A brand can be defined, in a broad sense, as the set of attributes, tangible and intangible, that identify a product or service and make it unique in the market. To expand this concept, an introductory synthesis to this vast subject of marketing strategy is presented below, with the following content:
What is a Brand?
Through the following definitions it is possible to establish a global idea of what a brand is in practice:
A brand is a name, term, design, symbol, or any other characteristic that identifies a seller's goods and services and formally differentiates them from their competition. (American Marketing Association)
A brand can be defined as a reputation in the market that has an identity (the origin of the brand) that has been translated into an image (the perception of customers) that confers competitive value on upsells, or high prices, or both of them. (Laver, p.17)
A Brand is a complex symbol. It is the intangible sum of the attributes of a product, its name, packaging and price; its history, reputation and the way it is promoted. A brand is also defined by the perception of consumers, the people who use it and their own experiences (Ogilvy)
The brand is the name of the product. It should not be confused with brand image. One thing is your name (brand) and another what they think of you (image). Brand presence is an essential element in any commercial action. Without a brand presence, the communication would be anonymous. The word mark is the name "just", without further specification. The graphic brand usually combines, on the one hand, the personalized word with a certain typeface and, on the other, a graphic element with specific design and colors. This is what is commonly called a logo. (Ordozgoiti and Pérez, p.98)
The brand is not only what the owner has registered, the name, the logo, nor is it the communication effort that it has been able to carry out historically; the brand is the result achieved over time in the perception of the consumer and that of other interested groups (shareholders, company staff, distributors, society in general). (Belío, and Sainz, p.165)
The brand goes beyond what the product is. One thing is what a company produces and another, sometimes very different, what the customer buys. The brand serves to identify the product, but also to show what makes it different, the attributes that the public recognizes and values associated with that brand. (Baños and Rodríguez, p.25)
A brand is an intangible but critical component of what a company represents. In part, a brand is a set of promises. It involves trust, consistency, and a defined set of expectations. The strongest brands in the world have a place in the mind of the consumer and when they talk about them almost everyone thinks of the same things. A brand differentiates products and services that appear similar in characteristics, attributes, and perhaps even benefits. Brands help consumers to cope with the proliferation of options available in all categories of products and services (Davis, p.4-6):
- A brand is a legend like "We do good things for life." A brand is a symbol like the Nike dove. A brand is a shape like the Absolut bottle or the Coca-Cola bottle. A brand is a character that stands for, like Michael Jordan for Gatorade. A brand is a sound like the usual four Intel notes. A brand is the product or service itself: Kleenex tissues or Xerox copies.
Origin of brands
Brands have been used for centuries with the same purpose, to differentiate one product from another, but plastic and literary artists were the pioneers in imprinting their identity on their productions.
Books, on the one hand, and works of art, on the other, could be considered as a clear antecedent to the emergence of brands. It is from the fourth century when interest is observed in buying the manuscripts of the great figures of the philosophical or scientific world such as Aristotle or Saint Augustine. Augustine of Hipona himself mentions, in his book The Confessions, the great financial effort he had to make to buy a work by Cicero. In the world of the arts, it was the Flemish painter Jan Van Eyck, the first to sign one of his works: the oil entitled The Arnolfini marriage (1434), thereby taking an important step in the painters' search for identity. In this way, both the most outstanding thinkers and the great Renaissance painters and sculptors become a brand,for the signature they leave on their work. From then on, painters began to sign their works so that their names would transcend and acquire recognition and reputation. Moreover, art critics have recently shown that some of the works of the great artists of the time were not painted or sculpted by the alleged authors, but by their disciples, that is, by members of their "school". which further strengthens the theory that they were the first brands in history. (Gómez, pp. 24, 25)that some of the works of the great artists of the time were not painted or sculpted by the alleged authors, but by their disciples, that is, by members of their "school", which further strengthens the theory that they constituted the first brands in history. (Gómez, pp. 24, 25)that some of the works of the great artists of the time were not painted or sculpted by the alleged authors, but by their disciples, that is, by members of their "school", which further strengthens the theory that they constituted the first brands in history. (Gómez, pp. 24, 25)
The following graph shows the evolution in the use of the term "trademarks" in literature, its emergence in the second half of the 19th century is evidenced, coinciding with the appearance of the factory as the epicenter of the workforce. The boom of the term dates back to the middle of the 20th century from the flourishing of advertising agencies.
