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Branding is the total of a company’s identity—from its name and
logo to every piece of communication—to every encounter
a customer or
potential customer has with the company.
Branding is the foundation of marketing and is
the mainstay of business strategy. It is,
therefore, more than putting a label on a product.
As such, a brand is a combination of
attributes communicated through a name or a
symbol that influences a thought-process in the
mind of an audience and creates value.
Branding takes into account both
tangible and intangible
attributes, e.g., functional and emotional
benefits. Therefore, those attributes compose the
beliefs that the brand's audience recalls when
they think about the brand in its context.
The value of a brand resides
in the promise that the product or service will
deliver.
Branding is the blend of art
and science that manages associations between a
brand and memories in the mind of the brand's
audience. It involves focusing resources on
selected tangible and intangible attributes to
differentiate the brand in an attractive,
meaningful, and compelling way for the targeted
audience.
Is Branding Different from Naming?
Naming is a subset of branding. Any combination of
sounds can compose a name and
perhaps be unique enough as to identify a product
or service without ambiguity. But that is not
enough to make it a brand.
Nevertheless, naming is a critical step of
branding. A well-chosen
name can be so powerful as to become a one-word
commercial. It is especially critical for small
businesses, which often lack of the necessary
marketing budgets to promote their brand
effectively.
Does Branding Apply to Us?
The concept of branding applies to any individual,
organization, product, or service, as long as
there is a transaction between people.
Indeed, branding relies on the way our
memory processes, stores, and recalls information.
Not to actively manage one’s brand name is
therefore the equivalent of putting one’s head in
the sand and wishing for the best.
Along the same lines, branding can usefully help
David defeat Goliath when
resources makes the battle seemingly one-sided.
In 1981, the mighty IBM Corp launched the IBM
Personal Computer -- the smallest IBM computer to
date. The IBM PC became an immediate success and
an industry standard, epitomized as
Time
magazine's 1982 "Man" of the Year.
Apple Computer needed something radically novel to
counter the new IBM PC. Apple decided to wrap its
innovative technology into an equally innovative
product design that would contrast with the boxy
IBM PC. This collaboration gave birth to the
original Macintosh, which is now part of the
permanent collection at the Museum of Modern Art
in New York.
There are branding steps that can have a
considerable impact on revenues without the need
for big budgets, such as the brand positioning
strategy, the naming of the product, the packaging
design, the delivery process of a service, the
consistency of the brand experience at each
contact-point with the customer, to mention a few.
How Long Does It Take to Build a Brand?
It takes as much time to build a brand as it takes
a person to build a reputation. The difficulty is
not as much to perfect a strategy as to be
focused, differentiated, and consistent
everywhere, every time. Will it take one, five,
ten or over twenty years? That essentially depends
on the memory and openness of the brand's
audience.
For instance, it took about 15 years for Nike to
build one of the strongest global brands, thanks
to (1) a focused brand positioning, (2) consistent
360-degree delivery, and (3) its association with
All-Star basketball player Michael Jordan. Blue Ribbon Sports first used the Nike brand in
1971 and introduced the Air Jordan in 1985. By
then, all the pieces fit well together, from the
brand strategy to the product's air technology to
distribution in over 40 countries. Revenues soared.
Nike truly distinguished itself in its ability to
deliver a consistent message.
Over a long period of time, Nike
consistently delivered its brand message at each
contact-point with its customers, from product, to
advertising, to distribution, to merchandising, to
website.
How Can Non-marketers Contribute to Branding?
Although the development of
a brand strategy typically involves a limited
number of executives and their aides, the
successful implementation
of a strategy is everybody's responsibility.
Often, a major source of failure in the attempt
to build a great brand is the lack of consistency
among all the contact-points with the customer. In
such a case, the brand message makes a promise on
which the organization does not fully deliver. A
sure way to ensure that the customer will
consistently enjoy the brand experience is to
implement processes throughout the organization.
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