Introduction: The ‘Brand’ word derives from the Old Norse Brandr meaning “to

burn”. It means, practise of producers to burning their mark on products (Wheeler,

2010). The American Marketing Association (AMA) defines brand as a “name, sign,

term, sign, symbol or design or combination of them intended to identify the goods

and services of one seller or group of sellers and to differentiate them from those of

other sellers”. Therefore, branding is not about choosing target markets for

competition, but it’s a method to make your product as an only solution to satisfy

consumer needs (Lake). Consumers always look for brand which make them feel

unique and memorable, that’s why brand experience comes in existence which

becoming greater interest to marketers’ (Zarantonello & Schmitt, 2010). A famous

phrase by Walter Landor,’ Products are produced in factory, but brands are

produced in the minds of customers’ (Zaichkowsky, 2010).

Brand is complex symbol that consist of six levels of meaning (Kotler, Internation

Edition, 2005):

1. Attributes: A brand brings some attributes in mind of people. Nokia, for well

built, durability, reliability.

2. Benefits: Above mentioned attributes must be translated into functional and

emotional benefits. Like, Durability, people won’t have to buy another mobile

for years. The attribute reliability, people knows Nokia is reliable, because its

increases reach ability among individuals.

3. Values: The brand also says something about the producer’s values. The

reason for buying BMW is reliability, speed, safety etc. The customer

identifies above mentioned values with BMW brand which helps him in

choosing among other brands available in the market.

4. Culture: The brand may represent a certain culture like, BMW represents

German culture.

5. Personality: the brand resembles personality like, BMW shows executive

class vehicle.

6. User: Brands defines kind of user who buy and uses like, BMW resembles,

Boss, top-executive not like college going student.

Above mentioned attributed differentiate brand from product. Brands play an

important role in consumer buying behaviour, and made them feel good, like, Calvin

Klein, Armani, Gucci etc, consumer feel luxurious after purchasing these brands, a

sense of luxury that’s why they willing to pay premium amount.

Brands value for the companies more than their tangible assets. “Amazon.com will

sell its fixed assets to focus on managing its brand, becoming the ‘Coca-Cola’ of the

web” (Jeff Bezos, CEO, Amazon.com). Tangible assets like plants, equipment and

real-estate is not valuable then intangible assets such as management skills,

marketing, financial and operations and most important brands. “When choices

become vast, the only things that matter are brand names”(Michael Eisner, CEO,

Disney). John Stuart, CEO of Quaker Oats (1952-1956), said, “ If this company were

to split up I would give you the property, plant and equipment and I would take the

brands and the trademarks and I would fare better than you” (Keller, 1993). The

below mention table shows top ten brands in 2010 (Best Global Brands 2010, 2010):

TOP TEN BRANDS IN 2010

1. Coca-Cola 70,452 ($m)2. IBM 64,727 ($m)3. Microsoft 60,895 ($m)4. Google 43,557 ($m)5. GE 42,808 ($m)6. McDonald's 33,578 ($m)7. Intel 32,015 ($m)8. Nokia 29,495 ($m)9. Disney 28,731 ($m)10. Hewlett-Packard 26,867 ($m)

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World is dynamic in nature which keeps on changing according to time, that’s why

companies brand manager’s need to develop strategies according to the change.

Branding concepts comes with both advantages and disadvantages which as

follows:

Advantages of branding:

Brand provides distinct benefits, promise, and delivers high level assurance to

customer. Powerful brand has high brand equity, one of its measures extend to

which customer willing to pay more for the brand. For example, if we compare

specification between Dell Inspiron 15R and Apple MacBook Pro, both have have

same specification, however, Dell Inspiron is more value for money but pricewise,

Dell laptop cost’s between $429-$450 and Apple MacBook $880-1100, (Laptop

computer, 2010) that’s huge price difference, that’s difference is called premium,

which Brand enjoys by providing psychological satisfaction to the customer. A brand

shows choice and social class of person and its value orientation. So the customer

has to make choice between different brand on laptop, he chooses Apple MacBook

for speed, design, reliability, durability , class and experience, although speed he can

get in Dell but Apple MacBook has its own class and customer experience with a

sense of durability and reliability.

Customer choose BMW car can be speed, safety, reliability, and driving pleasure,

the customer finds above mentioned values in BMW which helps customer to choose

from other brands.

Brand helps customer in decision making by building trust and assurance of

standards. A brand helps companies in building strong customer base like e.g.

Quaker Oats, McDonalds, Harley Davidson and Kellogg’s. Customers are ready to

accept line extensions like Apple and Microsoft. A brand provide customer and

employees who works for them a feeling of pride, if someone is working with Infosys

and Microsoft, company brand name motivates employees that they are working with

some branded institution. Technology never remains same, its keep on changing,

same like brands which keep on innovating to become successful. Consistently

reinventing and remain on its promise is the quality of brand which customer

appreciate. Loyal set of customer base helps brand to enjoy monopolistic advantage

over a period of time. Customer enjoys quality of products and services because

brands create healthy competitions among competitors which indirectly benefits

consumers. For example, Gillette, Coca-cola, Brooke Bond Tea, Colgate toothpaste

and other are leaders in their product categories, due to continuous innovation

(Keller, Strategic Brand management, 2008). Ten most innovative brands listed

below.

