Many businesses realize that creating a successful brand franchise involves mobilizing the entire organization. Every aspect from the premises through the employees’ conduct (such as with customer relations) to company letterheads and formal marketing communications should reflect the values of the brand.  

 

A leading supplier of accounting and payroll software, Sage has a brand identity that communicates a feeling of confident control that leads to piece of mind; unlike most in the industry where marketing tends to focus on product features. Most customers who buy Sage software also purchase an annual telephone support contract. When they phone the hotline, the support technician’s ability to resolve their problem serves to reinforce the brand promise.  

 

For most businesses, brands are their primary source of competitive advantage and their most valuable strategic asset. Without brands, we’d live in a world of commodities – undifferentiated products that are traded solely on price, according to the laws of supply and demand. Branding enables companies to actively influence the demand side of the equation by encouraging consumers to base their purchase decisions on factors other than price.  

 

Branding is also important for consumers as it enables them to make informed purchase decisions and help them to navigate their way through the bewildering number of alternatives that exist in any product category.  

Differentiation is the most important concept in the creation of powerful brands, which can be differentiated in terms of product and/or service.  

 

This leads to four generic brand types:  

1. Commodity – Where an offering is differentiated neither in terms of product nor service such as precious metals and staple food products – however, the demand for organic produce is changing this paradigm.
   
2. Product Brand – Where an offering is differentiated in product but not in terms of service. Product brands can be further differentiated by intrinsic and extrinsic benefits such as most consumer goods on the markets. Hi-fi manufacturers focus primarily on the functionality of their products, while most mainstream soft-drink brands differentiate themselves largely in terms of image.
   
3. Service Brand – Where an offering is based on providing an intangible service such as financial services. However, creating a service brand can prove difficult since this relies heavily on humans rather than machines – making the result less reliable.
   
4. System Brand – Where an offering is differentiated in both product and service terms such as McDonald’s, which bases itself on the combination of food quality, fast service and environmental cleanliness.  

FOUNDATION OF BRAND CREATION  

 

Brand Proposition – This is the statement of the functional and emotional benefits that a business’ product or service offers to the consumer such as Coca-Cola.  

 

Brand Positioning – This describes a group of consumers whom the brand is aimed at and where it stands relative to the competition.  

 

Brand Identity (aka Brand Image) – This is the aggregation of words, images and ideas that the consumer associates with a brand.  

 

Components to Create the Brand

Product Design – Successful brand creation starts with this, where it’s about how the product looks and performs.  

 

Packaging – This is both a powerful tool for creating brand identity, where one can stand out from the crowd such as with the breakfast cereal on cluttered supermarket shelves.  

 

Advertising – Perhaps the brand manager’s most potent tool. Print and broadcast media can reach mass audiences as well as influence their behavior. The press can effectively communicate complex messages, while TV can use both sound and pictures to build brand imagery.  

 

Brands in the New Economic Millennium

In recent years, the brand manager’s task has become increasingly complex has brands have proliferated, media has fragmented and consumers have become cynical and skeptical.  

 

The Internet in particular has also changed the rules of games overnight that has made brand owners have to become more innovative and reinventing their brands to keep one step ahead of their competitors and consumers – moving from a one-to-many to a one-to-one marketing model as a result.  

 

Whereas radio and TV took years to reach tens of millions of people, the Internet has done it in a fraction of the time. It’s instantaneous, enables one-to-one communication, interactive and it’s multimedia – integrating text, sound and images. The most successful businesses that have utilized this new media have been those that are rooted in the old economy but have harnessed the Internet to extend their brand franchise.