“The art of marketing is the art of brand building. If you are not a brand, you are a commodity. Then price is everything and the low- cost producer is the only winner.” – Philip Kotler
What is a Brand?
Your brand is your business!
That’s what consumers see from their point of view. A brand is not what the owner claims it is; a brand is what the market thinks it is. The brand decides how people react to a certain product or a service, what price they are willing to pay for it, and how successful a company is in terms of its ability to create market value.
Your business is worth as much as your brand is. Your market position, your profitability, and your sustainability depend upon how strong a brand you are today.
Because the purpose of business is to create, deliver, and communicate superior customer value, every enterprise has only two basic functions: Marketing (Brand Building) and Innovation.
So, Why is Branding Important?
Companies in the present scenario realise that they have to compete and sustain in a branded world. As competition offers countless choices, businesses look for creative ways to stand out, create buzz and establish an emotional connection with the buyers. Companies realise that people love to flaunt their association with their most loved brands.
Consumers believe in the superiority of a branded product or service. It’s the trust of buyers that makes the brand successful. How a brand is perceived affects its success, be it a start-up, a non-profit, a product or even a person. Remember, only a strong brand commands a price premium and dares to position itself in the blue ocean.
The Importance of a Good Branding Strategy
Consumers get to see almost five thousand advertisements every day and are exposed to more than thirty thousand new products annually. The right branding strategy help consumers make a judicious choice in their preferred product/service category.
The following diagram highlights some of the key points a branding strategy needs to answer:
Companies have now started putting their brand values on their balance sheets. This intangible asset is valued much higher than the tangible ones. In some cases, brands even account for almost 75% of the total value of a company. Though brand-value is intangible, brand identity of a corporation is tangible and hence, can be felt, seen and experienced.
If you’re a young company, you need to build the brand equity by virtue of your brand identity. Your future success is dependent on customer awareness, increased recognition, preserving reputation, and upholding the value chain.
Now that we realise brand building is pivotal in deciding the company’s future, it is also important to know, behind every successful brand, there is a winning branding strategy.
How You Design Your Brand Identity
Brand management is a journey. It’s an iterative process and evolves over the time. You need to take a strategic approach to build, maintain and sustain your brand value. This is going to be a long-term investment.
Brand building is dependent on a company’s leadership philosophy, distinctive business practices, and a strong corporate culture.For any brand building initiative, the vision, realization and direction must come from the top management. The scope of this work must include all the functional verticals of an organization and must not be limited to sales and marketing only.
The Role of a Brand Development Consultant
The role of a brand development consultant is to plan, execute and validate the entire process above.
The brand development consultant is a strategist who asks the right questions to the stakeholders, defines the target market and the value proposition, evaluates the core strength of the brand, formulates a sustainable positioning strategy and also, designs quantifiable performance metrics to evaluate the brand awareness and brand loyalty. The consultant ensures that the brand communication maintains the strategic focus, consistency and synergy and has been successful in building a meaningful brand image in the buyer’s mind.
So, designing a brand experience is an art AND a science. A brand development consultant is an artist who designs the brand identity with the help of carefully picked identifiers and referents and creates sensory magnets to attract target customers. The brand development consultant is also an engineer who identifies, develops and implements isolated touchpoints to build and maintain the customer loyalty.
Final Words
Let’s remember, if we cannot say that we’re unique in our chosen segment, then we should fix our business model, NOT the brand. Because, it’s the competitive advantage that would drive a brand forward.
Ansuman Mishra is a seasoned business development consultant who has over 15 years of project management experience in Strategic Marketing and Information Technology across different industries. Ansuman builds businesses focusing on innovative brand development tactics, and cutting-edge digital marketing strategies. As a global business leader, he has worked extensively in Canada, USA, India, and Hong Kong. Ansuman is passionate about agile approach to business development practices and committed to building a culture to adopt agility in the corporate world. Ansuman has completed his MBA from the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University, Chicago and currently resides in Odisha, India.
REFERENCES:
- Designing Brand Identity by Alina Wheeler (Third Edition)
- Designing Brand Experiences by Ashley Konson, Schulich School of Business
- Strategic Brand Management by Professor Alexander Chernev, Kellogg School of Management
Disclaimer: The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in the content belong solely to the author, and not necessarily to the author’s employer, organisation, committee, or other related groups or individuals, including Marg Advisory Services.
Lisa Bedbak
7 Sep 2020I think it’s a good article and I agree about the steps for designing our brand identity. We live in a pretty competitive world and not having a good brand identity will eventually lead to the complete or partial failure of the business. I run a small IT staffing company based in Ann Arbor, Michigan. I spent a great deal of time researching about how I was going to make my company separate and unique from other IT staffing companies. I realized that having a core would help and I focused on it before applying for an LLC. But of course you have to remember that with time, as the company grows and you are ready to diversify more, we can tweak our brand identity. As we do that, we have to keep the feedback and views of the stakeholders and customers.
It is important to know who are we trying to reach out to. Our brand identity is our book cover and that’s what people will see. First impression is even more important when our target segment is very specialized. As we identify our target, make the strategic planning, study the demographic aspect of the business, it is crucial to know our competitors. If there are two big hospitals competing against each other in a small town, it doesn’t make sense to start our own hospital there. Our goals and values are what define us but it is our ability to stand out in the crowd, our ability to be unique, our ability to be creative, our ability to be the best in our field are steps that will make our business thrive!
Aditya Dash
7 Sep 2020Very good post. Brand creation is very often neglected by SME owners. Brand is a nice investment for long term value creation.
Manmath Sahoo
7 Sep 2020Very well articulated. Understanding target consumer emotions and ability to predict consumer behaviour across the journey can greatly contribute towards improved brand value. With the help of ethnographic, adjacent industry partnerships, AI can significantly help. Having a right operating model, culture and feedback loop is very important to keep it improving.
Janmejaya Nayak
7 Sep 2020Dear Ansuman
Very nicely explained the importance of branding which is many times overlooked by the enterpreneurs for long run sustainability in business.
Anupam Thakur
7 Sep 2020Excellent write up.
It reminds me why Dettol is synonymous with antiseptic liq, an adhesive bandage is Band-aid and so on.
In addition to branding, product authenticity and connection with consumer go hand in hand to make the product a successful one.
CHANDANA MAJJI
8 Sep 2020Very well articulated the importance/ need of branding
CA ABHISAR NAYAK
9 Sep 2020Very thorough, precise and very well articulated note on branding. Will love to see one case study referring this note in your next article.
Anju
6 Oct 2020Well articulated Anshuman! Branding is often undervalued in small enterprises and is falsely viewed imperative to mostly creating luxury brands. Brand experience and brand recall, not only increases sale volumes but when crafted strategically has potential to provide competitive advantage. You article is bang on. Keep writing , looking forward to more !