Strategic Marketing Basics

Brands are not new ! It's one of the most prominent tool in marketing history and the most visible attribute the market society for people in the street.  There has been a lot of talks about brands. A number of disciplines analyzed their influence: sociology, law, journalism,...

 

In the marketing field itself, the number of books, articles, blogs is incomparable. You can find passionate amateurs of branding and famous brand fans everywhere. Brands are either adored or hated. Some predict their extinction while others believe in their never ended influence.

 

Here, we will not join the fashionistas in their emotional views of branding but rather try to understand what it brings to the marketing value proposition and consider how to manage brands as an image vehicle...

   

Role of brands

Roles of brands evolved overtime. At first, branding was used to identify products of different producers. The word "brand" comes from branding the cattle in the far west. Each ranch had its own sign marked on the cattle through a red iron. So ranch owners could leave their cows free in the fields and still recognize their own.

 

After some time, as brands used to identify manufacturers, they were used by customers as a recognition of quality. Then came the idea of reputation: a good name would mean a good product. This was the first notion of adding value to the product through its name.

 

As competition increased overtime, as markets expanded beyond local territories and as quality management became a standard, brands became a differentiation tool. Each brand would "mean something" and actually reflect the positioning idea chosen by the marketer.

 

Today, in a crowded market place, overloaded by thousands of local, regional and global brands, an additional role is to create a proximity with customers and users, to carry an identity that should fit customers personalities. Nevertheless, the roles of identification, reputation driver and differentiation are not wiped out: a strong brand, being a niche one or a mass market one, being in B to C or B to B, should play all these roles. 

 

What distinguishes a brand from its unbranded commodity counterpart and gives it equity is the sum total of consumers’ perceptions and feelings about the product’s attributes and how they perform, about the brand name and what it stands for, about the company associated with the brand. Alvin Achenbaum

 

Brand management

 

Brands should be managed strategically and operationally.

 

Strategic brand management will care for setting up and developing the key elements leading to a strong "brand equity", in coherence with the chosen positioning concept, the target segment(s) profile and the brand history if any. A good example of that is Unilever Brand Key Vision Model (see picture and video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjJwE13gWzU )

 

Operational brand management will care for promoting and activating the brand in the field with a number of techniques such as advertising, PR, event management, sponsoring, earned media, web activation, etc.

 

 

Brand strength evaluation

 

The brand image can be evaluated on seceral criterias among which:

 

• brand awareness (the degree to which the brand name is known by the target audience)

• brand perceived value (the brand  value as perceived by the target audience)

• brand preference (share of "customer heart")

• brand attributes (elements the target audience associates with the brand)

• brand identity & personality (consistency with positioning and target profile)