A brand is a way a product, company, or individual is perceived by those who experience it. Much more than just a name or a logo, a brand is the recognizable feeling these assets evoke.
Think of a brand. Any brand. We’re pretty big fans of Apple around here, so we’ll go with that.
What is the Apple brand?
It isn’t computers and phones and other cool stuff we can’t live without. Those are the products Apple manufactures.
And it isn’t slick TV ads or dramatically staged presentations or chicly minimalist storefronts. That’s all marketing and advertising. It’s admittedly pretty cool marketing and advertising, but still.
Even Apple’s name and logo don’t encompass what we mean when we talk about the Apple brand. It turns out the Apple brand isn’t any “thing” in the classical sense of the word. You can’t hold it or hear it or even touch it. That’s because brands live in the mind. They live in the minds of everyone who experiences them: employees, investors, the media, and, perhaps most importantly, customers.
What is brand management?
Brand management is a marketing process of building and managing a better brand image. Over time, it involves techniques and strategies to increase a brand or product line’s perceived value. The primary aim of brand management is to add value to a brand by enabling the price of products to go up while building a loyal customer base through solid brand awareness and positive brand associations.
Effective brand management helps an organization or company differentiate its products from competitors, attract more customers, and build a better relationship with the target market.
The Intangibles Of Brand Management
While the tangible elements of the brand management include the product and its price, packaging, shape, colour, etc., the intangible elements that also plays a major part in selling it and building a long term experience are –
- Brand Equity: It’s the value of the brand as a separate asset.
- Brand Image: It is an aggregate of beliefs, ideas, and impressions that a customer holds regarding the brand.
- Brand Positioning: Positioning is the unique space a brand occupies in the brains of the customers.
- Brand Associations: The images and symbols associated with a brand or a brand benefit.
- Other Brand Elements: Elements like brand personality, communication elements, etc.
Functions Of Brand Management
Brand management forms a subset of marketing management. It deals with the overall brand development right from the birth of the brand until the time it ceases to exist. The functions of brand management include but are not limited to the following –
- Identifying the ideal target market, understanding what motivates them to choose one, product over others and positioning the brand in the same domain.
- Developing an ideal brand message which resonates both with the needs of the target market and with the value proposition of the offering.
- Communicating the brand promise to the customers by making use of almost every possible touchpoint.
- Making efforts to build brand equity and measure it from time to time.
- Managing the brand architecture and making sure sub-brands structure and communication align with the master brand structure and communication policies.
- Building the brand identity and making sure that it aligns with the brand image in the market.
- Handling brand communication in the market
- Anticipating and accommodating new brand identity needs
Steps of Strategic Brand Management Process
Strategic brand management revolves around building brand equity and ensuring its growth over time. Therefore, the brand management process involves planning, executing, and controlling marketing and branding strategies, including activities to promote brand equity building, measurement, and control.
A strategic brand management process comprises four main steps:
- Identification and establishment of brand positioning and values
- Design and execution of brand marketing programmes
- Measurement and evaluation of brand performance
- Growth and sustenance of brand equity
1. Identification and establishment of brand positioning and values
Brand positioning plays a critical role in communicating a brand’s unique value to its customers and dictates customer preferences and buying behavior. As a result, it serves as the basis for customer loyalty. Therefore, the first step of a strategic brand management process entails a clear understanding of what a brand should represent and how it should be positioned with competitors. It usually involves the following concepts:
- Mental maps: A point-of-view perception of the different brand-linked associations in the consumer’s mind.
- Points of parity: Convincing customers that an offering similar to a competitor makes the brand good enough for inclusion in the category.
- Points of difference: Convincing consumers that the benefits they associate with a brand would not be found in a competitor brand.
- Brand mantra: A short phrase capturing the brand spirit.
- Core brand associations: Attributes that best characterize a brand.
- The frame of reference: Recognising the target market and identifying the nature of competition.
2. Design and execution of brand marketing programmes
Once the brand management team has figured out the positioning strategy, the next step involves planning and implementing marketing programmes to position the brand. The steps involved here are as follows:
- Creating brand elements: Brand elements refer to the brand names, logos, symbols, URLs, taglines, packaging, etc., that identify and differentiate a brand from its competitors. Customers associate most with brand elements, facilitating brand awareness and associations.
