Paper Example on Branding

Introduction

Brands dominate the twenty-first-century markets with current consumers identifying their purchases with particular products. The brand name is a significant component of the overall product personality. Branding is not just a name, logo or a strapline. It is all that encompass the company and assists in distinguishing it from others. Typically, branding refers to the presentation of the terms, design, and symbols that intend to identify certain goods or services of a particular company and differentiate them from any possible competitors (Dibb S. , Marketing Concepts and Strategies, 2012). It is the perception of other individuals regarding the specific products, services or activities of an organization. Therefore, the brand is not only created by the physical features but also the emotions the consumers develop for the products. Competitors can easily imitate a product, but the brand will always remain unique and prevail over novice entrants policies. A critical analysis of the branding concept helps reveal its impact on maintaining a sustainable competitive advantage.

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A successful branding results in a recognizable symbol, design or logo that makes it a standout amongst its competitors. Branding takes different forms which include corporate branding represents the entire organization. For example, the Coca-Cola Company, Microsoft or McDonalds. Product branding outlines specific company products such as the Big Mac by McDonald's, and the vanilla Diet coke by Coca-Cola Company. Branding comprises all the experiences associated with a specific product or organization (Dibb, Ferrell, Simkin, & Pride, 2016). McDonald's convinces its consumers of quick foods, low pricing and consistent services, hence consumers experience refined the branding. It also consists of a name and the corresponding symbols and designs.

Branding involves more than a name, unique design and catchy strapline to represent the reason for the existence of the organization's activities. It comprises the purpose why the organization exists and what sets it apart from others. Organizations achieve branding through multiple approaches including in-store experience, pricing, advertising, visual identity and communications. Blend together; they make who the organizations are through the characteristics that define its offering. Organizations could accomplish a successful branding through the creation of a strong visual identity using a unique packaging design (Hoffman & Bateson, 2016). For instance, Minute Maid redesigned the packaging for its premium products to accomplish easier identification when displayed. The redesigning gave it a coherent and unified look easily recognizable across its product lines, cultures and market as captured in Figure 1.

Effective branding yields power that drives the products' market performance to stand out against rivals'. Branding helps the organization to capture business value drivers by creating the emotional attachment with consumers, thereby influencing their product choices. Often consumers use their emotional and rational judgments to make their purchase decision (Cliffe, 2017). A brand that matches consumers' preferences creates the real point of difference. Often, consumers pay more for branded products than they expect to incur for the unbranded products. Here, branding enables the consumers to associate the product to present the consistent set of values. The strong brand adds recognizable value consistently communicating what the entire business offers from the multitude offering similar products (Wirtz & Lovelock, 2016). As such, branding endows the products and services with power that gives a specific meaning the company must strive to sustain. It narrows the objective of delivering products and services that align with the brand promises.

Branding shapes the consumers' minds to allow the target audience to identify the company's products despite a crowded marketplace quickly. Typically, the brand offers a decision-making shortcut to overcome indecisiveness on substitute products offered by different companies. Similarly, packaging design becomes the silent salesman that grabs the attention of busy customers (Dibb, Ferrell, Simkin, & Pride, 2016). The packaging conveys a quick attraction to the product's properties through its visual differences, hence a differentiating attribute to on-shelf competition. A classic illustration is the Fiji Water attained through the transparent design of the bottle. The design reflects purity while the inclusion of the tropical flower images and leaves creates a source bond to the nature as illustrated in Figure 2. The Fiji Water brand conveys a visual story of purity, healthy and natural settings, hence a silent salesperson enabling the product to attain the sustainable competitive advantage.

The brand offers a sustainable source of competitive advantage through consistent delivery of value to actual customers. Well-managed brands create a powerful connection that leaves customers inclined to purchase the product rather than substitutes (Dibb, Simkin, Pride, & Ferrell, 2012). It presents the shorthand of things customers' desire in the product. Branding gives products that hold little meaning a distinction that matches a valuable investment to satisfy the customers' ego when reaching purchase decisions. It explains a situation where Nintendo, Sony, Apple and Disney products lack universal appeal making it impossible for all customers to prefer their attributes. However, the positive elements conveyed by the Disney brand including clean, creative design, and family-oriented gives a little different to loyal customers. The presentation of positive elements gives a compelling value to millions who allocate a sizeable portion of their household income to facilitate their visit to Disney theme park.