Industrial revolutions, especially that of the 19th century, were a watershed in the development of trademarks. The emergence of the factory, as well as the mass production of goods, generated a strong impulse to trade and accentuated the need to give identity to each product, assigning it a name and even a logo, which would distinguish it from other similar products, produced by the competition. (Gómez, p.27)
Brand Features
According to the World Intellectual Property Organization (p.5) the functions of the brand are:
- Ensures that consumers distinguish products Enables companies to differentiate their products Is a marketing tool and enables a company's image and reputation to be projected May be licensed and provide a direct source of income through Royalties Represents a determining factor in franchise agreements May be an important business asset Encourages companies to invest in maintaining or improving product quality May be helpful in obtaining financing
The following are also mentioned in the literature (Vertex Ed, p.13):
- The trademark makes it easier for the seller to obtain orders and resolve possible claims. The registration of a trademark provides the company with legal protection to use the name exclusively. The trademark enables the company to have customers loyal and profitable without having to fear possible attacks from the competition The seller has more facility to segment the market since he can introduce products of different ranges under the same brand The brand helps the company have a corporate image of certain quality. Branding facilitates retail distribution of products. Consumers prefer branded products in order to identify quality differences between different products.
Brand Types
Experts on the subject have made different classifications; Bassat (p.44-47) makes the following classification according to the relationship of the brand with the organization that supports it:
- Single brand: In some organizations the brand accompanies all products. It is the sole brand or umbrella brand. It is usually an advantageous strategy since all communication actions have an impact on the benefit of the company. Facilitates the introduction of new products and reduces distribution costs. In this way, all products are identified with the company or institution and a compact corporate image is achieved. Individual brandWhen an organization offers a wide variety of products, it generally turns to individual branding. As its name suggests, it consists of giving a name to each product, or to each range of products. The drawback is that it is not customary to associate the company with each one of them and it is difficult to arrive at a global image of the organization. The future of this strategy is uncertain since, today, the budget necessary to protect the large number of brands that some companies own is difficult to bear. However, some types of companies, such as pharmaceutical companies, tend to use it often. Mixed brand: It seems that the future will go by the combination of single brand and individual brand. That is, like people, the products will be identified by first and last name: Ford Ka, 45 Ford Fiesta, Ford Escort, Ford Mondeo… And many times, first and two last names: Ford Fiesta Dragons, Ford Escort Ghia… The great The downside is that the more brands we put on a product, the more we complicate the consumer's life when ordering it. Before taking any action, we must be clear about what we want to communicate and whether the generic brand has to go ahead or behind. Distribution brand: Distribution brands are a new factor within the current brand concept. The bulk products of yesteryear today are called private label. It is increasingly common for large hypermarket, supermarkets or department store chains to name different products that they sell at more competitive prices.
Munuera and Rodríguez (p.345) understand the brand image as the mental representation that the client has of the set of attributes and benefits perceived in that brand. It is, in short, a decoding, an extraction of meaning, a synthesis made by the public of all the signals emitted by the brand (name, visual symbols, products, advertising).
Brand identity and image
Identity is a concept of emission, the image of reception. Source: Munuera and Rodríguez, p.345
Brand capital
Kotler and Keller (p.243) define brand equity or brand capital as the added value that is assigned to a product or service based on the brand they display. This value can be reflected in the way consumers think, feel and act about the brand, as well as in the prices, market share and profitability that the brand generates for the company.
