What is branding?
As you know, the youth even mature people are also obsessed with the brands. Customers place more reliance on branded products rather than non-branded products.
Are you familiar with the concept of brand and branding are? No!
Are you interested to know the basics of brand and branding? Yes! Good… let’s start with the definition!
Brand definition!
The brand represents the results as the sum of all expressions by which some entity (organization, person, company, nation, etc.) intends to be recognized in the market. Brands can be identified by name, design, term, symbol, or any other feature that organizations use to differentiate their products or services from the competitors. A brand can be presented as a symbol – a logo, symbol, word, name, mark, and/or sentence, etc. Sometimes, organizations use a combination of the two discussed before use to create a brand identity. When the brand gets legally protected then it is termed as a “Trademark”.
Do remember, good branding has the potential to enhance the value of the organization, provides the staff with direction and motivation, and also help in acquiring the new customers easily. Thus brand is something that is beyond a simple striking logo. The major objective of branding is knowing and unfailingly living from a factual identity, from a genuine story, so that decision-making leadership, marketing, sales, product, operations, support, and corporate culture all aligned and matured in a fascinating style that is important to anybody who encounters the pool of managers who make up a brand. A brand is the story of persons directed in a way, welcoming you to drive with them.
Branding definition
What is branding and examples?
Usually, brands are a form of an identifiable logo or symbol to which customers can identify more quickly and easily. For instance, Apple computers use “Apple” Nike use “swoosh” and McDonald’s uses the golden arches. Branding represents marketing practice, a solid and useful technique, to create the desired image of the company in the minds of the customers. This is also known as “positioning”. In simple words, this image of a product or a service in the minds of the users what the company paints is called product positioning.
The fooling examples can make you understand more clearly.
What does it mean to create a brand? Create a brand is a process of creating product positioning and entity expressions in the market with the final goal to make differentiation from the competition.
Symbols
Logo characteristically appears on the products in any form and plays a very critical role in promotional campaigns and adverts. The most unique and identifiable symbols or signs help customers to identify a particular product or manufactures, even when the name is not evident.
Slogans
If we talk about slogans, slogans also create a brand image like symbols. Slogans are quite often being used successfully by the various industries for example insurance companies to get customers associated to them with confidence and trust, like “You’re in good hands with Allstate”, “Nationwide is on your side,” and “Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.” Just like the logos, slogans of various companies are painted in the customer’s and consumers’ minds, and no doubt it may intact till the company operates in the market.
Differentiation
To be different and remain different organizations may use branding to distinguish themselves from other key players in the market. For illustration, a company may position itself such as being a pioneer, innovator, first mover, and leader. When consumers are more environmentally concerned then organizations capitalize on this notion that they making and delivering clean and green products and how they are different from the competitors. Sometimes offering “low priced” products or more “durable” products can be used by the organizations to be different from other companies.
User Experience
Branding is also revealed by the customers’ experience that organizations try to develop. McDonald’s in its advertising campaigns uses to build an image of restaurants as a fun place for parents to take their children and quick meal options.
Branding Types to Leverage for Growth
There are several diverse categories or forms of branding, you are required to bear in mind while developing a brand strategy. The brand strategy works more effectively, when is created upon focusing on the audience, targeted for the particular product, the goals set, and the budget you have for the strategy. The success of any brand strategy depends on the various controllable and non-controllable variables. The more vigilant you are in dealing with such variables, the more successful will be.
In the following material, you will find various common but very important categories of branding. You will also understand the inside principles of branding, so from onward this article requires more of your attention.
Effective Brand Strategy – The Principles
As a brand is something beyond your business’s name, logo, or even its slogan, whereas, a strategy related to branding includes describing the company’s goal, target customers, and value proposition. It takes resources and time to create a brand and brand equity (value proposition). The branding investment is worth it when it recalls and repeats the business by the customers. Different branding approaches are considered suitable by dissimilar organizations to create brand equity. You will have a closer look at the categories of branding, to apprehend what are these, and how these can be leveraged importantly to aid you in achieving your business goals.
Branding Types:
Below are the various types of branding we will explore;
- Retail Branding
- Service Branding
- Product Branding
- Cultural Branding
- Personal Branding
- Corporate Branding
- Geographic Branding
- Retail Branding
We all are engaged with the retail stores by any means almost for our day to day requirements every day. Retailors offer and deliver several fast-moving consumer goods of several dissimilar manufactures. You might come across competing companies’ products on the shelves side by side. A few retail stores sell their own brands and sometimes the combination of both.
