Branding : Concept and Strategies
Modern Day Branding Strategies
Today every Firm, Business and Organization is interested in building a brand around their organization model. They are interested in building an image which generates a constant buzz in the market as well as builds a loyal following. Business dictionary defines Branding as :
The process involved in creating a unique name and image for a product in the consumers’ mind, mainly through advertising campaigns with a consistent theme. Branding aims to establish a significant and differentiated presence in the market that attracts and retains loyal customer.
Point Zero : Pick a Good Brand Name!
Simple, Emotional, Memorable, Distinctive & Positive are the keywords a brand aims when building a brand identity. If you could fit in the product USP into the brand name, then you have already taken a lead over your competition, cause most of them have to fight to register the USP in the conscious of audience.
Brand Name should symbolize the brand messaging, and should be a re-incarnation of the Identity itself. The logo, tagline, website-design, as well as merchandise all should have the same theme, the same as the Brand Name itself.
Branding Strategy
Brand Strategy can be built around a lot of concepts, from Product Based marketing to manufacturer based branding. I am discussing a few of them here:
- Multi-Product Brand Strategy: Manufacturer brands itself as a brand entity and all it’s products are branded with the manufacturer at the focus. This is a widely used strategy in the segment of Auto/Bike Segment with most of them using Brand Names in front of the product ranges. Mercedes brands all it’s products as Mercedes Class X, Audi, Jaguar, BMW and most of the others do the same. Here you may not remember the model of the car/bike but you will surely recognise the make of the automobile.
This is a very good example of Co-Branding as well, read about it in the passages below.
Another really easy to understand product range is from shoe manufacturers like Adidas, Nike, Puma, etc. with each of their shoe branded with the Brand Name included.
2. Multi-Branding Strategy: This category as well as the previous category are majorly focused by manufacturers, for branding the products direct to the consumer of the products. A very good example of Multi-Brand Strategy same is the FMCG giant Procter & Gamble, you may not recognize the name of the brand but you surely would’ve used at least one of the products that they manufacture.
You can recognize a lot of brands from the Procter & Gamble by looking at this picture but if asked in a survey “Have you ever user a Procter & Gamble Product ?”, your answer would most probably be in negative. As you would never have seen an Ad about Proctor & Gamble itself, and would always have seen individual products.
This is the power of Multi-Branding, where you products are very well known (at least that is the effort), but you (yourself) may just be a entity in the dark.
3. Private Marketing: Large conglomerates use this strategy where individual entities are branded, marketed and promoted with individual and independent strategies. Private marketing is really useful when your products/services range is really varied and different from each other.
This strategy is usually used when you need individuality of each Brand Identity.
In India, Yum! owns Taco Bell, KFC as well as Pizza Hut, but the marketing of these three parallels remains private to each other. They have individual identities, do not relate to each other, or connect with each other in any way.
4. Mixed Branding : This category of branding is done by firms which sell the different brands under the same consumer-category. Here the manufacturer brands their own products for themselves as well as for the re-sellers. The re-seller differentiates himself by brand values and varients. As both of them have different target audience and consumers, neither of them have issues in getting into any such alliance.
In the Automobile Industry this concept is also known as “Badge Engineering” where the same car is branded by two different brand identities. Ofcourse they make subtle cosmetic changes, but all in all, the speicifications remain the same.
For eg. Renault Duster and Nissan Terrano, another great example of this makes Renault-Nissan alliance obvious. All the way from the Pulse and Micra hatchbacks to the Scala and Sunny sedans.
5. Co-Branding : This is one of latest concepts of Brand Strategies, it helps in taking mutual benefit of individual brands by coming together for the branding efforts of any product. Can also be termed as Brand Partnership, where two brands partner together for branding of a single product (or range).
Nike and Apple brought music and exercise together when they developed the Sports Kit, a wireless system that allows shoes to talk to an iPod.
By this strategy, Apple was able to target Nike consumers and vice versa. So both the participants benefit from this tie-up.
6. Generic Branding Strategy : In simple words this strategy takes up sales through “A Brand without a Brand Name”. This strategy builds on competing with national as well as international brands on the basis of Cost and Volume. They are cheaper than most of the brands, are usually branded with the Store Name like Easy Day, Walmart, etc. and lead in a few segments of consumer goods.
By studying these Brand Strategies, you can study the strategies being used in the Product Segment you are dealing in. Learn from your competitors and apply your findings.
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