Branding And Why Is Branding

A brand is what can either attract people to you or make people avoid you; people would identify you by the brand you portray. One can communicate their brand through actions and words. “It is essential to understand that wherever we are, in whatever we do, we are all building our brand”.

A brand is a powerful tool, especially in the hotel industry where services are intangible. Many hotels of the 21st century have made branding one of their top most priority with the realisation that hotel branding helps to set them apart from their competitors and create a firm customer base. Branding creates brand recognition, brand preference, increase customer satisfaction and most importantly, customer loyalty.

Branding is about establishing an image of how you would like to be seen and thought of by others. In business, for instance, those people are usually consumers. In other words, companies want clients to think of them in a positive light so they purchase their products.

According to her, marketing helping companies build a formal brand of a company which will lead consumers to get use to the company and build a good relationship with it. During the late 19th and early 20th century, the main focus was on advertising new products, and because of mass production, companies would create similar products resulting in companies competing for consumers. Furthermore, she discusses that the concept of branding had be relevant in the early 1880, and nowadays selling an image or lifestyle is crucial for a firm (2000). Though Klein backs up her claim by using exams from the mid and late 20th century, they are still very relevant today. Branding is much more important than advertising. No longer are advertisements found allover the place, instead if a consumer knows a brand, they are more likely to remain faithful to that brand. Brands still create familiarity and emotional ties between consumers and companies. Overall, it is evident that the brand is more important than the product (Klein,

A brand is an organisation, product or service which has created an emotional connection with their consumers in order for them to favour their brand over their competitors. It is incredibly important for brands to keep up their image and one little thing could change the global perception of a business. It takes a lot to maintain a brand image that has been built up over a long period of time and even more to regain it if that reputation is lost. Brands are created through various different aspects such as their visuals, tone of voice, advertising, actions and reputation. The combination of these will leave their consumers with long lasting emotions and perceptions of a particular brand and will effect whether they support a business or not and whether they would favour or avoid it. When a brand looses their image it can cost a lot of money and time to rebrand to prevent complete failure of the product or service.

Brand- is a name, term, design, symbol, or other feature that separates an organization or product from its challengers in the judgments of the customer. Brands are used in business, marketing, and advertising.

In the theory, it defines a brand as a name, term, sign, symbol or design, or a combination of them intended to identify the goods and services of one seller or group of sellers and to differentiate the offering from those of other competitors. Simply put, branding is one of the most important aspects of any business, large or small, retail or B2B, which is the promise to customers and tells them what they can expect from the products and services. (Lake, 2015) (Williams, 2014) Consistent, strategic branding leads to a strong brand equity, which means the added value brought to your company's products or services that allows you to charge more for your brand.

According to the American Marketing Association (AMA), a brand is a “name, term, sign, symbol, or design, or a combination of them intended to identify the goods and services of one seller or group of sellers and to differentiate them from those of competition”. However, as Keller highlights, a brand is also “something that has actually created a certain amount of awareness, reputation, prominence, and so on in the marketplace”. Therefore, a brand is an identity created to differentiate itself from the competitors and to be remembered in consumer’s mind.

Branding is a tool to make the goods of one producer different from another producer (Keller, 2003). Carroll (2008) asserts that branding is a sign of quality, and it is helpful to increase

“name, term, sign, symbol or design, or a combination of them, intended to identify the goods and services of one seller or group of sellers and to differentiate them from those of competition”.

Basically, branding is a philosophical expression of the human condition. It is about belonging/attachment. Belonging to a tribe, to a religion, to a family and to a product. The Branding establishes a sense of attachment. It has this function for both the people who are part of the same group and also for the people who don’t belong. The origins of branding are basically related to the nature of the human condition. A tribe is a brand—religion is a brand. When it shows itself in a modern, fashionable form, you are expected statingbranding that began in the 19th century. It was basically affiliation with fast-moving consumer goods. But that is a distortion of what branding is. That type of branding is a manifestation of differentiation. It’s a differentiation of onefast-moving consumer product from another. Brands are a direct consequence of the strategy of market segmentation and differentiation.

The economic base over the past fifty years has undergone a major shift from being production centric to consumption centric as consumers have made a transition from the sphere of rationality to the realm of desire and wants. This shift has contributed significantly towards the birth of an economy driven by people, making it resoundingly lucid that customers are now in the seat of power, compelling industries to treat ‘customers as king’ by offering them their desired products at the demanded place and time. In such markets where industries are producing homogenous products and competing against each other to satisfy the needs of ever demanding customers, branding plays an imperative role (Lafferty B,2001). It is branding that provides companies the competitive advantage by contributing towards image creation, creating differentiation and customer recognition thereby highlighting that branding in present day is paramount (Shipley D; Howard P ,1993)

As competition comes with multiple choices, organisations are forced to search for new methods of emotionally connecting with their customer, to effectively become irreplaceable while creating lifetime relationships with stakeholders. A solid brand is one that is able to stand out in an overpopulated market place. Branding allows an organisation to build brand awareness, and increase customer loyalty.

Branding is one of the most dominant trends in global food and beverage industry which responsible for the market share of the companies. In this era of globalisation, major food and beverage companies operate globally and increased competition between the brands (Richter, 2004).

Long before now has branding been considered as one of the peripheral aspects of business. Manufacturers, investors and other key players focused on the product without paying much attention to the consumer. But as the business landscape got tougher, marketing became not just an integral part of business but one of the fundamental principles of success.