What is a “Brand?”

Brand! Brand!! Brand!!! That’s the message….the concept of marketing is vastly changing due to consumer psychological changes. It is not only the brand itself, but it’s the personality which is attributed to any kind of a brand. The war between the brands of the same category has brought in new revolutions in the field of Brand Management. Marketers are required to modify the brand image according to the cultural sensitivity and the percolation of the socio-ecological phenomenon through the brand itself is giving the brands a newer look to suit with the desired characteristics. Each and every product categories not simply brands are perceived to posses personality traits which can be leveraged for marketing strategies.

What’s in the pool of “Traditional Marketing techniques”

The concept of traditional marketing that is “Features and Benefits” is changing, but the main base remains on the same. So the fundamentals of the traditional marketing are conceptualized through the well equipped media and marketing communication techniques. The components of any kind of a marketing approach are;

1. Features and Benefits
2. Narrow definition of product categories and competition
3. customers are rational decision-makers
4. Methods are analytical,quantitative,verbal

The perceptions and associations consumers have about brands go beyond their functional attributes and benefits, and include non-functional, symbolic qualities, often referred to as “Brand Image”. Among these aspects of brand image are perceptions and associations about the brand's “personality,” the “set of human-like characteristics associated with a brand”. This brand image is the only thing that is to be kept intact to get the maximum “Customer life-time value” or the “Customer equity value”. All a marketer needs to do is to do proper brand positioning through extensive use of the electronic media as well as the traditional print media. The expansion and stretch of these media really gives the products to hit the consumer’s minds.

Culture as the basis of Brand image building

The brand perception is an important factor while taking any decision regarding the brand image building for any type of product category. The perceived personality of a brand can be shaped by marketers via “transferring cultural meaning” into it in various ways, such as by associating the brand in communications with an endorser or place that already possesses the personality or meaning considered strategically desirable for that brand. Every product category contains product specific attributes, but to differentiate it with the other products one brand needs to stand out and find out for superb and unique characteristics, so that consumers can identify that brand easily. The product attributes and brand attributes are altogether different from each other.
Brand is a very sensitive issue, so it must be dealt with utmost importance. Any brand value can be factored into five components which differentiate one from the other. The factors as leveled are

1. Sincerity (sample item: honest)
2. Excitement (daring)
3. Competence (reliable)
4. Sophistication (upper-class)
5. Ruggedness (tough)

These factors play a major role while choosing between several brand attributes within a product category. For instance, among soft drinks, Pepsi is often perceived by consumers as more “young,” Coke as more “real and honest,” Dr. Pepper as more “non-conformist and fun”. So, the consumers themselves make their own perceptual hierarchy where they put in the different kinds of brands, and the buying criteria for any brand depend on the typical characteristics of the product itself.

The need for “Consumer Oriented Marketing”

Now-a-days the concept of “Experiential Marketing” is gradually up-coming, so the marketers need to follow the suit and design their products to satisfy the customers at the maximum possible level. To grab this opportunity the companies are targeting the consumers, they are hitting at their emotional psychological levels. Each and every organization have turned to experiential marketing techniques to develop new products, communicate with their customers, improve sales relations, and select business partners, design retail environments and build web sites. The companies are offering strategic Experiential Modules (SEMs) which have its own distinct structure and marketing principles. The marketers need to be familiar with all the relative measures, like-

1. Sensory experiences(SENSE)
2. Affective Experiences(FEEL)
3. Creative Cognitive Experiences(THINK)
4. Physical Experiences and entire Life-Style(ACT)
5. Social Identity Experiences (RELATE)

Every brand has a history associated with it and it carries a tradition with it; the marketers create the experiences by providing value-added services not just only the product.

How to tap huge potential consumers?

Generally the brand awareness building is a tough task for any company. The company may venture into some product extension or brand extension only when it has the required data and facts about the consumer psychology about their product portfolio. The market research methodology becomes very useful to determine the level of brand recognition amongst the consumer base and it also gives a fair idea about the experiences that the customers feel and want to feel. The companies can employ some of the following techniques as follow

1. Image sorting – participants sort the images based on similarities and the researchers analyze the data based on the underlying meanings of these comparisons.
2. Visual Elaborations – Participants are asked to generate another picture that would reinforce the meaning of the current picture.
3. Sensory exploration of images – Participants are asked to use non-visual senses to convey the core meaning of the picture.
4. Vignette generation – Participants describe a short movie that portraits their thoughts and feelings.
5. Creation of digital image – Participant’s pictures are scanned into a computer and the participants manipulate the pictures electronically.

The relevance of a brand only depends on the “customer acceptability” and to build the loyalty base the companies are trying to capture the sentiments of them.

CRM as the new weapon for the marketers

In the present era “Cause Related Marketing “is taking a huge space in the marketing arena, so the marketers are opting for viable opportunities which would strengthen their positioning in the market place. Different companies are different from their own perspectives, as the services provided by them are also different from each other. The companies are capturing the social issues like- gender discrimination, diseases and targeting the customers to get the maximum response. In most of the cases the consumers feel an ownership with the brands and that should be the strategic objective for any marketer. Marketing aesthetics practically equated “equated needs” with “aesthetic needs”.

