BRANDING STRATERGY

A brand is a name, sign, symbol, slogan or anything that is used to identify and distinguish a
specific product, service, or business. A legally protected brand name is called a proprietary
name. A brand is the identity of a specific product, service, or business[1][page needed]. A brand
can take many forms, including a name, sign, symbol, color combination or slogan. The word
brand began simply as a way to tell one person's cattle from another by means of a hot iron
stamp. A legally protected brand name is called a trademark. The word brand has continued
to evolve to encompass identity - it affects the personality of a product, company or service.
A brand is the personality that identifies a product, service or company (name, term, sign,
symbol, or design, or combination of them) and how it relates to key constituencies:
Customers, Staff, Partners, Investors etc.

Some people distinguish the psychological aspect, brand associations like thoughts, feelings,
perceptions, images, experiences, beliefs, attitudes, and so on that become linked to the
brand, of a brand from the experiential aspect.

The experiential aspect consists of the sum of all points of contact with the brand and is
known as the brand experience. The psychological aspect, sometimes referred to as the
brand image, is a symbolic construct created within the minds of people and consists of all
the information and expectations associated with a product or service.

People engaged in branding seek to develop or align the expectations behind the brand
experience, creating the impression that a brand associated with a product or service has
certain qualities or characteristics that make it special or unique. A brand is therefore one of
the most valuable elements in an advertising theme, as it demonstrates what the brand
owner is able to offer in the marketplace. The art of creating and maintaining a brand is
called brand management. Orientation of the whole organization towards its brand is called
brand orientation.

Brand Awareness

Brand awareness refers to customers' ability to recall and recognize the brand under
different conditions and link to the brand name, logo, jingles and so on to certain
associations in memory. It helps the customers to understand to which product or service
category the particular brand belongs to and what products and services are sold under the
brand name. It also ensures that customers know which of their needs are satisfied by the
brand through its products.(Keller) 'Brand love', or love of a brand, is an emerging term
encompassing the perceived value of the brand image. Brand love levels are measured
through social media posts about a brand, or tweets of a brand on sites such as Twitter.
Becoming a Facebook fan of a particular brand is also a measurement of the level of 'brand
love'.

Brand marketing strategy and business strategy are like the left and right hand.

They are the yin and yang of well-planned businesses.

The 'Idea' Brand Marketing Strategy

Some people say that a brand is an ‘idea’ and that, while the product/service can be easily
categorised, it is actually the promise of this idea that people buy into. This is what we call
the brand promise and to define it will help your business address three key challenges.
 1. Be different – motivate with a distinctive and clear proposition.
2. Be valued – attract the right relationships with the right audiences.
3. Be smart – encourage your audiences to support you in your marketing efforts.

Being different in a world that is constantly evolving is the first. Just think of some of the
changes you have seen in your lifetime. It is the same in the business world – nothing stands
still anymore. Anything that does stand still gets left behind. Understanding how your
business stands out is essential. Presenting a unique and memorable offering is a basic
requirement for a successful brand marketing strategy. Wrapping this offering in a story is
the best way to own a unique and motivating brand promise.

Secondly, your brand is a design, strategic marketing, communication and human resource
tool, which will enable your business to build trusted relationships with audiences. Being
valued by each at any one time is the key to strong performance. Making a promise and
then keeping to it will help substantiate your story. This tangible evidence delivered across
every point of interaction with your brand will help to build loyalty. The more the whole story
lives the idea, the greater chance your business will have in attracting the right relationships
with the right audiences.

The third challenge continues to build on the thought that everything you do, everything you
own and everything you produce, helps to communicate the brand promise. In today’s world
your audience will play a big role in developing the wider story. This is something brands
actively seek; after all “word of mouth advocacy is worth millions spent on advertising”. It is
therefore important that your audience understands your vision as a brand promise and can
see how it belongs in their own world. Your audience must be allowed to see the promise as
something they can own. Make the story personal and your audiences will write themselves
into it and so support you in your brand marketing strategy.

Our business management consultants can help you develop your ‘brand strategy’ to clarify
your strategic vision as a brand promise, by helping you to:

• Wrap your offering in a story.

• Make the story tangible.
• Make the story personal.
• Developing a brand strategy can be one of the most difficult steps in the marketing
plan process. It's often the element that causes most businesses the biggest
challenge, but it's a vital step in creating the company identity.
• Your brand identity will be repeatedly communicated, in multiple ways with
frequency and consistency throughout the life of your business.
• Creating your brand strategy can be done easily by following the step by step guide
below.

Developing Your Brand Strategy Email Course

• If you are ready to begin the development of your brand strategy, but need guidance
and feedback the Brand Course is just for you. Each week you will receive a new
lesson delivered to your email box and assignment to complete. When you have
completed the assignment you will post the assignment and I will review each lesson
and coach you through the 6 weeks, by the time you have completed the 6th week
you will have created your Brand Strategy.

A strong brand is invaluable as the battle for customers intensifies day by day. It's important
to spend time investing in researching, defining, and building your brand. After all your
brand is the source of a promise to your consumer. It's a foundational piece in your
marketing communication and one you do not want to be without. In this first week's lesson
we will discuss and lay the foundational concept of branding, what it is and what it is not.

This is the first step in the process of developing your brand strategy. By defining who your
brand is you create the foundation for all other components to build on. Your brand
definition will serve as your measuring stick in evaluating any and all marketing materials
and strategies.

Determining Your Brand's Objectives

Critical to effective brand management is the clear definition of the brand's audience and
the objectives that the brand needs to achieve. How do you go about defining those
objectives and putting a plan into place that will help you succeed in meeting them.