- Choosing brand marketing activities: Integrating brand marketing activities create favorable and strong brand associations.
- Tapping secondary associations: This involves linking the brand to characters, countries, sporting and cultural events, distribution channels, and the like to improve the brand equity.
3. Measurement and evaluation of brand performance
Measurement and evaluation of brand performance are essential to understanding the impact of various brand marketing programmes. It involves developing and implementing a system to measure brand equity or social value. To implement a brand equity measurement system, marketers need to complete the following steps:
- Brand auditing: A brand audit is an overall evaluation of the brand’s current market position with respect to its competitors. Conducting a brand audit involves an assessment of the strengths and limitations of the brand and suggesting ways to improve brand equity.
- Brand tracking: Brand tracking studies directly collect brand-related information from consumers over time. It helps measure a brand’s current health regarding consumers’ perception and usage.
- Brand equity management system: It refers to a set of tools and research processes designed to identify the sources and consequences of brand equity. It enables marketers to develop the best possible tactics for building, measuring, and managing brand equity.
4. Growth and sustenance of brand equity
Once the brand equity has been built, the real challenge is sustaining and expanding it over time to ensure that the brand grows. It is a continuous process and involves the following steps:
- Establish brand architecture: Defining the brand architecture means setting down general guidelines about the brand structure, brand elements, and branding strategy. It includes brand portfolio and brand hierarchy. A brand portfolio lists the different brands a company has to offer, and brand hierarchy is the number and nature of unique and common brand elements across the firm’s products.
- Manage brand equity in the long run: It involves marketing decisions that will affect the brand equity in the long run and determine the success of future marketing programs.
- Reinforce and revitalize: The ultimate step to ensure the growth and sustainability of brand equity is to make the best possible tactical decisions to ensure that a brand continues to enjoy its sources of equity. It involves brand reinforcement to convey the brand image to consumers consistently and brand revitalization to either recapture lost sources of brand equity or identify and establish new ones.
Why Invest in Branding?
As we’ve seen, brands are ultimately perceptions. It’s ironic, then, that the hesitancy of some CEOs to invest in branding boils down to a matter of perception as well.
It isn’t easy to draw direct correlations between successful branding and quantifiable returns. But the simple fact is you can’t put a price on the value of developing a truly authentic brand.
So, why invest in branding?
The operative word here is “investment.” Too many companies see branding as just another expense counted against their marketing budget.
But when you understand how integral branding is to influencing consumer behavior, you see that it’s more than just a tactic.
Branding is a long-term strategy that can yield measurable returns throughout the life of your company.
Take a look at just five of the top returns you’ll get from your branding investment:
Attract Ideal Customers
Central to any branding initiative is customer research. In-depth interviews, focus groups, and online surveys enable you to precisely identify which customer types align with your company’s purpose and values.
With this information, you can create clearly defined audience personas and craft messaging that’s specifically targeted at your ideal customers.
Ideal customers aren’t just more likely to buy what you’re selling; they’re also significantly more loyal in their relationship with your brand. And few things are more valuable than brand loyalty.
Increase Marketing Effectiveness
The easiest way to make your marketing efforts more effective is to invest in the brand they stem from.
When your brand is cohesive and well-articulated, your marketing initiatives will be too. Branding encompasses the essential “first steps” that define your core messaging, brand personality, and tenable marketplace position.
The customer research involved in branding allows you to develop targeted marketing campaigns that are highly relevant to your most valuable customer segments.
A bold new identity makes every marketing touchpoint more engaging, while the guidelines and templates that come out of branding will save you time and money on the content of all your future initiatives.
Close Deals More Easily
Ask any salesperson on the frontlines of commission warfare and they’ll tell you: Well-defined, strategically positioned brands are just easier to sell.
That’s because value propositions are built into the brand narrative of a well-positioned brand. This takes a huge weight off of the shoulders of its sales team because a good portion of its work has already been done well before they engage with potential customers.
Branding gives your sales force a unique advantage, better enabling them to close deals quickly and confidently.
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