Brand Management

Brand management begins with having a thorough knowledge of the term “brand”. It includes developing a promise, making that promise and maintaining it. It means defining the brand, positioning the brand, and delivering the brand. Brand management is nothing but an art of creating and sustaining the brand. Branding makes customers committed to your business. A strong brand differentiates your products from the competitors. It gives a quality image to your business.

Brand management includes managing the tangible and intangible characteristics of brand. In case of product brands, the tangibles include the product itself, price, packaging, etc. While in case of service brands, the tangibles include the customers’ experience. The intangibles include emotional connections with the product / service.

Branding is assembling of various marketing mix medium into a whole so as to give you an identity. It is nothing but capturing your customers mind with your brand name. It gives an image of an experienced, huge and reliable business.

It is all about capturing the niche market for your product / service and about creating a confidence in the current and prospective customers’ minds that you are the unique solution to their problem.

The aim of branding is to convey brand message vividly, create customer loyalty, persuade the buyer for the product, and establish an emotional connectivity with the customers. Branding forms customer perceptions about the product. It should raise customer expectations about the product. The primary aim of branding is to create differentiation.

Strong brands reduce customers’ perceived monetary, social and safety risks in buying goods/services. The customers can better imagine the intangible goods with the help of brand name. Strong brand organizations have a high market share. The brand should be given good support so that it can sustain itself in long run. It is essential to manage all brands and build brand equity over a period of time. Here comes importance and usefulness of brand management. Brand management helps in building a corporate image. A brand manager has to oversee overall brand performance. A successful brand can only be created if the brand management system is competent.

Following are the important concepts of brand management:

ü  Definition of Brand

ü  Brand Name

ü  Brand Attributes

ü  Brand Positioning

ü  Brand Identity

ü  Sources of Brand Identity

ü  Brand Image

ü  Brand Identity vs Brand Image

ü  Brand Personality

ü  Brand Awareness

ü  Brand Loyalty

ü  Brand Association

ü  Building a Brand

ü  Brand Equity

ü  Brand Equity & Customer Equity

ü  Brand Extension

ü  Co-branding

Understanding Brand - What is a Brand ?
Brands are different from products in a way that brands are “what the consumers buy”, while products are “what concern/companies make”. Brand is an accumulation of emotional and functional associations. Brand is a promise that the product will perform as per customer’s expectations. It shapes customer’s expectations about the product. Brands usually have a trademark which protects them from use by others. A brand gives particular information about the organization, good or service, differentiating it from others in marketplace. Brand carries an assurance about the characteristics that make the product or service unique. A strong brand is a means of making people aware of what the company represents and what its offerings are.

To a consumer, brand means and signifies:

·       Source of product

·       Delegating responsibility to the manufacturer of product

·       Lower risk

·       Less search cost

·       Quality symbol

·       Deal or pact with the product manufacturer

·       Symbolic device

Brands simplify consumers purchase decision. Over a period of time, consumers discover the brands which satisfy their need. If the consumers recognize a particular brand and have knowledge about it, they make quick purchase decision and save lot of time. Also, they save search costs for product. Consumers remain committed and loyal to a brand as long as they believe and have an implicit understanding that the brand will continue meeting their expectations and perform in the desired manner consistently. As long as the consumers get benefits and satisfaction from consumption of the product, they will more likely continue to buy that brand. Brands also play a crucial role in signifying certain product features to consumers.

To a seller, brand means and signifies:

·       Basis of competitive advantage

·       Way of bestowing products with unique associations

·       Way of identification to easy handling

·       Way of legal protection of products’ unique traits/features

·       Sign of quality to satisfied customer

·       Means of financial returns

A brand, in short, can be defined as a seller’s promise to provide consistently a unique set of characteristics, advantages, and services to the buyers/consumers. It is a name, term, sign, symbol or a combination of all these planned to differentiate the goods/services of one seller or group of sellers from those of competitors. Some examples of well known brands are Mc Donald’s’, Mercedes-Benz, Sony, Coca Cola, Kingfisher, etc.

A brand connects the four crucial elements of an enterprise- customers, employees, management and shareholders. Brand is nothing but an assortment of memories in customers mind. Brand represents values, ideas and even personality. It is a set of functional, emotional and rational associations and benefits which have occupied target market’s mind. Associations are nothing but the images and symbols associated with the brand or brand benefits, such as, The Nike Swoosh, The Nokia sound, etc. Benefits are the basis for purchase decision.

Brand Name

Brand name is one of the brand elements which help the customers to identify and differentiate one product from another. It should be chosen very carefully as it captures the key theme of a product in an efficient and economical manner. It can easily be noticed and its meaning can be stored and triggered in the memory instantly. Choice of a brand name requires a lot of research. Brand names are not necessarily associated with the product. For instance, brand names can be based on places (Air India, British Airways), animals or birds (Dove soap, Puma), people (Louise Phillips, Allen Solly). In some instances, the company name is used for all products (General Electric, LG).

Features of a Good Brand Name

A good brand name should have following characteristics:

1.       It should be unique / distinctive (for instance- Kodak, Mustang)

2.       It should be extendable.

3.       It should be easy to pronounce, identified and memorized. (For instance-Tide)

4.       It should give an idea about product’s qualities and benefits (For instance- Swift, Quickfix, Lipguard).

5.       It should be easily convertible into foreign languages.

6.       It should be capable of legal protection and registration.

7.       It should suggest product/service category (For instance Newsweek).

8.       It should indicate concrete qualities (For instance Firebird).

9.       It should not portray bad/wrong meanings in other categories. (For instance NOVA is a poor name for a car to be sold in Spanish country, because in Spanish it means “doesn’t go”).

Process of Selecting a renowned and successful Brand Name

1.       Define the objectives of branding in terms of six criterions - descriptive, suggestive, compound, classical, arbitrary and fanciful. It Is essential to recognize the role of brand within the corporate branding strategy and the relation of brand to other brand and products. It is also essential to understand the role of brand within entire marketing program as well as a detailed description of niche market must be considered.

2.       Generation of multiple names - Any potential source of names can be used; organization, management and employees, current or potential customers, agencies and professional consultants.

3.       Screening of names on the basis of branding objectives and marketing considerations so as to have a more synchronized list - The brand names must not have connotations, should be easily pronounceable, should meet the legal requirements etc.

4.       Gathering more extensive details on each of the finalized names - There should be extensive international legal search done. These searches are at times done on a sequential basis because of the expense involved.

5.       Conducting consumer research - Consumer research is often conducted so as to confirm management expectations as to the remembrance and meaningfulness of the brand names. The features of the product, its price and promotion may be shown to the consumers so that they understand the purpose of the brand name and the manner in which it will be used. Consumers can be shown actual 3-D packages as well as animated advertising or boards. Several samples of consumers must be surveyed depending on the niche market involved.

6.       On the basis of the above steps, management can finalize the brand name that maximizes the organization’s branding and marketing objectives and then formally register the brand name.

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