In 1960, P&G has created new concepts in marketing that we are still using now, one of them is brand management and branding. To understand the need for banding, let us assume that you are starting a new product and you need to refer to this product in a letter or a speech, it would be annoying to refer to the product as “the new product that do 1, 2, 3…” each time you need to mention it. What you need is an identity to the product so everyone will know what you are talking about in a part of a second. We can simply say that a brand is an identity and branding is the process of identification for a product, service, person, entity…etc.. As brand is defined as an identity, it should be unique among other entities in the same category, audience who receive your brand should refer directly to the value you are offering.
There is big confusion between branding and advertising among marketers, first of all, branding comes way before advertising. As branding is about creating the identity and the personality, advertising comes later to create the awareness of the identity. For entrepreneurs who try to start with advertising before branding usually fail to create the awareness. If a company can not specify its identity then fair enough the customers can not either, moreover, competitors can build your identity to customer which is something you do not want to happen. Also branding is not creating a logo, the logo is an essential part of branding but there are much more aspects of the entity that needs also to be covered.
The general branding process goes through multiple stages, starting with Identifying the Product from all aspects, then Product and Market Research to learn everything about your product and competitors. Later comes the Brand Positioning which is a well known term in branding, brand positioning means defining the unique value proposition that distinguish your product from competition and this is exactly what you need your customers to think about when they communicate with your brand. The next step will be Formulating Brand which involves the listing of brand promises, uniqueness, communication messages and the definition of colors, typeface, logo, stationaries, packaging…etc.. The next is the brand in action phase when you run a Brand Launch, usually this is done internally first to get reviews and adjust the brand before performing the official launch. Once the brand is created and launched, here comes the Brand Management which assure the delivering of the correct values, uniqueness, and experience along the time and also involves activities for building brand loyalty. From the definition, this phase has no ending as it exists as long as the brand is in the market. Brand Adjustment can be done anytime in response to consumers and market updates.
Branding is hard and fun as it involves the creation of icons that could touch the hears of millions, people get attached to brands and no surprise as brands represent personality. Our life is full of brands and yet more to comes and get a space in our lives. Happy branding.
References
- Bloomberg Business Week, http://www.businessweek.com/stories/2008-06-09/a-practical-guide-to-brandingbusinessweek-business-news-stock-market-and-financial-advice
- desk.com, http://www.desk.com/blog/branding/
- Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brand
- The Atlantic, http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/10/how-brands-were-born-a-brief-history-of-modern-marketing/246012/#slide8
- For dummies series, http://www.dummies.com/how-to/content/the-branding-process.html