1.0 INTRODUCTION
In developing a marketing strategy for individual products, the
seller has to confront the branding decision. Branding is a major issue in
product strategy. For instance, developing a branded product
requires a great deal
of long-term investment spending especially for advertising, promotion and
packaging. Many brand oriented companies subcontract manufacturing to other
companies. For example, Taiwanese Manufacturers make a great amount of the
world’s clothing, consumer electronics, and computers, but not under Taiwanese
brand names.
Besides, some manufacturers observe that market power lies
with the brand name companies. Even when these companies can no longer afford
to manufacture their products in their homeland, the brand names continue to
command customer loyalty.
Powerful brand names have consumer franchise – they command strong
consumer loyalty. A sufficient number of customers demand these brands and
refuse substitutes, even if the substitutes are offered at somewhat lower
prices. These companies around the world invest heavily to create strong
national or even global recognition and preference for their brand names. In
this note, we examine brand names and their implications for marketing products
and services.
2.0 OBJECTIVES
At the end of this note, you should be able to:
·
define a brand name
·
differentiate various types of brand names in
·
our markets
·
give reasons why companies invest millions of naira in choosing a brand
name
·
explain the characteristics of a good brand name.
3.0 MAIN CONTENT
3.1 Branding
A crucial step in the branding strategy is deciding on a specific
brand name for the product that is being introduced. In earlier times, when the
concept and practice of branding was much less developed, very often the family
name or surname was used. Some of those are still very much alive, for example,
Siemens or Ford. The other common method of branding was by way of addressing
the product range of the company. Two famous examples are General Motors and
General Electric. It seems the function that brands were supposed to perform
was either to indicate the source or the origin of the product (family name) or
indicate the product range.
However, a brand name has emerged as one of the most important
elements of the merchandising function in recent times, and will become more
and more crucial as the competition becomes more severe in Nigeria and other
parts of the world. Let us examine the conceptual meaning of the terms brand
and brand name.
What is a Brand? Perhaps the most distinctive skill of professional marketers is
their ability to create, maintain, protect, and enhance brands. Marketers say that
branding is the art and cornerstone of marketing.
A brand is a word, mark, symbol, device or a combination thereof,
used to identify some product or service. The definition clearly focuses on the
function of a brand, that is, to identify, irrespective of the specific means
employed for the identification.
Akanbi (2002) reports that ‘brand is the name, term, symbol, or
design or a combination of these which is employed to identify the goods or services
of one seller or group of sellers, and to differentiate them from those of
competitors’. The American Marketing
Association defines a brand as ‘a name, term, sign, symbol or design or a
combination of them, intended to identify the goods or services of one seller
or group of sellers and to differentiate them from those of competitors’.
What then is a Brand Name? As we have just seen, the American
Marketing Association defines it thus: ‘Brand name is a part of a brand
consisting of a word, letter, group of words or letters comprising a name which
is intended to identify the goods or services of a seller or a group of sellers
and to differentiate them from those of competitors’. Comparing this definition
with that of other authorities, it is found that the function remains the same.
A brand name is only one of the means that the brand can use for identification.
Examples of brand names are: Toyota, Honda, Mercedes, Mobil, Shell, Lux and
Omo.
A Brand Mark – A brand mark is the part of the brand that is in the form of a
symbol, design or distinctive coloring or lettering. Examples include: ‘the
Lion’ for Peugeot cars, the ‘Star’ for Mercedes Benz cars and a ‘Stallion’ for
Union Bank of Nigeria Plc.
A Trademark – This is a brand that is given legal protection as an exclusive
use of a particular company. Trademarks are brands, but not all brands are
legally protected. Hence, any mark that is not legally protected cannot be
referred to as a trademark. The American Marketing Association defines a
trademark as ‘a brand that is given legal protection, because under the law, it
has been appropriated by one seller’. Thus, trademark is essentially a legal
term. All trademarks are brands and thus include the words, letters or numbers that
can be pronounced. They also include a pictorial design (brand mark).
Some people erroneously believe that the trademark is only the pictorial part
of the brand.
3.2 Importance of Branding
The importance of branding is as follows:
(1) Brands make it easy for consumers to identify products or services.
(2) Brands also assure purchasers that they are getting comparable
quality when they reorder.
(3) For sellers, brands are something that can be advertised and
that will be recognized when displayed on shelves in a store.
(4) Brands also help sellers to control their share of the market,
because buyers will not confuse one product with another.
(5) Branding reduces price comparisons, because it is hard to compare
prices on two items with different brands.
(6) For sellers, branding can add a measure of prestige to
otherwise ordinary commodities, such as Gulder, Star, Coca-Cola, Mercedes’
products, Sony’s products, etc.
3.2 Reasons for Branding
There are various reasons why a company may wish to adopt a brand name
and/or trademark. Some of these include the following:
(1) Branding enables a company to differentiate its product. It
gives the marketer a different product to promote. Each market segment will
have a specific version of the same product from the company.
(2) Brands help to ascertain who the producer of the product is. A
company’s name is built around the brand name which can be used to stimulate
the sales of the product.
(3) Branding enables a company to control the distribution and the
price of its product because of its distinct nature.
