Importance of Brands

Follow-up to Brand Equity from Saya's Ramblings...

“A brand name represents a strong communication link between the firm and the market”

Market based assets: (Garvin, 1996)
•    Consumer trust
•    Perceived quality
•    Perceived value of brand

Brand instruments:
•    Trademarks
•    Symbols
•    Logo
•    Registered designs
•    Brand name and firms’ reputation
•    Integrated communication

Successful implementation of brand strategies:
•    Advertising
•    Media
•    Packaging
•    Networking and word of mouth to create a strong, favourable and unique association (Keller, 1998)
•    Public relations teams
•    Charity events
•    Low-cost promotions
•    Sponsorships
•    Linkages with other companies, spokespeople, personalities

Brand effects:
•    Competitiveness in the marketplace
•    By creating market-based assets perceived by the consumer, firms are able to nurture perceived brand value and consumer brand equity, which in turn create profitability for the firm
•    Brands create the identity of the firm in terms of name or trademark or a consumer influence on their minds
•    Brands enable consumers to make confident, purchase decisions thus easier for firms with previous brands to introduce newer brands, adding to less risk for firms to innovate to produce newer products and services
•    Brands are a key source of immutable assets for the firm, where they can not be copied by their competitors and thus differentiating feature, leading to sustainable growth

“Brand strategy is a policy for creating and nurturing sustainable competitive advantage. It consists of “the development and maintenance of sets of product attributes and values which are coherent, appropriate , distinctive, protectable and appealing to customers” (Murphy, 1992:3)

Brand strategy challenges:
•    High resources, budgets required
•    Impact on creating growth opportunities and market based assets
•    Coherent, consistent and integrated communications policy in the midst of immense competition (corporate communication)
•    The guarantee that the brand strategy will work. The effectiveness of the plans

Brand traits:
•    Memorable, simple, recognisable by customers, credible and deliverable (Blacket and Denton, 1992:79)



Bibliography

Blacket, Tom and Graham Denton (1992), Developing New Brands, in: John Murphy (Editor.), Branding a Key Marketing Tool (2nd), 73-85, Basingstoke, UK: MacMillan Press.

Garvin, David (1993), Building a Learning Organisation, Harvard, Business Review, 71(July-August)

Keller, Kevin Lane (1998), Strategic Brand Management: Building, Measuring and Managing Brand Equity, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Prentice Hall

Murphy, John (1992), What is Branding?, in: John Murphy, (Editor) Branding a Key Marketing Tool, London: Macmillan Academic and Professional Ltd.

: 09 Dec 2008 10:13 |  Tags: Brand Equity Intangible Research |  Comments (0) |  Report a problem