The Brand’ s Position and Dimensions
In the era of globalization the world people live in becomes more and more complex, so that the individuals need to find easier ways to guide them through this world. These days, from the point of view of the consumers, they choose the most trustworthy symbols they encounter on their way, most of the times, in order to save time.
The trend that we are facing today determined marketing specialists to conceive customer-oriented strategies. Business practices focus a lot upon the satisfaction of customers.
The most important means of communication between the producer and the consumer, the main type of connection for the two sides, is the brand.
1.The Importance of the Brand
Surveys were made in the UK, which showed that most of the times people trust brand names more than the Police or the legal system. So, one can say that the relationship between consumers and successful brands is extremely relevant.
A successful brand is a well-known product, service, person or place presented on the market in such a way that the user or buyer finds it to be relevant or unique.
Brands are used both for products and services and can even be associated with people such as actors, singers or places, for example the marketing used for building up tourism attractions. Brands may belong also to the non-profit organizations, most frequently in the cases of the international ones such as the Red Cross or the Greenpeace. The success of a brand depends mostly on the clearness of its statement of intent.
A clear-targeted social group and the achievement of the main purpose which is to satisfy and exceed the consumer’s needs are the main things which stand at the basis of the success of a brand.
Just like a person, a brand has a character, values and a look that make it truly unique and different from others. It’s that point of difference that provides the customers of a company with a reason to choose their brand over the alternatives; and it’s the strength of the brand that will then determine the length of that relationship.
Consumers have needs both at the rational and the emotional level, needs which are covered by the benefits delivered by brands. Successful brands are those which have the correct balance in terms of their ability to satisfy the rational and emotional needs. As an example, the consumers of ice-cream have a variety of rational needs such as the taste, the quality, the packaging or the price. Besides these rational needs, they also seek to satisfy emotional needs such as, in the case of the ice-cream, the childhood nostalgia of a summer afternoon walking with their grandfather on the beach.
According to all these sorts of needs, marketers must find ways in which their brand satisfies their rational and emotional needs and then develop marketing programs accordingly .
Therefore, the brand is the one which creates awareness of the product or service and which differentiates it from the other competitors. It uses names, labels, signs, symbols, designs and colors in order to identify the goods or the services of one seller and to differentiate them from those of the others’ players on the market. Coca Cola’s red-and-white bottles, Disney’s familiar script and the golden arches of McDonald’s are all elements of these popular brands, that also give them a distinctive identity.
Different companies have different approaches to brands. Some focus on building a single brand- American Express or Amazon.com- while others divide their efforts between the parent company brand and the individual products .As a process, branding is a very complex one. It stands for the creation and the development of a specific identity of a company, product, commodity, group or person.
Branding is the creation and development of the identity of a product and it is the result of the work of different professionals who most of the times belong to the following categories- advertising , marketing, and public relations.
Advertising helps the product to become well- known to its targeted public and the look and the attitude which are used help the defining of the brand in the public’s mind.Marketing helps to create the entity that the brand will become and public relations helps solidify the public opinion of the brand and defines it.
Advertising
Even the most successful brands need to advertise in today’s business climate. Although it has very high sales, Mc Donald’s still promotes its products through well known advertising campaigns all over the world. Nike is even a better example of spending large amounts of money for advertising. The company is always spending millions on the appearance of celebrities in its commercials which are considered to be legendary. A good advertising account executive is always involved in the birth of a brand, along with the other specialists.
The way a television or print ad look is extremely important. For example the sound will change with the kind of brand being presented- loud music may work for a soft drink ad, but it won’t be good for a detergent ad. Besides these aspects, the programs during which the ad can be seen, makes a statement about the personality of the product, as do the choice of publications in which print ads will run.
When the brand is new it is important that the target audience is able to identify easily the brand and identify with the brand, very quickly. Advertising does not create the identity, but it chooses how to present the identity.
Marketing is the one which establishes what the image of a product should be like. Based on the targeted audience of the product, marketing will determine which aspects one segment of the population will find appealing.
For example, a few years ago, Apple Computer experienced some sales difficulties. A new product was to be released- the imam Computer. The personality of the product had to be very important- loyal Apple users had to be reminded why they liked the computer in the beginning and new users had to be convinced to try something that would look different fro what that they had tried before.
What the company did was to analyze the strong points of Apple and the imam. It marketed that Apple was something new, something fun, very appropriate for the younger users. Marketing executives made sure that the Imax was something innovative, smart and easy to use. Television commercials emphasized the look of the computer and the ease with which it could be installed and connected to the Internet. The new product looked different than all the other ones on the market- very colorful, a real change from the beige boxes in all the computer industry.
As a result, Apple increased its market share and sold millions of iMacs . The iMac campaign was successful with consumers because the market executives involved had correctly defined its demographic target. People believe that the iMac was innovative and exciting because the marketing choices made were the correct ones.
Marketing determines how the product is perceived by the public and it is best and the easiest done when the product is being marketed is of high quality.The success is due to market research; through focus groups, surveys and other tools market research determines what people want. Marketing is more the art of taking what already exists and making it more attractive to the public through branding techniques.
The public relations in branding has a more subtle role than the previous activities mentioned. Once marketing executives decide on the identity of the product, and once the advertising team has created a message to deliver it directly to the public, PR managers are responsible for the messages the public gets through different channels of communication.
For example, in the case of iMac, Apple made sure that school systems around the country had iMac computers as soon as they were available. Quite often they made donations to the schools. This helped familiarize very young computer users with Apple’s product first. This brilliant public relations showed that Apple had strong interests in education and in helping children, positive messages transmitted to the consumer.
Before bringing the brand into the newspapers, the radio programs and television programs, the public relations professionals have to analyze the brand identity. The characteristics found by the marketing team – the target, especially- will help also the public relations specialists in order to guide the message transmitted .
In conclusion, PR is the art of telling the story of a unique selling proposition, emphasizing its positive aspects; it helps create a brand, establish it and develop it. A successful brand has both a strong personality and friendliness; it seems to come along effortlessly, when in fact it is the product of endless market research studies, work and dedication.