(4) The promotion of a brand will help the company to increase its
market share in the country. It helps to build loyalty for the product and
increase repeat purchases.
(5) Branding can aid a marketer to increase his product lines. The
qualities associated with an established line can be exploited to reflect on a
new product marketed under the same brand name.
3.3 Reasons for not Branding
Some of the reasons for not branding include the following:
(1) Many firms do not brand their products because they are unable
or unwilling to assume the two major responsibilities inherent in brand
ownership: (a) to promote the brand and (b) to maintain a consistent quality of
output.
(2) Some items are not branded because of the difficulties of differentiating
the products of one firm from those of another. For example, clothes pins, nails
and industrial raw materials (coal, cotton, and wheat) are examples of goods
for which product differentiation is generally unknown. In addition, the physical
nature of some items, such as fresh fruits and vegetables, may discourage
branding (although, these days, they are packaged in tins/cans).
(3) Producers frequently do not brand that part of their product (output)
that is below their regular quality. Products graded as ‘seconds’ or
‘imperfects’ are sold at a reduced price and are often distributed through
channels different from those used for regular quality goods.
3.4 Characteristics of a Good Brand A good brand should
possess as many of the following characteristics as possible. It is extremely
difficult to find a brand that has all of them. A brand should:
(1) Suggest something about the product’s characteristics – the benefits,
use or action. Some names suggest desirable benefits including cold spot,
craftsman (tools), etc. Product use and action is suggested by minute rice,
thermo pane, spic and span, etc.
(2) Be easy to pronounce, spell, and remember, simple, short, one syllable
names such as Omo, Mobil, Total, Toyota, Shell, etc. are helpful.
(3) Be distinctive. Brands with names like national, star, ideal
or standard fail on this point.
(4) Be adaptable to new products that may be added to the product line.
(5) Be capable of being registered and legally protected under the
Acts or other statutory laws.
3.5 Branding Decisions
Having an appropriate brand has emerged as the most important
activity in the area of marketing of products, especially consumer products. Several
decisions need to be taken, though not simultaneously, with regard to brand
selection and its use. Whether to brand a product or not is a decision which
can be taken only after considering the nature of the product, the type of
outlets envisaged for the product, the perceived advantages of branding and the
estimated costs of developing the brand. In addition, marketers also have to
decide at the outset whether they would like to adopt a family brand under
which all the products of the company would be sold or to brand each product
separately. For instance, companies like GE or Philips follow the family name
strategy while GM follows the individual brand strategy. These are the
advantages in either approach:
(A) Family Brand
(1) It reduces the costs of product launching and ongoing promotional
expenditure substantially. The firm has to promote only one brand which, if
successful, would be able to sell the entire product line. Lining up the
distribution channel members also becomes comparatively easier. A family brand
name has been found to be very cost effective in tyre marketing.
(2) If one product does exceptionally well, it is perfectly possible
that there would be positive fallouts for other products being marketed under
the same brand.
(3) A greater
weakness of this strategy is that it does not recognise that each product can
be given a specific identity by a suitable brand which can go a long way to
make it successful.
(B) Individual Brand
(1) If there is a product failure, its damaging effect will be
limited to that particular product and will not extend to the entire product line.
(2) Individual brand strategy can immensely influence the
decisions.
(3) The basic disadvantage lies in the economics of developing an individual
brand. It is obviously a costlier strategy than the family brand.
(4) The other disadvantage is that the brand does not directly
derive any benefit from the reputation of the firm.
3.6 Brand Repositioning Over the life cycle of a product, several market parameters might undergo
a change such as introduction of a competing product, shifts in consumer
preferences, identification of new needs, etc. All and each of such changes call
for a re-look as to whether the original positioning of the product is still
optimal or not. Stagnating or declining sales also point to a need for
reassessment of the original product positioning.
A classic story of
successful brand repositioning is the Seven-up campaign. Seven-up was one of
several soft drinks bought primarily by older people who wanted a brand, lemon flavor
drink. Research indicated that while a
majority of soft drink consumers preferred a cola, they did not prefer it all
the time and many other consumers were non-cola drinkers.
Seven-up went up for leadership in the non-cola market by
executing a brilliant campaign, calling itself the Uncola. The campaign
featured the Uncola as a youthful and refreshing drink, the one to reach for
instead of a cola. Seven-up created a new way for consumers to view the soft market,
as consisting of colas and uncolas, with seven-up leading the uncolas.
It thus repositioned seven-up as an alternative to the traditional soft drink,
not just another soft drink. Another exciting story of brand repositioning is
Pepsi Cola’s campaign to reincarnate its flagging 30- year old Mountain Dew
brand.
4.0 CONCLUSION
Brand management is one of the most important areas of marketing especially
with reference to consumer products. The name gives the product the unique
personality and is so well associated with the product that the brand name
sometimes even takes the place of the generic product name. Surf and Omo are
two classic examples where the brand names connote the generic product
category, i.e. detergent. The selection of brand name is an important decision.
You can choose any brand name you like as long as it is unique, easy to read,
write and pronounce and remember, and does not have any unfavorable or negative
meanings associated with it.
5.0 SUMMARY
In this note, we discussed, branding, brand name, brand mark, trademark,
reasons for and against branding, importance of branding, classes of branding
and brand repositioning.
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