The following figure summarizes the elements of Aaker's brand equity model:
Elements that allow building brand equity
Keller proposes a two-perspective model, one based on the consumer and the other based on the company. Under this model, consumer-based brand capital is the differential effect that brand awareness has on consumer response to brand marketing and; Corporate brand capital is the differential response of clients, consumers, employees, other companies or any other public, to the words, actions, communications, products or services provided by an identified corporate brand entity.
Branding
Branding is a set of strategic processes that constitute brand management, its main objective is the generation of brand capital.
For Kotler and Keller (p.243), branding consists of transmitting the power of a brand to products and services, essentially by creating factors that distinguish them from other products and services… Branding creates mental structures and helps consumers organize their knowledge about products and services so that their decision-making is easier, and in the process value is generated for the company… For branding strategies to be able to generate brand value, consumers must be convinced that they exist significant differences between the different brands of the same category of products or services. Such differences are usually related to attributes or characteristics of the product.
Davis (pp. 31 and 32) identifies two dimensions of branding, product branding and corporate branding. In the first, product branding, the product or service is synonymous with the brand and allows the consumer to add the perceptions about the product and the brand image into one and its purpose is to generate trust in the brand. The second, corporate branding, is a composite of all the experiences, encounters and perceptions that a client has with a company, its purpose is to generate trust in the company, not in a particular product or service.
To complement what has been stated so far, the following video is suggested, in which Professor Fernando Doral presents a synthesis of nine concepts that are related to the brand and its management: brand awareness, brand equity, brand image, brand love, brand loyalty, brand personality, brand positioning and brand preference. A very good conceptual summary for you to keep learning.
Other concepts related to the Brand
- Brand name: it is the phonetic part of the brand, the one that can be pronounced, the one used to name the product, it is also called a logo. Brand symbol: it is the graphic part of the brand, the image that is related to it, the colors and shapes that compose it, also known as the logo symbol. Registered trademark: it is understood by the part that is legally protected and that is subject to exclusive appropriation that a seller has to use the trademark name or its symbol. Copyright: is the exclusive legal right to reproduce, publish and sell the content in the form of literary, musical, educational, scientific or artistic works. In this case, rights to any element of the trademark.
Brand strategies
Next, Professor Fernando Doral, from the School of Business and Management, explains: what is a brand, what are the elements that make up the brand's capital (value), what it is and how to achieve positioning, in addition to the seven (+1) brand strategies.
Bibliography