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Focusing on Your Target Audience

The power of your brand relies on the ability to focus. That is why defining your target
market will help to strengthen your brand's effectiveness. Learn how to define your target
market in this week's lesson of the Developing Your Brand's Strategy course.

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Discovering and Crushing Your Brand Barriers

When creating your brand strategy for a product or service it is important to perform a
careful analysis to determine principal barriers that you may come in contact with. These
barriers are also known as market conditions that can keep your product or service from
achieving success. In this lesson you will learn where you can do the research to find your
specific brand barriers.

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Brand Packaging and Identity

Branding is your identity in the marketplace, is yours saying what it should? Your company
image is all about the appearance of your packaging. What is your company image saying to
the marketplace?

A powerful branding program will create a concept that will stay in the minds of your
prospects. You must be memorable and stay in people’s minds, but first you have to get
inside. This requires focused, sharp, to-the-point branding. You do this by defining your
brand. When creating your brand strategy for a product or service it is important to perform
a careful analysis to determine principal barriers that you may come in contact with. These
barriers are also known as market conditions that can keep your product or service from
achieving success A strong brand is invaluable as the battle for customers intensifies day by
day. It's important to spend time investing in researching, defining, and building your brand.
After all your brand is the source of a promise to your consumer.
What is a Brand? Put simply, it defines the identity of an organisation, product or service. It's
more than just names and logos. The identity needs to be based on a unique idea and told
through a compelling story. It needs to connect with potential customers and form positive
emotional bonds. The idea needs to be distinctive from the competition and relevant to the
target markets worldview. It also needs to be authentic, meaning that it's not enough to
simply make empty claims. The organisation needs to actually live its brand.

Brands increase the value of products and services by differentiating them from the
competition, creating positive mental associations and forming emotional relationships with
the customer. Philip Kotler from the Kellogg School of Management famously said that "if
you are not a brand, you are a commodity. Then price is everything and the low cost
producer is the only winner."

Competing on price may increase short-term sales, but is a dangerous strategy for anyone
serious about building a profitable, sustainable business. Brands provide businesses with the
means to free themselves from constant price competition, increase the value of their
services, reduce their marketing costs and develop long-term customer loyalty.

Building a successful, sustainable brand requires careful planning and consistency. It needs
a strategy. Brand strategy is the plan that defines defines the ideas and stories behind the
brands, the structure and relationship of the brands within the organisation and the core
identifying elements. These can include elements such as company and product names,
tone of voice, logo's, colour schemes etc. It also provides the framework for implementing
the brands throughout the organisations operations and for using them to efficiently work
towards the businesses goals. It's not just a cosmetic exercise; it's a key element of business
strategy.

With a clear strategy in place, managers can make appropriate, co-ordinated, informed
decisions not just in marketing, but in all departments from product development through to
customer service and recruitment. This process of embodying the brand idea throughout the
organisation is what we call branding.

The beauty of branding is that by telling your customers authentic, compelling stories, you
not only make your goods more attractive and valuable, you give your customers something
to talk about. Humans naturally love to tell and share stories. By giving them good stories to
tell, you gain access to what is by far the cheapest and most effective form of promotion -
word of mouth.

Few organisations manage to achieve the full benefits of word of mouth, and worse still, for
many organisations it spreads more negative stories than positive. To compensate for a lack
of positive word of mouth, organisations spend huge sums of money on ineffective
marketing exercises. Without an effective brand strategy these exercises are often
unfocussed, inconsistent and unauthentic. Consequently, they rarely pay for themselves, let
alone make a profit.

So what is the role of marketing? To a large extent, branding is the antithesis of marketing.
Branding is the most effective way of generating positive word of mouth, making it both
cheaper and more effective than traditional marketing techniques.

Marketing without a clear brand strategy is a chaotic, costly exercise that in essence is little
more than shouting and showing off about your products and services. People don't like or
trust show-offs. If you want to make an impact, you need to talk to them like grown ups.
With exposure to thousands of marketing messages every day, consumers have become
largely immune to meaningless promotional messages, filtering them out and filing them in
their mental recycle bins.

However, there is still a place for marketing and in many cases, marketing is part of the
branding process as it provides a means by which to spread the brand story. This explains
why there is so much confusion regarding the difference between them. Marketing used to
be about the promotion of products and services. Successful marketing now focuses on the
promotion of brands.

If an organisation developed a perfect brand idea but did nothing to promote it, then no one
would ever have heard about it. The story would never spread and the strategy would be
unsuccessful. It's therefore important to combine the strengths of both branding and
marketing in order to reach your target market.

The most successful organisations combine a confident and forward thinking idea with a
robust and organised strategy. They then use carefully targeted marketing to help get their
story out. The success of their brands means that as time goes on, the need for formal
marketing reduces and the effectiveness of any existing marketing increases, thus paving
the way for increased profits and organisational growth.

In conclusion, brands are a key element of building profitable businesses with long-term
sustainability. When executed well, they increase sales, add value to products and services
and reduce marketing costs. They also give focus to a business, boost staff morale and
increase share value.

Building successful brands is not simply a cosmetic exercise. They need to be consistent,
true to the organisation and embodied throughout their activities. This is only possible when
a clear brand strategy is in place to act as a framework for their implementation, and to
ensure that they are always working towards the business goals. Marketing has its place as
a tool for promoting brands, but once they have made a connection with the core of their
target market, successful brands can sell themselves through word of mouth.