subroto Sengupta gives a comprehensive three point definition for positioning.
According to him
a) The position of a brand is the perception it brings about in the minds of the target consumer.
b) This perception reflects the essence of the brand in terms of its funcional and non-functional benefits in the judgement of that consumer.
c) It is relative to the perceptions , held by that consumer, of competing brands , all of which can be represented as points or positions in his or her perpetual space and together make up a product class.
2) According to Reilbstein , David J “ Positioning refers to the place a brand occupies in the mind in relation to a given product class. This place was originally a product related concept concerning market structure .The concept now refers to the place that the brand holds in the consumers mind relative to perception and preferences”.
3) Michael J Baker defines Brand Positioning as “ the policy used to ensure that the brand has a distinctive position in the market place , identifiable by the consuming public. Brand Positioning (has) to ensure the brand a distinct niche in the market ”.
4) Mittelstadt, Charles “Positioning refers to how you want your brand ‘ thought about’ in connection with competitors in its product category . Positioning needs to be specific to your brand aimed at specific target audiences
Branding is the art and corner stone of marketing. The American marketing association defines a brand as: a name, sign, symbol, or design, or a combination of them, intended to identify the goods and services of one seller or group of sellers and to differentiate them from those of competitors.
Thus a brand identifies the seller or maker. Under trademark law, the seller is granted exclusive rights to the use of the brand name in perpetuity. Brands differ from other assets such as patents and copyrights, which have expiration dates.
A brand is a complex symbol that can convey up to six levels of meaning
Attributes: a brand brings to mind certain attributes. Mercedes suggests expensive, well-build, well-engineered, durable, high prestige automobiles.
Benefits: attributes must be translated into functional and emotional benefits. The attribute “durable “could translate into the function benefit “I wont have to buy another car for several years”. The attribute “ expensive “ translate into emotional benefit. “ the car makes me feel important and admire”.
Values: the brand also says something about producer’s values. Mercedes stands for her performance, safety, and prestige.
Culture: The brand may represent a certain culture. The Mercedes represents a Garman culture: organized, efficient, high quality.
Personality: the brand can project a certain personality. Mercedes may suggest a no nonsense boss (person), or an austere palace (object).
User: The brand suggests the kind of consumers who buys or uses the product. We would expect to see a fifty five year old top executive behind the wheel of a Mercedes, not a twenty-year-old secretary.
The word "brand", when used as a noun, can refer to a company name, a product name, or a unique identifier such as a logo or trademark. In a time before fences were used in ranching to keep one's cattle separate from other people's cattle, ranch owners branded, or marked, their cattle so they could later identify their herd as their own.
The concept of branding also developed through the practices of craftsmen who wanted to place a mark or identifier on their work without detracting from the beauty of the piece. These craftsmen used their initials, a symbol, or another unique mark to identify their work.
Not too long afterwards, high quality cattle and art became identifiable in the consumer's mind by particular symbols and marks. Consumers would actually seek out certain marks because they had associated those marks in their minds with tastier beef, higher quality pottery or furniture, sophisticated artwork, and overall better products. If the producer differentiated their product as superior in the mind of the consumer, then that producer's mark or brand came to represent superiority.
Today's modern concept of branding grew out of the consumer packaged goods industry and the process of branding has come to include much, much more than just creating a way to identify a product or company.
Branding today is used to create emotional attachment to products and companies. Branding efforts create a feeling of involvement, a sense of higher quality, and an aura of intangible qualities that surround the brand name, mark, or symbol.
A brand also stands for the immediate image, emotions, or message people experience when they think of a company or product. A brand represents all the tangible and intangible qualities and aspects of a product or service.
A brand represents a collection of feelings and perceptions about quality, image, lifestyle, and status. It is precisely because brands represent intangible qualities that the term is often hard to define. Intangible qualities, perceptions, and feelings are often hard to grasp and clearly describe. Brands create a perception in the mind of the customer that there is no other product or service on the market that is quite like theirs..
A brand promises to deliver value upon which consumers and prospective purchasers can rely to be consistent over long periods of time
Brand Positioning
The concept of perpetual space forms the theoretical basis for positioning . The consumer’s mind is thought of as geometric space and brands are plotted in that space to represent consumer judgments. This is done with the help of perpetual maps that helps a marketer to see which brands are closer to his brand and that helps him to find out his closest competitors.
The task of the marketer is to mould consumer perceptions so as to occupy the desired position for his brand. Some thoughts offered by various authors with respect to Brand Positioning are as follows:
1)Subroto Sengupta gives a comprehensive three point definition for positioning.
According to him
a) The position of a brand is the perception it brings about in the minds of the target consumer.
b) This perception reflects the essence of the brand in terms of its funcional and non-functional benefits in the judgement of that consumer.
c) It is relative to the perceptions , held by that consumer, of competing brands , all of which can be represented as points or positions in his or her perpetual space and together make up a product class.
2) According to Reilbstein , David J “ Positioning refers to the place a brand occupies in the mind in relation to a given product class. This place was originally a product related concept concerning market structure .The concept now refers to the place that the brand holds in the consumers mind relative to perception and preferences”.
3) Michael J Baker defines Brand Positioning as “ the policy used to ensure that the brand has a distinctive position in the market place , identifiable by the consuming public. Brand Positioning (has) to ensure the brand a distinct niche in the market ”.
4) Mittelstadt, Charles “Positioning refers to how you want your brand ‘ thought about’ in connection with competitors in its product category . Positioning needs to be specific to your brand aimed at specific target audiences