BRAND VALUE

Branding has emerged as a corporate strategy in the recent times. All business organizations in
all sectors have embraced the strategy of building their identity through their corporate brands
besides the product related brands. Branding is definitely a marketing strategy. However the
strategy of investing into brand building and managing the reputation of the corporate brand
goes beyond marketing. Branding is considered to be a strategy that is driven and managed by
the CEO or the organization along with the senior management as well as marketing heads. Over
the recent years, we see new concepts of brand value, brand power and brand equity etc. being
coined and measured.

If marketing professionals found it difficult to justify and obtain sanctions for the brand
promotional activity, today they no longer need to worry. Brand value and expenses towards
brand building have become an accepted part of the balance sheet. Capitalizing the brand value
and the expenses towards meeting the brand promotion are budgeted and accounted for in the
balance sheets and in many cases the ROI of a brand is also calculated to reflect the brand value
status over time.

Brand management has gained prominence in recent times. The fact that we have global brands
that have been well established for over fifty years goes on to prove the fact that brands
certainly have the power to make or break in the markets. Goodyear, Coco Cola, Gillette, Nestle,
Kelloggs, Schweppes, Brooke bond etc have been around for a very long time and have gained
certain brand power to drive growth through brand reputation and relationship with the
consumers.

Marketers have realized the growing power of brands and have begun to nurture the
brand image and cultivate value through brand ambassadors. Most of the lifestyle and
luxury brands globally and locally have well known actors and sports persons etc as brand
ambassadors. Through the persona of the brand ambassadors, the marketers derive the power
to connect with the consumers and build brand loyalty. Realizing the brand power also calls for
working on the product quality and continuous modification both in the product as well as in the
promotion of brand ambassadors. Building and growing strong brand at a global level calls for
the entire organization to be brand oriented. The best example of building and realizing strong
brand power and unleashing the brand value is Apple. If you think that the entire world outside
is an Apple fan, you are right. But the entire organization within also worship their brand too. All
of the strategies, decisions as well as day to day business decisions at all levels are directed
towards promotion of and strengthening of the apple brand. The entire organization believes in
the brand and all business processes are driven to build the brand and deliver superior
customer experience through the brand. Apple as a global brand is perhaps the best example of
a successful corporate brand.

As much as the corporate strategy has got to account for the branding strategy, the marketing
has also to ensure that they work on the different aspects of the brand packaging, design, etc
and keep working on the brand so that it is consistent with the changing times, markets,
consumer expectations and taste etc.

The brands have their own value. The market leadership and profitability of a certain
product or business is realized through the brand value. Growing the brand power and using
the brand value as a driver to increase profitability as well as the market calls for expert
management of branding. Maintaining the leadership of a brand calls for strategic planning in
the long term perspective.
SIGNIFICANCE OF BRAND VALUE
When you think of how to advance your business, most people will come up with some
combination of salesmanship, marketing and product quality. There is however something
that businesses tend to overlook and that is the fact that all businesses should aspire to create
a ‘brand’.

Marketing as such can be thought of as an ill-reputed profession. A lot of the time, marketing
involves making people unhappy about their situation. When you think of it in terms of that,
the question that props up in every marketing person’s mind is that are we really such bad
and manipulative a people? Obviously this view is half-empty. That is to say it is a pretty
negative view of company-customer interaction in a marketing situation. There is however a
lesson to be learnt.

Every person in the market wishes to form a relationship with the company even if the
purchase is trivial. This relationship is formed with what is called “the brand”. Obviously
different people develop different relationships with the brand. The market segment tends to
subconsciously assess how valuable your brand is to them and this leads to the formation of
opinions which in turn defines their experience with the related brand.

The right kind of branding creates and fosters loyalty. What rice do you buy? Which
supermarket do you frequent? Which company’s electronic goods are you most likely to buy?
This exercise can be taken a step further to identify the image that comes to mind when you
think of Volkswagen, Wal-Mart, Pantaloons, etc. Unless you’ve had a distasteful experience
at any of their stores, the chances are that the perception you have is a result of that
company’s branding strategy. Some Film Production Company’s exude a sense of grandeur
by just their name or logo and we all recognize them. When a motion picture or even a
documentary from a production company like Warner Brothers and their all too famous logo
props up, we invariably tend to sit up and take notice. That is the power of Brand value and a
truly recognizable logo. At Mirror and Smoke we realize this and help in image building of
your brand.

The idea of branding is to make sure that you create a positive experience and back it up with
quality processes and technology. It is essential to keep a tab on the results and strive to
improve on the same in the future. It is not hard to grasp why this kind of seamless
experience when dealing with your brand would produce good results. The catch however is
that the person who decides the quality of the experience you offer is not you but the market.

Among the most recognizable brands in the industry, you will notice a similarity in that they
are almost always easy to remember. Acronyms such as BBC, CNN, IBM, CNBC, and ESPN
are quite common. Other major corporations like Apple, Microsoft and Oracle use words that
we already know thereby making them memorable. However there are also more obscure and
made-up words to create words like eBay, Yahoo etc. What this goes to show is that in the
branding game what matters is not what you have but how you use it.
The logo we use at Mirror and Smoke is a simple yet succinct one which gets the message
across to our customers. Without being flashy, the logo keeps the use of colours down to
basic prime colours but has been designed to remain in the memory for long after you leave
the website. We recognize that as a first time visitor until there is actual contact and after, the
logo is what you remember us by.

Logos like brand names are simple, effective and easy to identify. A rule of thumb that is
often employed is that if your logo can’t be put down on paper within 10 seconds, it is too
complex. Good examples for logos which are simple and effective are McDonalds, Mercedes
and Ford. When people recognize your logo, they recognize and remember your brand. In its
crudest form your logo could be the brand-name itself.

The market interprets the brand experience that you lay out for them. All you do is put your
brand out there and the market affirms, “I believe what you tell me about you!”. This results
in an alignment with your brand. Otherwise, it remains just a hypothesis and you stand to
gain almost nothing from it. It is imperative to live up to the highest industry standards by
identifying and implementing the best possible solution through mediums ranging from
documentaries, industrial films, presentations, promotional films, short films, videos or any
other possible means. At Mirror and Smoke we use our in house expertize to help your
business reach its potential.

The relationship between the brand and person can be interpreted in the form of Maslow’s
hierarchy of needs which can be crudely put this way – each level of the pyramid results in
greater security. Similarly here, the relationship becomes stronger as we climb up the
pyramid because of a derived preference. That is, the preference for your brand is a result of
the experience the person has with it.