The benefits of branding marketing essay

Abstract

Marketing directors are driven today not by the need to build a brand, but by the need to develop their market, launch new extensions or initiatives. A brand is a person’s gut feeling about a product, service or company. Innovations are ideas applied successfully in practice. As one size doesn’t fit all, you need to build a culture of innovation that fits your organisation. Innovation is an idea that causes your target to think and interact differently with your business proposition.

” A brand is synonymous with ‘reputation’. The two are inseparable. Brand is the visible, tangible, experiential flag/marker for, and evidence of, reputation.”

-‘ Damson Sky’

Brand Innovation transforms your brand into a dynamic, relevant asset, and then directs it with purpose and creativity to a position of preference in your markets. It requires a new way of thinking, the courage and commitment by executive management to seek real and positive change. A brand’s competitive position can be strengthened through creation, improvement, reduction and/or elimination of the elements that affect the brand experience. Brands are avenues of value innovation in a creative engagement between companies and their customers. Brands represent an important part of intellectual property for businesses, sometimes more than the technical know-how behind product or service advantage. The purpose of the study is to test whether brands play a measurable role in turning new product ideas into great innovations.

Keywords: Brand, Customers, Innovation.

INTRODUCTION

A BRAND is the change that we believe in. A brand is the product of a particular supplier which is being distinguished by its name and demonstration. In brand innovation new brands, new projects and creative thinking are specialised to reinvent existing brands. Listen to ideas, embrace risk, learn from failure, and reward bravery. One should allow small, fragile ideas the time to grow into big strong ones. A brand is something on which we believe blindly or we can say that the product which we are buying would have no flaws.

” Know what your customers want most and what your company does best. Focus on where those two meet.”……… Kevin Stirtz [1]

A process is followed to reach the innovation i. e. from the brand strategy to the culture of innovation, design thinking should be followed. If you want to innovate something, you got to have a design first. Innovation is a team support. Moreover, when there is increase in competition consumer is always benefitted because of different brands, more choices and better value to the consumers is guaranteed. The explosion of choice facing the consumers has resulted in more and more investment being placed in brand and product development by manufacturers in order to capture the attention and loyalty of the consumer. Manufacturers have, for example, increasingly developed brands which are carefully targeted at specific, often inexorably attracted to the branded products of their competitors and imitate as much as innovate when developing new products. [2]The meaning of the word ‘ Brand’ essentially depends on the context it is used. It is used by professional or a consumer, used by someone in marketing, sales, research and development or design, used in business to business context or business to consumer context. Depending on these different contexts and their unique environments, the brand may operate as the logo of the company. [3]

FEATURES OF THE BRANDS

The creation of the successful brand entails blending of pricing, distribution, packaging, brand name, promotion and its overall look and presentation together in a unique way. It is far more than just a product – it is the particular, differentiated product of one supplier. The product has the quality standards. The customer is having a trust on the branded products. The branded product has long life. Brands are trustworthy and reliable. If the branded product has any flaws, then the product is exchangeable or money back guarantee is also there. On branded products, one gets the proper after sales services. Having a brand is something we can say a fashion statement. Brand creates loyalty.

THE THREE Cs OF BRANDING

A brand has to be nurtured. It takes time, thought and consistent application. But it does not have to take big budgets. It is a mindset that requires both discipline and passion. It’s about caring for the big picture and the small detail. When managing your brand, keep the three Cs at the front of your mind. CREDIBILITY: A brand has been described as ” everything you say and everything you do.” A credible brand will always align the way a business behaves with the way it is portrayed. This close connection will ensure that your customer’s instinctive reaction is one of trust and belief in your brand not one of doubt and uncertainty. CLARITY: A strong brand is based on clearly defined values, that are important to your customers and that differentiate you from your competitors. A clear understanding of these values throughout your business will ensure that they are communicated clearly through ” everything you say and everything you do.” CONSISTENCY: The value of a brand comes through recognition and recognition comes from consistent application of every visible manifestation of your brand, at every ‘ touch point’ that your customers experience.

