Question

Branding has been described as one of the most powerful conceptual notions in marketing. Discuss the meaning and importance of this concept as well as some of the key conceptual elements of branding. Provide examples to support your explanation.

Answer 1

Branding is the perception that a consumer has when they hear or think of your company name, service or product. It is the mental picture of who you as a company represents to consumers, it’s influenced by the elements, words, and creativity that surround it.

Branding is not only about getting your target market to select you over the competition but about getting your prospects to see you as the sole provider of a solution to their problem or need.

The objectives that a good brand will achieve include:  

• Clearly, delivers the message
• Confirms your credibility  
• Emotionally connects your target prospects with your product and or service.
• Motivates the buyer to buy
• Creates User Loyalty  

To succeed in branding, you must understand the needs and wants of your customers and prospects.It is achieved by integrating your brand strategies through your company at every point of public contact. Think of branding as the expression of who you are as a company or organization and what you offer.

A strong brand is invaluable as the battle for customers intensifies day by day. It's important to spend time investing in researching, defining, and building your brand. After all, your brand is the source of a promise to your consumer.  

Your brand is a foundational piece in your marketing communication and one you do not want to be without. Branding is strategic and marketing is tactical and what you use to get your brand in front of consumers. That's why it carries a great deal of importance within a business or organization as well.Brand serves as a guide to understanding the purpose of business objectives. It enables you to align a marketing plan with those objectives and fulfill the overarching strategy.The effectiveness of brand doesn't just happen before the purchase, but it's also about the life of the brand of the experience it gives a consumer.

Brand not only creates loyal customers, but it creates loyal employees. Brand gives them something to believe in, something to stand behind. It helps them understand the purpose of the organization or the business

For example, ipod is a very popular name and every other music player in the market was compared to the ipod product. It had a very strong brand name such that it influenced the minds of people to ask for ipod rather than other music players. Apple manufactured these famous digital music players and it created a brand name for the company too. There were too many other products in Apple's shelf. It has got its own brand name too. An important aspect to be seen here is that people have started believing Apple for its quality products. If it is going to launch a television set or a digital set top box, people will still be eager to buy those products. Consider the case of IBM, Google, Amazon, Cisco. Most of their products have been a massive hit. Irrespective of the products, people still identify them with the company name just because the company's name will be a long lived one.