Importance of Branding as a Marketing Tool Paper Example

As a manager, I am writing this article for the company to adopt a new marketing brochure as shown in the following figure.

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Brand is Power

Despite that many people think of branding like a position in the business, the truth is that it is more about providing customers with excellent experiences that will bring them back again in the business. Brand is understood as a unique symbol or design that a company employs to create an image that can help customers identify its products and differentiates it from competitors in the market (Bhasin, 2018). Brand equity, on the other hand, is understood as the brand's value (Bhasin, 2018). Branding is more than just a business logo or graphic element that someone uses in the organisation. It involves everything that the business desires and wants about its customer experience ranging from the logo to social media experience. Over the years, technology has provided business with good platforms that they can brand their products and services to improve the customer experience while increasing their revenue income as well. Therefore, branding has been an important marketing tool in most businesses over the years. The aim of this article is to show the importance of brand and show how it can be created and managed over time.

P1: Importance of Branding as a Marketing Tool

Brand Equity Model: Keller's CBBE Model

Based on Keller's CBBE model of brand equity management, branding can serve the organisation in different beneficial ways. The figure below shows Keller's brand equity pyramid that will help analyze the importance of branding in marketing through the development stages.

As shown in the above diagram (Figure 3), brand equity is developed in four main stages. The following discussion shows how brand equity is developed through the four stages.

Salience or "Who are you"

This is the first stage of brand equity development. As an organisation, the first step towards creating brand equity is to ensure that customers can identify the brand and recognize it in the market. Based on Keller's model, this stage determines whether the brand has prominence in the market (Bhasin, 2018). For example, in Samsung Company, the company's brand is highly reputable that everyone can identify it in the streets or anywhere else.

The meaning or "What are you"

This is the second level of brand equity development that is involved in Keller's model. In this level, Keller believed that this stage refers to how the company relates to what its brand means and stands for in the market (Bhasin, 2018). It also involves the image and performance of the company. For example, in Samsung Company, the company meets its consumers' psychological needs through quality products. Even though its products' price is always high, the company is able to appeal to its customers through both effectiveness and reliability.

Response or "What about you"

This is the third level of brand equity development model in Keller's model. In this level, the organisation has to understand how people respond to its brand based on the judgments and emotions (Bhasin, 2018). For example, many customers have always judged the company positively because of their perceived quality and credibility. For many customers, Samsung's products are genuine and original. Through the new marketing brochure, the focus is on core values such as communication to help manage such responses like feelings that are tricky to manage.

Resonance or "What about you and me"

In this stage, brand equity helps to connect the business and the customers. Based on Keller's model, this is the hardest and most difficult stage to achieve in many businesses (Bhasin, 2018). Resonance means that customers are able to relate and emotionally connect with the brand. In Samsung, the brand has been significantly improving in the past years. The brand is gaining superiority in the Europe market. For instance, through it's before service, purchasing service and after purchase service strategies, Samsung has managed to make people develop loyalty on its brand.

P2: Key Components of a Successful Brand Strategy

It is obvious that marketers want to have their brand as the most memorable, liked and memorable item in the minds of their customers when they come to the marker to make purchases. However, one way to achieve this aspiration is that businesses have decided to focus on building a well-structured brand equity model that can help them bring positive strategic returns in marketing. Some of the key elements of the brand strategy that can help build and manage strong brand equity include:

Brand Extension

Brand extension is understood as a strategy that a company that has already created a strong brand in the market uses to market a different product category through its successful brand name (Bhasin, 2018). As Trivikram (2017) explains, the brand extension can help the business maximise its brand image in the market. According to the author, brand extension is an influential market strategy where a company promotes its new products through the existing brand name. For example, a company that produces software can decide to produce electronics such as television and uses its brand name to market the new product. In the market, a good example of product extension can be witnessed in Samsung. Samsung recently launched the smartphone Samsung Galaxy, which is expected to improve and strengthen the brand equity of the mother brand of Samsung.

Brand Revitalisation

According to Hamel (2018), revitalizing a brand involves creating and maintaining awareness of the company's products and services through creating new products, changing the existing, rebranding and advertising. All these are strategies or ways that a company can strengthen its brand equity and breathe life into the existing brand. As Wickford (2018) explained, companies spend many resources trying to create brands that resonate with the consumers, but at long last, even the most exquisite brand can lose its taste to customers. Therefore, through brand revitalization, the company can maintain its brand strength in the market (Wickford, 2018). In Samsung, the company almost lost its brand equity in the past years, especially as new players like Apple Inc. Corporation came in the market. However, the company has managed to maintain its strength in the market, especially in Europe region through updating its products. The most recent update is the launch of the Samsung Galaxy smartphone. This adds on top of the existing product line including electronics such as television and other household equipment such fridge.

Brand Reinforcement

Brand reinforcement refers to the strategies or ways that the company maintains its brand value to customers (Wickford, 2018). Such strategies ensure that customers have the desired knowledge structures about the brand. Some of the ways to ensure that the brand is effectively reinforced include maintaining brand consistency, protecting the sources of brand equity, leveraging, and supporting the market programs (Hamel, 2018). Samsung has managed to remain and even expand its operations across the world due to its reinforcement strategies which include maintaining the brand's consistency. The company has managed to maintain its positive reputation with customers for decades.

Conclusion

In conclusion, from these points, it is clear that branding goes beyond the most common idea that it involves positioning in marketing. Branding is clearly a vital component of marketing that businesses must consider when making marketing plans and decisions. However, based on the above components of building and managing successful brand equity, a business that tends to benefit through its brand must start the process by identifying and managing the association that attributes to brand equity.

References

Bhasin, H. (2018, March 13). What is Brand Extension? Marketing91. Retrieved from https://www.marketing91.com/brand-extension/

Bhasin, H. (2018, January 12). Keller's Brand Equity Model-CBBE Model by Keller. Marketing91. Retrieved from https://www.marketing91.com/kellers-brand-equity-model/

Hamel, G. (2018). Revitalizing a Brand. Chron. Retrieved from https://smallbusiness.chron.com/revitalizing-brand-44410.html

Trivikram, S. (2017, February 21). Brand Extension to Maximise Brand Image. MyVenturePad. Retrieved http://myventurepad.com/brand-extension-maximise-brand-image/

Wickford, H. (2018). Revitalizing a Brand. AzCentral. Retrieved from https://yourbusiness.azcentral.com/revitalizing-brand-4213.html