BENEFITS OF BRANDING

Almost every business has a trading name, from the smallest market trader to the largest multi-national corporation. Only a minority of those businesses however, have what could be classed as a brand. ” A brand is an asset of differentiating promises that links a product to its customers”….. Stuart Agres, Young & RubicamBranding is the process of creating typical and long-lasting perceptions in the minds of consumers. A brand creates real value in the eyes of industry partners, and perceived value in the eyes of product users. A brand is a dogged, unique business identity twined with associations of personality, quality, origin, liking and more. Although most people associate brands with big companies, the smallest of enterprises can use branding techniques with great rewards. BRAND AWARENESS: Brand awareness means that our brand will become more recognised, unforgettable and front of mind for our target market which will set us apart from the competition. And once we establish our brand we will have a much stronger platform for growth through new products/markets and retailer distribution. IMAGE OF SIZE: A strong brand will project an image of a large and established business to your potential customers. People usually associate branding with larger businesses that have the money to spend on advertising and promotion. If we can create effective branding, then we can make our business appear to be much bigger than it really is. An image of size and establishment can be especially important when a customer wants reassurance that we will still be around in a few years time. BRAND LOYALTY: When people have a positive experience with a unforgettable brand, they’re more likely to buy that product or service again than competing brands. And the people who are closely attached with a brand identity are not only more likely to repurchase what they bought, but will also buy related items of the same brand and will recommend the brand to others and to resist the lure of a competitor’s price cut. We can say that the brand identity helps to create and to anchor such loyalty. IMAGE OF QUALITY: A strong brand projects an image of quality in our business; many people see the brand as a part of a product or service that helps to show its quality and value. It is commonly said that if we show a person two identical products, only one of which is branded; they will almost always believe the branded item is higher quality. If we can create effective branding, then over time the image of quality in your business will usually go up. Of course, branding cannot replace good quality, and bad publicity will damage a brand (and your businesses image), especially if it continues over a long period of time. IMAGE OF EXPERIENCE AND RELIABILITY: A strong brand creates an image of an established business that has been around for long enough to become well known. A branded business is more likely to be seen as experienced in their products or services, and will generally be seen as more reliable and trustworthy than an unbranded business. Most people will believe that a business would be hesitant to put their brand name on something that was of poor quality. PROFIT/MARGINS: Creating a strong, reputable brand helps us to command a better price in the market place. It also gives you healthier margins than private label/contract manufacturing. In fact brands are also increasingly being accepted as assets which have a tangible financial value on your balance sheet. A good brand is an honest brand – you must always be able to stand over the authenticity of your claims and communicate a consistent message to your market and that’s why adopting a measure brand strategy is so important. MULTIPLE PRODUCTS: If your business has a strong brand, it allows you to link together several different products or ranges. You can put your brand name on every product or service you sell, meaning that customers for one product will be more likely to buy another product from you. INNOVATION is the engine of long-term economic development because it is the channel through which improved knowledge is applied to economic processes. We know that economic growth theories and models converge/meet in giving a central role to innovation. And Growth rests ultimately on innovating firms. Innovation is not costless: it requires investment and resource commitment. Investments in tangible and intangible innovation assets – such as research, design, training and skills, intellectual property, organisational and managerial abilities etc. – are needed to underpin/support the productivity growth that drives both GDP growth and wider welfare. Innovation is about creating sustainable value, and sometimes a new way of using existing technology creates more value than the invention of the new technology, for example: Apple , famous for its innovations, is very clever at applying existing technology, for instance. Anyone can innovate, no matter whether you are in accounting, human resources, marketing or sales. [2]

WORLD’S MOST ADMIRED COMPANIES (TOP FIVE – 2012)

APPLE: TOP 50 RANK: 1

INDUSTRY RANK IN COMPUTERS: 1

Apple is being ranked as the number one company in computers and in top 50 among world’s most admired companies. The top most company ‘ Apple’ led by Steve Jobs has disrupted three different industries — (the Mac) for computers, (the iPod) for music and (Pixar) for movies.

