Brands Are Machines for Delivering Quality Earnings at High Margins

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”.

Catherine, W., Tat Pui, L. and Henrik, U. (2011) The Roles of Branding for a Brand Entering

Brand strategy is of upmost importance when it comes to customer visualizing a company. Branding is critical to the company as well as the product. The company brand embodies what the company is about,including the product (Hatline, M.D. & Ferrel, O.C., 2014). Branding provides the company with leverage when it tries to enter new markets Whether that be new locations or new product offerings (Douglas, S. P., Craig, C. S., & Nijssen, E. J., 2001).

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.

First of all, a strong brand can be seen as the condition for organisations to expand products, offer more service, and introduce new products (Chernatony and McDonald, 2003). Secondly, a strong brand can lead to growth marketing communication effectiveness (Keller, 2009). ‘To build a strong brand, the right knowledge structures must exist in the minds of actual or prospective customers so that they respond positively to marketing activities and programs in these different ways.’(Keller, 2003, p. 140) Furthermore, Kay (2005) asserted that the strong brand can be seen as a resource of management, which make brand extension easier and useful to build distribution network. Companies are not treated by the intermediaries (Chernatony and McDonald, 2003). Moreover, companies are comparatively easier to change price if they have strong brands. As Henderson, et al (2003) said, a strong brand can allow for premium pricing even still remain loyalty customers, which help companies to survive in the intensive competitive market.

Your brand is more than your logo, name, or slogan – it’s the entire experience your prospects and customers have with your company, product, or service. Branding does not end with coming up with a good name, an even better logo, and slapping both on flyers, brochures and advertisements that you release to your target market. Your business’ brand strategy is not something that you should take lightly, if you want your brand to have meaning for your customers.

These companies were able to connect with their customers, whether it was the type of consumer product, product and service attributes, or building a strong band. Whatever these 10 companies focused more on or focused equally on, out of the 2,500 brands being surveyed these 10 hit it right on the mark. The case mentions all strong brands – whether it’s Facebook or Reese’s – are built around an ideal of improving consumers’ lives in some relevant

Creating and managing a brand is a fascinating process. A brand is not really a ‘thing’ in the conventional sense. This is an abstract concept that really is a collection of principles, values, images and products; but together this branding manages to completely define your business and the way you’re seen by the general public and your potential audience.

A corporate brand is like a good soup; when properly prepared it is far more than the sum of its parts. A magnificent soup starts with wholesome ingredients, but in time those ingredients harmonize and create a cacophony of flavors. With a successful brand, a similar process occurs. A company starts off with some guidelines and a few product ideas. Then, some magical happens; the company discovers it has opinions and stands for something – it has a set of values. These values enable the company to create an avatar of beliefs; a brand. Through this brand, customers are able to learn what values they share with that company. Customers that believe in the brand integrate it into their lifestyle and let it become part of

"Brands are machines for delivering quality earnings at high margins" Tim Broadbent. 'Advertising Works 2000'.

Branding is designed to increase a firm’s profitability by increasing the premium associated with the pricing of a good or service, and or by increasing the sales of a product over and above those sales that would have occurred through standard marketing efforts. However the biggest incentive to brand is that the cost of branding declines over a period over a period of time. In the short term the cost of branded good is more that non-branded goods but over a period of time these costs decline and the premium earned from branding is much higher. Thus it can be said that it’s much easier to maintain a brand (reputation) than to build one up. One of the reasons for declining costs could be increase in trust of the consumer. The fact that branding costs decline overtime earns a company ‘brand equity’. Brand Equity is a function of both the intensity of the branding efforts and the amount of branding saturation that occurs. So a company may be willing to brand and incur higher initial opportunity costs, and lower expected profits, in order to achieve a greater stream of profits in the future.

I do not agree with the theorem that the successful brands are build on the successful products. It has been deliberate that the successful brands are built on the beliefs and not on the products. The most of the individuals don’t contemplate about underpinning the brand they develop but they necessitate offering a good product and earn a good income through selling it in the marketplace.

A strong brand identity is one thing that no one can ever take away from a business. Great ideas and products can be improved, patents eventually expire, and technology is always changing- but a brand with loyal customers can continue to thrive, and can even be the most valuable part of a company. (building your brand) Branding creates awareness for a business and can be the main way a

“A successful brand is an identifiable product, service, person or place, augmented in such a way that the buyer or user perceives relevant, unique added values which match their needs more closely. Furthermore, its success results from being able to sustain those added values in the face of competition.” (DeChernatony, L. McDonald, M. 1998)

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.