Brands personify organizations and their products and services. That is, brands allow non-human entities to take on human qualities such as trustworthiness, authenticity, vitality and reliability.
In this way, brands enable entities to create emotional connections with customers and potential customers, resulting in more frequent usage and greater loyalty.
Brands are also the sources of promises to customers. They promise relevant differentiated benefits. Most people associate only one or two attributes with any organization, product or service. Well thought-out branding increases the likelihood that the attributes chosen are relevant, believable, compelling, and are customer benefits that motivate purchase or usage.
Proper brand positioning can ensure that people perceive the brand in ways that achieve organizational objectives. Diligent brand management efforts can move people from considering the brand (when they have specific needs), to preferring the brand, to purchasing the brand, to being completely loyal to the brand, to enthusiastically recommending the brand to others.
Studies have demonstrated that brands can produce the following benefits for organizations:
Decreased price sensitivity
Increased customer loyalty
Increased bargaining power with retailers (for manufacturers),
Independence from particular product categories
Increased flexibility for future growth (through brand extension),
Increased ability to hire and retain talented employees
Increased ability to focus the organization’s activities and resources
Increased market share
Increased stock price
Increased shareholder value
Studies have shown that an organization’s two most important assets are its people and its brands. Typically, most of a company’s financial value results from its brand asset value, which often far exceeds the value of all of the company’s tangible assets. This brand asset value was historically called ‘goodwill’ by accountants.
Elements of a strong brand include:
the brand’s intended marketplace position (including its unique value proposition) and its strategy, its identity (including its logo and its tagline), its marketing communication and its customer touch point design (the way it interacts with customers and potential customers at each point of customer contact).
Through proper brand management, brands can be built, strengthened, extended into new product/service categories and leveraged in a myriad of other ways.
Branding is all about bringing an organization and its story to life in ways that capture the attention and support of the brand’s intended customers and other stakeholders.
The Blake Project Can Help: The Brand Positioning Workshop
Branding Strategy Insider is a service of The Blake Project: A strategic brand consultancy specializing in Brand Research, Brand Strategy, Brand Licensing and Brand Education