WHY IT’S ADMIRED:

To say it was another big year for Apple would be a gross understatement. As when Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple passed away in 2011, the company’s future was swirling. But under the guidance of new CEO Tim Cooks, Apple continues to flourish. And moreover, there was an 81% increase in iPhone sales and a 334% spike in iPad sales, climbing company’s annual revenue to $108 billion. Increased sales across the board explain why the company’s shares soared 75% during the fiscal year to $495.

GOOGLE: TOP 50 RANK: 2

RANK IN INTERNET SERVICES AND RETAILING: 1

Google is being ranked as the number one in internet services and retailing and as number two among world’s most admired companies.

WHY IT’S ADMIRED:

The year 2011 has been turned out as the period of transition for ‘ Google’. ‘ Eric Schmidt’, the CEO of Google from August 2001 to April 2011 passed the CEO reins onto co-founder ‘ Larry Page’ in April 2011, who not long after essentially streamlined the company into six major product areas, including search, social, mobile, and ads. Google made several accomplishments spending $12. 5 billion for Motorola Mobility and $125 million for Zagat, among others. Consumer-facing services like Gmail, YouTube, and Google Reader saw significant updates, and the company finally revealed its social network, Google+. Android also continued to reign. According to Andy Rubin, the co-founder and former CEO of Android Inc. SVP of mobile, 700, 000 Android devices are now activated every day.

AMAZON. COM: TOP 50 RANK: 3

RANK IN INTERNET SERVICES AND RETAILING: 2

Amazon is being ranked as number two in internet services and retailing and as number three in world’s most admired companies.

WHY IT’S ADMIRED:

Amazon comfortably sacrifices its profits in the short-term for long-term gains unlike many other large tech companies. That’s why, in spite of the fact that 2011 revenues went up to $48 billion, net income dropped down 55% to $631 million. The company levelled much of its capital at expansion efforts, including plans to open 17 new fulfilment centres. Later in the year, Amazon released the Kindle Fire, a tablet which by one estimate may have sold as many as 6 million units last holiday season.

COCA-COLA: TOP 50 RANK: 4

RANK IN BEVERAGES: 1

Coca-Cola is being ranked as number one in beverages and as number four in world’s most admired companies.

WHY IT’S ADMIRED:

The soda industry may be struggling, but Coke has managed to hold strong through the storm. The Coke, the beverage giant leads the industry in market share in spite of sales of its original Coca-Cola brand having slowed in North America. As the Coke is expanding the brand beyond the sugary sparkling beverages, it is growing globally. Coke has seen a moderate growth in its still beverage brands, including PowerAde and Gold Peak Tea.

IBM: TOP 50 RANK: 5

RANK IN INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY SERVICES: 1

IBM is being ranked as number one in information technology services and as number five in world’s most admired companies.

WHY IT’S ADMIRED:

In 1911, Big Blue was born from the merger of three disparate-seeming businesses to become the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company. The company has undergone several changes since its inception too by accomplishing companies such as Kenexa (2012) and SPSS (2009) and organizations such as PwC’s consulting business (2002). Fast forward a century later, the company celebrated its 100th anniversary with record annual profit of $15. 9 billion, a 7% year-over-year increase. Much of that came from healthy revenue growth in BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India, and China), business analytics, cloud services, and Smarter Planet, IBMs ongoing campaign to solve real-world problems, from traffic congestion to water management. [4]When businesses think of brands, they don’t usually consider brands as being part of the innovation process. Well, it’s time to change that perception of brands. Truth is, brands themselves can be powerful engines of innovation.  They can spring customers to higher levels that competitors can’t reach. Through their own platforms and programs, they can reshape markets, and create new market opportunities