Branding is critical in a competitive global marketplace to connect with an established customer base that existing rivals and new entrants find more expensive and difficult to displace. Such is seen in the Apple brand that shares a similar story of robust designs, easy-to-use interfaces and expensive tag identified with initial MacBook series. The company translated a similar identity to its iPhones and iPods. It gives the reason for consumers to desire the experience of the satisfying ego by owning Apple products. Branding creates a more visible advantage that sustains Apple name in its subsequent releases as other products tumble by the wayside (Hoffman & Bateson, 2016). Consequently, branding carries a quickly apparent meaning that eases the market acceptance allowing the company wins niche status beyond its core product line. Such delivers a sustainable foot when seeking entry into new geographic markets.

Branding nurtures an offensive and defensive tool allowing the company to carve out the niche in the marketplace. Although expensive to build one, it offers an irreplaceable tool to defend the home-turf against the local and foreign competition. It compels knowing the customers' values that the company should incorporate as product and service values. Doing so bears the brand strategy that supports value creation and positioning that transforms the conventional products and business operation into a unique competitive advantage (Wirtz & Lovelock, 2016). It becomes evident in the livery design developed by Virgin Airlines to create memorable visual expressions and signatures authentically placed as displayed in Figure 3.Besides its distinctive appearance, the visual signatures that generate a polished scheme that reflect the premium offering under the Virgin Atlantic fleet. The special editions of Birthday Girl and No Way BA/AA blend with red details aggregate a red-hot curiosity for the delivery of heartfelt services and magic experienced by Virgin customers. Virgin Atlantic shows that branding involves engaging customers with conversations sustained through analysis of their perceptions and diagnosis of their expectations. It becomes possible for the company to offer products that maintain fuel the authentic relationship hence nurture the brand promise.

Branding creates short-term destinations the firm uses to evaluate and track its long-term plan. It visualizes the value creation in a framework questioning benefits delivered by the product and services (Dibb S. , Marketing Concepts and Strategies, 2012). Guided by the brand vision, the firm examines the contribution of the product towards extending helpful input to the consumer in future lines. The link fuels the promise of creativity and provision of superior services. The brand guides the discovery paths to locate solutions creatively delivered though messages that relevantly link to the established image. Here, consistency creates an ecosystem where creative messages would hardly disturb the positive perceptions customers have towards the brands (Dibb, Simkin, Pride, & Ferrell, 2012). For instance, Life Buoy would utilize different approach though relevant to deliver its brand message emphasizing hygiene and health as captured in Figure 4. It resembles the backbone of Virgin Brand being capturing the exceptional customer experience whether in travel, communications, banking or health sectors. The retention of the Virgin name retains the curiosity through smart creativity to deliver the customer-focused operations. The need for relevancy compels its selected business partners to leverage its expertise in developing products and services that value the customer-oriented experience.

Successful branding enables the firms to develop lasting connection at the emotional level with customers. Emotional ties with the customer yield improved customer loyalty both directly and indirectly connected to secure repeated purchase behavior in the audience. That is only possible when firms offer products that consistently satisfy the physical requirements of customers (Cliffe, 2017). Here, the firm should utilize reverse attachment by providing products and services that grasp the customer attention. As later revealed, reverse-engineered analysis of customer requirements provides a reliable channel for evaluating and understanding the emotional needs of the customers (Dibb S. , Marketing Concepts and Strategies, 2012). Repeated process yields effective attachment to the brand as shown in Johnson's baby products. For instance, Johnson & Johnson commercials on baby products would convey, giver her motherly love, so much more and no more tears amongst others.

Customers with close relations and bonds with a particular brand will not only purchase the product, but desire some other related items which result in overall customer loyalty within the ecosystem of a specific company. For instance, Samsung's branding philosophy encompasses five essential pillars which include innovation, world-class designs, internal branding, talent, and technology. Competence utilization of the components results in cooler and trendy products which have strategically positioned the company in both consumer's perceptions and the market. The company has utilized all possible channels of communication to present their positioning and personality (Wagstaff, 2012). In most cases, individuals using a Samsung smart phone probably have a Samsung television or fridge and would prefer no other brand. In its branding, Samsung can blend the physical and emot...