RANK COMPANY

1 Apple

2 Google

3 Toyota Motor

4 General Electric

5 Microsoft

6 Tata Group

7 Nitendo

8

9

10

Proctor and Gamble

Sony

Nokia

Source: (The World's 50 Most Innovative Companies, 2010)

Branding helps in product identification which is a critical advantage of branding, and

it helps marketers to differentiate product from competitors. According to Kotler and

Keller, Strong brands help marketers in many ways, listed below:

Source: (Kotler & Keller, Philip Kotler and Kevin Lane Keller, 2006)

- Improved Perceptions of Product performance- Greater Loyalty- Less Vulnerability to Competitive Marketing Actions- Less Vulnerability to Marketing Crises- Larger Margins- More Inelastic Consumer Response to Price Increases- More Elastic Consumer Response to Price Decreases- Greater Trade Cooperation and Support- Increased Marketing Communications Effectiveness- Possible Licensing Opportunities- Additional Brand Extension Opportunities

Disadvantages of Branding:

Brands are very important for consumers as well as marketers but, nowadays, brand

management is becoming more and more difficult for both. Consumer need to pay

high prices as premium for brands, as well as for marketers, they need do lots of

investment on advertising, Research and development etc in order to position their

brand in current competitive world. Brand building and managing is very costly

process and consumer has to bear the cost with companies of no surety of

successful positioning of brand in market. Consumers trust brand blindly that’s why

sometimes manufacture comprise with the quality to increase profits. Customer’s

expectations are always high for brands and they expect the same positive response

from company side. If customers get negative response from the companies brand

dilution occurs where customers starts losing their interest in brand. None of the

company affords brand dilution that’s why concept of internal branding with

employees occurs in order to make them understand the values of brand and

promises which brand makes with customers.

Living in a global world, nowadays key business will India, China, Brazil and Russia.

In order to make brand, as Global brand, marketers need to remove the

concentration of west and focus on world as a global village (Aaker, 2010). Making

global is not easy, it requires large investment both on advertising and promotions

which indirectly going to increase the product price. Investment on Brand promotion

is consider social waste which increase cost of production and making brand price

higher. For example, Nike, Adidas and Puma, these brands are expensive than

Slazenger, Umbro and Converse. All these brands make sporting cloths for youth

and Nike, Adidas and Puma make huge investment on advertisement and other

promotional activities but Slazenger, Umbro and Converse does not invest much on

promotional activities that’s why they are cheap and in reach of everyone. The main

disadvantages of branding is when one brand perceived in a one way then it is

difficult to change it an alternative way, even though due to change in dynamic

environment. Coca-cola made this same mistake; Coca-Cola is a very strong and

124 year old brand. They made mistake by making their flavour sweeter in order to

give competition to Pepsi. Because of this, Coca-Cola faced huge criticism from

consumers. After 3 months launch of New Coke, Company’s announced the return

of Coca-Cola classic. According to Mark Pendergrast, “Coca-Cola was really a

symbol of something that was seemingly solid and it represents something that

wasn’t changing” (Matthews, 2008). Coca-Cola took a risk and they suffer, they

forget that people need Coca-Cola not because of refreshing taste; they need

because Coca-Cola is a part of American culture.

References:

Aaker, D. (2010). Marketing challenges in the next decade. Journal of brand management , 315-316.

Best Global Brands 2010. (2010). Retrieved 12 21, 2010, from www.interbrand.com: http://www.interbrand.com/en/best-global-brands/Best-Global-Brands-2010.aspx

Keller, K. L. (2008). In K. L. Keller, Strategic Brand management (pp. 4-5). New Jersey: Pearson Education Inc.

Keller, K. L. (1993, January). Jounal of Marketing. Conceptualizing, Measuring, Managing Customer-Based Brand Equity. , pp. 1-22.

Kotler, P. (2005). Internation Edition. In P. Kotler, Marketing Management (pp. 418-419). New Jersey: Pearson Education International.

Kotler, P., & Keller, K. L. (2006). Philip Kotler and Kevin Lane Keller. In Marketing Management 12e (p. 277). New Jersey: Pearson Prentise Hall.

Kotler, P., Armstrong, G., Wong, V., & Saunders, J. (2008). Principles of Marketing. In Principles of Marketing- Fifth European Edition (pp. 521-533). Essex: Pearson Education Limited.

Lake, L. (n.d.). Marketing.about.com. Retrieved 11 21, 2010, from www.about.com: http://marketing.about.com/cs/brandmktg/a/whatisbranding.htm

Laptop computer. (2010, 11). Retrieved 11 23, 2010, from Pricerunner: http://www.pricerunner.co.uk/cl/27/Laptop-Computers

Matthews, B. (2008, 12 2). Coca-cola's Big Mistake: New Coke 20 Years Later. Retrieved 11 27, 2010, from www.articlesbase.com: http://www.articlesbase.com/marketing-articles/cocacolas-big-mistake-new-coke-20-years-later-666921.html

The World's 50 Most Innovative Companies. (2010, 11 23). Retrieved 11 24, 2010, from www.businessweek.com: http://www.businessweek.com/interactive_reports/innovative_companies.html

Uncles, M. D. (2010). Journal of Brand Management. Broadening the scope of brand management , 395-398.

Wheeler, k. (2010, 11 16). What is Brand ? Retrieved 12 21, 2010, from www.accountancyage.com: http://www.accountancyage.com/aa/feature/1898197/what-s-brand

Zaichkowsky, J. L. (2010, May 11). Strategies for distinctive brands. pp. 1-14.

Zarantonello, L., & Schmitt, B. H. (2010, February 19). Using the brand experience scale to profile consumers and predict consumer behaviour , pp. 1-10.