Brand characteristics

A major avenue for revenue growth in companies today is the extension of their existing brands into new categories, requiring the systematic study of many candidate categories on “personality” and “image” dimensions to see which ones “best fit” and “match” the personality of the brand being extended. Many companies also seek to leverage their existing brand assets via licensing deals to other manufacturers in other categories or via co-branding promotions and arrangements. For any marketer the only case for concern is how to build the proper positioning model of any brand. The launch campaign of a new brand can create or destroy its brand image that would cause a huge loss for the company. So the companies need to follow up the previous product offerings and find out how they are performing in the market and what the consumers feel about the brand. If the “recall rate” is good enough, the company launch its new varieties and if it’s not, then it has to re-launch the present entire product portfolio.

Brand management is a herculean task and it has to be done very carefully. A single wrong message from the brand managers can ruin the fate of the particular brand and the effects may also percolate into the other product offerings of the same organization. So the managers need to always keep themselves updated with the current market scenario so that they can implement correct techniques. The consumers only want a good product with lots of value additions; they want frills added to the product those they purchase. Take an example of any FMCG product like- toothpaste, when a company provides with the freshness, the other one gives strength, fights decay. The customers always get confused to choose between the viable options. So what the marketers need to do is to provide product information through aggressive marketing campaigns and their existing sales force. The sales department plays a major role in building the brand image. The fortune lies within the hands of all the components included in the value-chain and to make it to the superb quality everyone has to give his best. The “Word-of-Mouth” technique is also gaining popularity. This method gives the maximum reach for any product. In the rural area people generally prefer that kind of products which are also used by their neighbors. So the companies need to find the proper sales and distribution channels to penetrate the huge potential market, where the demand for products is far more than that of in the urban areas.

Try to differentiate between “Category personality” and “Brand personality”

The “Category personality” and “Brand personality” are the two different things which are to be differentiated by thy marketers. In any case, any factor analysis of a (pooled brand × category data matrix) must partial out the “category personality” from the “brand's personality,” for otherwise it could confound the two. It could be argued, of course, that most analyses of brand personality are conducted entirely within one relevant category, and do not need to utilize data from several product categories. The “category generic” attributes are common to all the products in the same product range. Those brands which best capture a category’s mythic “desired” personality might gain in preference, since their brand personality is now most “relevant” to consumer choice criteria in that category. There exists a need for the development of research methodologies that keeps apart product category influences from brand personality perceptions. Such a research methodology would have potential importance for the development of marketing strategy, in particular for advertising and brand image management.

Event Marketing and sponsorships

It is not enough for a brand to be seen or heard, it has to be experienced. Sponsorships are an important catalyst and component of that experiential marketing. The purpose of event marketing is to forge an emotional and memorable connection with consumers where they live, work and play. It requires a qualitative understanding of the appropriateness of any particular event as well as quantitative research to demonstrate its effectiveness in reach and frequency. The media advertising is often characterized by huge clutter. This may bring the awareness level up, but it hardly results in purchase intention or purchase. So to supplement the media advertising the marketers are turning to event marketing to create an ever lasting impact. Many companies are going for tie-ups or contracts with the advertising agencies for a certain period of time in abroad as well as in India. So the sense of urgency has flown into every organization that until and unless they are not capable enough to attract new potential customers their campaigns would not work and their products would not sell in the market. They have to snatch away the customers of their competitors and provide them better solutions so as to gain the maximum customer loyalty.

Brand Stewards

The brand stewards or the brand managers, marketing managers are responsible for the welfare of any brand. Brand stewards also include those who work on brand assignments at marketing communication agencies and who have a major influence on the brand’s marketing program. The “Brand Team” is referred to that group who ideally complement each other in managing brands and their identities. The total force completes whole criterion and until each and every component works properly the product would not survive. So lots of onus is on the brand managers so as to guide the whole team to reach the desired level of profit by means of maximum sales volume or by selling high quality premium products with greater margin but of a lesser volume. All these decisions depend on the managers. Most managers recognize the value in building and properly managing a brand. But few can objectively assess their brand's particular strengths and weaknesses. By grading a brand according to how well it addresses each dimension, marketers can come up with a comprehensive brand report card. By doing the same for competitors' brands, they can gain a fuller understanding of the relative strengths of their own brands in the marketplace.

Branding Rules

Marketers urgently need tools to manage vast groups of brands, not as individual elements or collections under one corporate roof, but as complex systems that transcend corporate boundaries. E-mails, direct marketing techniques are the main weapons of a marketer to tap the available market place, to get the maximum market share. The popularity that a brand carries with it is to be well maintained to move up to the value chain. The marketers need to develop his own rules, because when he has to deal with the ever changing consumer psyche, then it is obvious that he has to change his strategy now and then. So it is all about the correct decision at the correct time and everything that does matter is the execution part of the whole cycle. This vicious cycle goes on for the whole life-cycle of the product category, so each and every stage is important for the marketers. New formulations are to be made to beat the competitors; a brand survives in the minds of consumers. Most of the customers fall under “impulse buying category”.

Experiential Brands are the market leaders

Brands are the most valuable assets of any company, so while launching a brand a company must look into its feasibility by doing market research and compare that with the competitor’s product. These steps always give an insight about the fate of the brands. Definitely the war has started between brands and not between any organizations. The brands have now become a part of the households, consumers associate themselves with the brands they use and they feel very much proud about it. So to continue with this kind of stature that the brands posses, the companies need to offer more and more lucrative proposals. The brand value or brand worth is always in a stake if not taken care properly. A brand manager has to identify a proper brand logo which will automatically generate brand recognition in the consumer’s minds. A picture says much more than 1000 words, so the identification should cater to all the requirements those the brand satiates.

Competition is all about branding and the better an organization can do it, the better chances are there for it to be the market leader.

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