BRAND INNOVATION SUCCESS STORIES

Repositioning an established brand can certainly be an intimidating undertaking for a brand manager. Giving a brand a new meaning or targeting a new consumer group runs the risk of possibly disenfranchising the brand’s existing base – a dramatic, and potentially risky, proposition. Still, in an ever increasingly competitive marketplace, sometimes an aggressive strategy is necessary to redefine consumer perceptions and drive immediate and sustainable growth. From these three case studies we will analyze that they are the great examples of brand innovation success. REPOSITIONING CASE STUDY #1: JOHNSON’S BABYOBJECTIVE: Reach a broader target groupJOHNSON’S BABY products have been known and loved by moms and babies for decades. The products stand for gentle care, no tears and soft skin. As consumer research revealed that babies were not the only ones who enjoyed having soft skin. After discovering that some moms were also using the Johnson’s baby products, the company reconsidered its target market and soon re-defined the brand for the adult usage as well. The brand innovation effort was elusive but definite, and was expressed by a change in advertising that showed moms also using both the baby oil and baby lotion. Johnson’s baby executed the repositioning brilliantly by maintaining its products’ association with babies while leveraging the brands well-established trust and positive reputation to attract adults into the business as well. For meeting the needs of the new target market, the company instead of changing the product it helped the adults to realize that the Johnson’s baby products can be useful for the adults skin too. REPOSITIONING CASE STUDY #2: OLD SPICEOBJECTIVE: Brand image refreshIn the beginning of 2010, OLD SPICE had an outdated image that made young consumers shopping for deodorant skip right over to the sexy Axe or the sporty Right Guard. As a result, the Old Spice brand management team set out to give the brand a fresher, more edgy voice, while honouring its traditional reputation for worldly experience and masculinity. The ” Smell like a Man, Man” campaign shows a confident young man praise the product’s qualities in an edgy and slightly humorous way. The fresh tone of the campaign strongly came across with young men (and young women), and the campaign went viral. The result of this brand innovation effort was that Old Spice not only became part of young men’s grooming consideration set, but the brand became the market leader in the men’s deodorants and antiperspirants category. REPOSITIONING CASE STUDY #3: PHILIPSOBJECTIVE: Unify the portfolio imageIn 2003, PHILIPS’ product portfolio included consumer goods from the personal care, entertainment and self-expression categories.  More importantly, each brand within Philips’ portfolio were not unified, they use to have different advertising for their respective product, making the overall company advertising spend unfocused and inefficient. In an effort to create a more unified family of brands, one that communicated a shared and reinforced the overall company brand, the Philips management team decided to reposition the brand and its promise. The new brand promise became ” Sense and Simplicity”. The three benefits supporting the new brand promise were: designed around you, easy to experience and advanced. This new concept was the lens through which Philips evaluated all of its new launches. Moreover, all the brand communications now worked towards creating a common ” sense and simplicity” image, making the company portfolio appear much more cohesive and unified. [5]

BRAND CORE MODEL

In traditional brands, the brand team outsource its work to ad agencies and design firms. But this outsourcing does not go far enough for value-based brands. In value-based brands, the brand team is responsible for innovating brand value. They are first and foremost innovators and are the central members of company’s innovation team. Within the brand-centric enterprise, the brand is the core of a value creation process and the hub of a value network, feeding the innovation pipeline within the company, and between the company and its customers. This new brand environment differs radically from that of traditional brands. The brands produced are action-based. The Brand Core Model exemplifies how innovation and value are co-created by groups inside and outside the company, mediated by the brand. At the intersection of Company and Product, the brand figures Marketing in which it defines the platforms and programs which will create and attract the customers to grow the business. Brand platforms and programs become the structure for marketing imagination. At the intersection of Product and Customer, the brand figures Innovation in three ways: 1) it will provide clear brand platform and customer platform direction to R&D, in development of product and engineering; 2) it will help in developing cost-effective and high-value prototypes, and 3) it will draft customer initiative and intelligence to increase the innovation process. At the intersection of Customer and Company, the brand figures Value by using cooperative methods and value networks to establish an exclusive context of mutual (company/customer) value. This helps contemporize brand platform production with customer platform needs. Because the brand is committed to creating customer freedoms, it does not lead to backwater pools where innovation stand-still in an attempt to contain customers. [6]