When retail stores exert hard to create their own products as a distinctive brand for themselves, then it is termed as retail branding. You can consider “Apple Computers” as an example of a retail brand which is a famed example of a promptly identifiable retail brand. Such stores are established as a state of the art design, which reflects the quality of the products. These retail stores play a very vital role in making customers solid perception about a brand, and also are the touch-points for most customers.
- Service Branding
Whatsoever the business you are doing, the major factor of the success will be to deliver the best services to your customers at all times. The excellent services moderates the relationship between the customers or consumers and the company. What services means are? Actually, that is an experience you deliver to your customers, at the time they interact with you through any touch-points. The touch-points maybe, either in-person or retail stores or online.
You remember that, due to the emergence of the internet and increasing usage of online buying, services have become more complicated. Providing gradual and regular services always contributes significantly, to the company image and good repute.
- Product Branding
You might have noticed that wherever you go or enter you find product branding. This is generally, a very common class of branding. Images, slogans, colors, and even the words differentiate your products from the competitors in the industry. Do remember, the pillar of the success of a company, is a proper and effective product branding and product branding gets started through consumers’ understanding, their needs and wants, what problem they facing currently, and in which from the solutions they are looking for.
- Cultural Branding
Have you ever heard before that “the city never sleeps”, yes it’s about New York City, and people around the globe consider this city as commercial and financial capital? This city is also famous for its cultural centers, entertainment, fashion, influencing music, and art. Cultural branding pursues to create an encouraging common identity and repute for the individuals living in any specific area and background. Cultural branding is narrowly associated with geographical branding. The two categories if branding move side-by-side for instance geographical area affects the culture of its residents, and human-activities affect the place. You can hit into cultural branding to get your product’s sales increased.
- Personal Branding
Largely, personal branding is referred to be linked with famous people of various fields, for example, public figures like leaders, people from film or showbiz industry, and politicians. The fame component always derives a success for several business persons. If you acquire a strong social profile then it will be easier to attract and get more customers and clients for your business.
You can accomplish your business goals through personal branding but first, you will be required to set a goal such as, what you wish to be known for, then establish a concrete plan of actions, to promote your business publically as to be an influencer in that niche you are in.
- Corporate Branding
There is no doubt, brand name plays a considerable role in the accomplishment of business goals. The reputation may get affected by several actions a company takes, for instance, the product they produce or sell, a group of customers they target, and what treatment they extend to their employees, suppliers and, services they provide. Corporate branding may have the potential to affect the pricing strategy. A decent example of corporate branding, the automobile industry is considered. The important part of corporate branding is that it is required to be refreshed periodically. So, there is a need to update images or visuals to make them appropriate according to the current trends and design. The brand value and positioning may be assessed through brand refreshers.
- Geographic Branding
This is another type of branding, the Geographic branding is almost closed to cultural branding. This type of branding focuses on attracting possible customers to visit or region because of a geographic attraction and association. Countries, cities, and regions, exercise geographic branding through exploiting on the things which are different from other geographic locations, for example, tourist or visitors attractions or regions of natural attractiveness.
Businesses do practice geographic branding to paint themselves more striking to certain demographics and you can consider an Eiffel Tower as an example for the geographical branding, which is a national icon of France and instantly recognizable. Many businesses do use their image to show themselves as Parisian.
How you can build a successful brand?
It is believed that building or having a unique, which can make differentiates itself from the other brands is highly important by most business organizations. What secrets you know about strong brands like Coke, Samsung or Apple hold? And how these can be capitalized as a source of inspiration. To find the answers to such questions, below are the steps, to follow to create a successful brand.
- Strong Consistency
- Communicate your promise
- How do you wish to be perceived?
- Organize your business based on the promise made
This is how a business and a brand work, and not with a single percent of inattention your brand can afford. All you need is to have more consistency in your work. If you just take an example of apple, do you think it can really afford to develop a product less on merit” than the previous one? No! so in making a brand more prominent it takes consistency and hard work.
Good Luck!
Are you having a suggestion in making a brand more stable? Kindly do share your valuable words with us.