- Aaker, David A. Building Powerful Brands. Management 2000, 2002 Aaker, David A. Managing Brand Equity. Simon and Schuster, 2009 Aaker, David A. and Joachimsthaler, Erich. Brand Leadership, Simon and Schuster, 2009, Baños González, Miguel and Rodríguez García, Teresa. Brand image and product placement, ESIC Editorial, 2012.Bassat, Luis. The red book of brands, Ediciones Espasa Calpe, 2006, Belío, José Luis and Sainz Andrés, Ana. Keys to managing price, product and brand: how to face a price war, Special Directors, 2007. Editorial Vértice. Product Policy, Editorial Vértice, 2007. Gómez Palacio, Carlos. Branding: essence of modern marketing, LID Editorial, 2014. Jiménez Zarco, Ana Isabel. Product and brand management, Editorial UOC, 2004. Keller, Kevin Lane. Strategic brand management: building, measuring,and managing brand equity. Prentice Hall, 2003. Kotler, Phillip and Keller, Kevine Lane. Marketing direction. Pearson Education, 2012.Lamb, Charles W.; Hair, Joseph F. (Jr.) and McDaniel, Carl D. Marketing. Cengage Learning Editors, 2011 Laver, Pete. Create a good brand in a week, Gestión 2000, 2005. Martín García, Manuel. Brand architecture, ESIC Editorial, 2005. Munuera Alemán, José Luis and Rodríguez Escudero, Ana Isabel. Marketing strategies: an approach based on the management process, ESIC Editorial, 2007. Ogilvy, David. Ogilvy on Advertising, Random House, 1985. Ordozgoiti de la Rica, Rafael and Pérez Jiménez, Ignacio. Brand Image, ESIC Editorial, 2003. World Intellectual Property Organization, The Secret is in the Brand, WIPO, 2003. Davis, Scott M. The Brand: Maximum Value of Your Company, Pearson Education, 2002.Prentice Hall, 2003. Kotler, Phillip and Keller, Kevine Lane. Marketing direction. Pearson Education, 2012.Lamb, Charles W.; Hair, Joseph F. (Jr.) and McDaniel, Carl D. Marketing. Cengage Learning Editors, 2011 Laver, Pete. Create a good brand in a week, Gestión 2000, 2005. Martín García, Manuel. Brand architecture, ESIC Editorial, 2005. Munuera Alemán, José Luis and Rodríguez Escudero, Ana Isabel. Marketing strategies: an approach based on the management process, ESIC Editorial, 2007. Ogilvy, David. Ogilvy on Advertising, Random House, 1985. Ordozgoiti de la Rica, Rafael and Pérez Jiménez, Ignacio. Brand Image, ESIC Editorial, 2003. World Intellectual Property Organization, The Secret is in the Brand, WIPO, 2003. Davis, Scott M. The Brand: Maximum Value of Your Company, Pearson Education, 2002.Prentice Hall, 2003. Kotler, Phillip and Keller, Kevine Lane. Marketing direction. Pearson Education, 2012.Lamb, Charles W.; Hair, Joseph F. (Jr.) and McDaniel, Carl D. Marketing. Cengage Learning Editors, 2011 Laver, Pete. Create a good brand in a week, Gestión 2000, 2005. Martín García, Manuel. Brand architecture, ESIC Editorial, 2005. Munuera Alemán, José Luis and Rodríguez Escudero, Ana Isabel. Marketing strategies: an approach based on the management process, ESIC Editorial, 2007. Ogilvy, David. Ogilvy on Advertising, Random House, 1985. Ordozgoiti de la Rica, Rafael and Pérez Jiménez, Ignacio. Brand Image, ESIC Editorial, 2003. World Intellectual Property Organization, The Secret is in the Brand, WIPO, 2003. Davis, Scott M. The Brand: Maximum Value of Your Company, Pearson Education, 2002.Phillip and Keller, Kevine Lane. Marketing direction. Pearson Education, 2012.Lamb, Charles W.; Hair, Joseph F. (Jr.) and McDaniel, Carl D. Marketing. Cengage Learning Editors, 2011 Laver, Pete. Create a good brand in a week, Gestión 2000, 2005. Martín García, Manuel. Brand architecture, ESIC Editorial, 2005. Munuera Alemán, José Luis and Rodríguez Escudero, Ana Isabel. Marketing strategies: an approach based on the management process, ESIC Editorial, 2007. Ogilvy, David. Ogilvy on Advertising, Random House, 1985. Ordozgoiti de la Rica, Rafael and Pérez Jiménez, Ignacio. Brand Image, ESIC Editorial, 2003. World Intellectual Property Organization, The Secret is in the Brand, WIPO, 2003. Davis, Scott M. The Brand: Maximum Value of Your Company, Pearson Education, 2002.Phillip and Keller, Kevine Lane. Marketing direction. Pearson Education, 2012.Lamb, Charles W.; Hair, Joseph F. (Jr.) and McDaniel, Carl D. Marketing. Cengage