LEVERS FOR INNOVATION

Discovering customer insights about products, and then incorporating those insights into product development, requires a number of initiatives at a variety of levels — personal, interdepartmental, and strategic. 1. EMPLOYEES USE THE PRODUCT. It might sound elementary, but being a consumer of your own product is an important way to stay close to the customer. Many companies go wrong simply because after a number of years at the helm, successful senior executives lose interest in what they sell, according to Leslie H. Moeller, a Cleveland-based vice president of Booz Allen. ” I once had a client who didn’t like the products produced by the division he ran. When they had product tastings, he wouldn’t taste them,” he recalls. ” How can you lead an organization if that’s how you feel?” One company that does seem to get it right, according to Moeller, is Harley-Davidson of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Many company executives are great fans of the famous ” hog,” and frequently attend rallies with other Harley motorcycle enthusiasts. Such involvement creates real empathy with the customer, Moeller says, and often provides executives with a clearer vision about both what the customer wants most and what kinds of improvements they would like to see. 2. SUCCESSFUL INNOVATORS CONDUCT VIGOROUS MARKET RESEARCH OF CUSTOMER NEEDS. Computerized design and improvements in supply-chain dynamics have shortened product development cycle times to levels that were unheard of just a generation ago, tempting many companies to try to take shortcuts with their market research to stay ahead of the competition. ” When you have such pressures, very often companies skip the marketing research,” warns Wharton marketing professor Yoram ” Jerry” Wind. ” But that can be a huge mistake.”” Procter & Gamble conducts anthropological expeditions to see how consumers actually use their products in the home.” Similar stories can be found in the business-to-business world: CLAAS KGaA, a manufacturer of agricultural equipment based in Harsewinkel, Germany, maintains practice centres in each of its major markets. These are model farms where farmers test new equipment and company employees can observe close at hand what they like and how they use the new machinery. The strongest innovators don’t overlook former customers, either. Although it is natural to hear positive feedback from satisfied customers. Indeed, it is well known that dissatisfied customers and former customers are often great sources for useful information for both modest and major product innovations. But most companies don’t pay as much attention as they should to what they can learn from discontented customers. 3. THE ENGINEERS STAY CLOSE TO THE MARKET. It might seem reasonable that a company with strong R&D roots could afford to overlook the smaller ebbs and flows of customer needs and related market opportunities, and just concentrate on creating exciting new products, but this strategy isn’t efficient. ” If a company’s engineers don’t understand the market from the standpoint of consumer needs, they are usually much less successful at creating markets, even if they have good technology,” Kandybin explains. How do companies maintain both a consumer and a technical focus? The use of cross-functional teams in product development is one way smart firms try to close the gap between technical know-how and customer understanding. 4. COMPANIES PERFORM R&D AROUND THE WORLD. What do you do if your customer is on the other side of the world from the markets you are used to serving? Historically, U. S. companies would often introduce a product domestically first and then introduce the same product with minor modifications into other markets, according to Jerry Wind. One emerging strategy to address this issue in a global context is to build more research and development operations nearer to companies’ newest markets. Although close observation of customer behaviour can lead to incremental gains, Kandybin says, understanding people’s deeper motivations — not just what they need, but why they need it — is where the biggest opportunities for innovation are generally found. ” The difference in deep understanding of what and why is the difference between understanding existing needs versus not-yet-realized needs,” he explains. ” And meeting not-realized needs is a lot more powerful than meeting existing needs.” How does a company get to that level of understanding of its customers and its market opportunities? Kandybin cites several important resources — multiple sources of market data, heavy users of the product on staff, and extremely close relationships with customers. He says combining these management practices is one reason McDonald’s has been able to stay at the top of the fast-food business for so long, he says. ” If you look at the trends, very often they are the trendsetters in the fast-food industry.… They understand not just what one particular customer of McDonald’s wants, but why they want it,” he says.

CONCLUSION

Although brand innovation is probably not the first thing a marketing manager should think of when a product hits a roadblock, it certainly is powerful tool that breathe new life into a brand. What’s most important when updating or changing the brand image is to honour the attributes which made it successful in the first place.