Learning Editors, 2011 Laver, Pete. Create a good brand in a week, Gestión 2000, 2005. Martín García, Manuel. Brand architecture, ESIC Editorial, 2005. Munuera Alemán, José Luis and Rodríguez Escudero, Ana Isabel. Marketing strategies: an approach based on the management process, ESIC Editorial, 2007. Ogilvy, David. Ogilvy on Advertising, Random House, 1985. Ordozgoiti de la Rica, Rafael and Pérez Jiménez, Ignacio. Brand Image, ESIC Editorial, 2003. World Intellectual Property Organization, The Secret is in the Brand, WIPO, 2003. Davis, Scott M. The Brand: Maximum Value of Your Company, Pearson Education, 2002.Lamb, Charles W.; Hair, Joseph F. (Jr.) and McDaniel, Carl D. Marketing. Cengage Learning Editors, 2011 Laver, Pete. Create a good brand in a week, Gestión 2000, 2005. Martín García, Manuel. Brand architecture, ESIC Editorial, 2005. Munuera Alemán, José Luis and Rodríguez Escudero, Ana Isabel. Marketing strategies: an approach based on the management process, ESIC Editorial, 2007. Ogilvy, David. Ogilvy on Advertising, Random House, 1985. Ordozgoiti de la Rica, Rafael and Pérez Jiménez, Ignacio. Brand Image, ESIC Editorial, 2003. World Intellectual Property Organization, The Secret is in the Brand, WIPO, 2003. Davis, Scott M. The Brand: Maximum Value of Your Company, Pearson Education, 2002.Lamb, Charles W.; Hair, Joseph F. (Jr.) and McDaniel, Carl D. Marketing. Cengage Learning Editors, 2011 Laver, Pete. Create a good brand in a week, Gestión 2000, 2005. Martín García, Manuel. Brand architecture, ESIC Editorial, 2005. Munuera Alemán, José Luis and Rodríguez Escudero, Ana Isabel. Marketing strategies: an approach based on the management process, ESIC Editorial, 2007. Ogilvy, David. Ogilvy on Advertising, Random House, 1985. Ordozgoiti de la Rica, Rafael and Pérez Jiménez, Ignacio. Brand Image, ESIC Editorial, 2003. World Intellectual Property Organization, The Secret is in the Brand, WIPO, 2003. Davis, Scott M. The Brand: Maximum Value of Your Company, Pearson Education, 2002.Create a good brand in a week, Gestión 2000, 2005. Martín García, Manuel. Brand architecture, ESIC Editorial, 2005. Munuera Alemán, José Luis and Rodríguez Escudero, Ana Isabel. Marketing strategies: an approach based on the management process, ESIC Editorial, 2007. Ogilvy, David. Ogilvy on Advertising, Random House, 1985. Ordozgoiti de la Rica, Rafael and Pérez Jiménez, Ignacio. Brand Image, ESIC Editorial, 2003. World Intellectual Property Organization, The Secret is in the Brand, WIPO, 2003. Davis, Scott M. The Brand: Maximum Value of Your Company, Pearson Education, 2002.Create a good brand in a week, Gestión 2000, 2005. Martín García, Manuel. Brand architecture, ESIC Editorial, 2005. Munuera Alemán, José Luis and Rodríguez Escudero, Ana Isabel. Marketing strategies: an approach based on the management process, ESIC Editorial, 2007. Ogilvy, David. Ogilvy on Advertising, Random House, 1985. Ordozgoiti de la Rica, Rafael and Pérez Jiménez, Ignacio. Brand Image, ESIC Editorial, 2003. World Intellectual Property Organization, The Secret is in the Brand, WIPO, 2003. Davis, Scott M. The Brand: Maximum Value of Your Company, Pearson Education, 2002.Ogilvy on Advertising, Random House, 1985. Ordozgoiti de la Rica, Rafael and Pérez Jiménez, Ignacio. Brand Image, ESIC Editorial, 2003. World Intellectual Property Organization, The Secret is in the Brand, WIPO, 2003. Davis, Scott M. The Brand: Maximum Value of Your Company, Pearson Education, 2002.Ogilvy on Advertising, Random House, 1985. Ordozgoiti de la Rica, Rafael and Pérez Jiménez, Ignacio. Brand Image, ESIC Editorial, 2003. World Intellectual Property Organization, The Secret is in the Brand, WIPO, 2003. Davis, Scott M. The Brand: Maximum Value of Your Company, Pearson Education, 2002.
