Branding: Its Meaning and Importance
Introduction: There are lots of confusions surrounding branding as the topic; this article is therefore intended to create some clarity.
What is Branding?
Branding is simply a high-level marketing strategy created to influence a brand. Branding is what separates your product or your service from those of your competitors thereby helping customers remember your product.
‘Branding’ in the present day is the name for giving a unique name and image to a product. A brand name usually involves a unique image and a slogan, but it is more than that. Branding is also about associating a particular product with certain values that enable the consumer to see it in a positive light.
The word ‘branding’ has a root in the past. A branding iron was a hot piece of iron that was used to make a mark on something to show that it was owned by a particular person. The mark had to be unique so that the owner could be identified.
In this way, the idea of branding was associated with the idea of a unique identity from the very beginning. Branding is important to our daily lives, in ways that we probably do not even notice.
Importance of Branding
The importance of branding is highlighted below in points:
- Trust and Recognition.
A brand name is a promise of quality. When we see a brand name, we instantly remember a brand’s track record and this helps us to know whether to trust in a product or not.
A good brand doesn’t come that easy, it has to be well thought out, created in a way that potential customers will easily recognize it. If it’s consistent, people are likely to buy your product or services.
The customer is familiar with the quality of your offering. The can connect to the brand and build expectations based on track record.
- Creative, imaginative and engaging.
Brands often go to great lengths in their branding strategies. They try hard to make their adverts and other marketing strategies exciting, imaginative and engaging – and this can provide plenty of entertainment for consumers.
- Customer loyalty.
Because of a known track record that has built up over years, brands can attract a great deal of customer loyalty. This in its turn is a way of ensuring that the brands continue to perform well: they do not want to let their loyal customers down, and so they work hard all of the time to make sure that they continue to produce great quality products.
- Clarifies who you are.
From the small elements like the logo to your website, to social media, people can easily tell what you offer or who or what you represent.
- Talent pools.
Big brands, by virtue of their worldwide renown, attract the best talent in terms of models, designers and even sportspeople (who are often to be seen training and playing in the latest branded products). As such, brands become a powerful magnet for talent. The money accrued by big brands also means that they can sponsor talent spotting initiatives: whether than means finding the next top model or discovering the next sports superstar.
- Encourage customers to make purchase.
Of course, these advertisements also have a pragmatic purpose: brands want them to encourage their customers to make purchase, and to recommend the products to their friends and family.
The most important reason to branding is to increase sales. If your business is built upon a solid brand base, it’s easy to move to the next stage without losing trust to your customers.
- Competitive market advantage.
Branding gives you the competitive advantage over your competitors offering similar services like yours.
The fact that branding increase trust in your product or service means that if there are one-off issues with your products, customers is likely going to understand.
- Social status.
A brand is a symbol of quality, and many people like to wear branded clothing because it shows everyone around them that they buy quality, stylish clothing.
- Economic value – A brand is an intangible asset!
The value of many large businesses comes from the intangible assets, the brand being the most prominent of an intangible asset.
Conclusion
Brands are ubiquitous in our daily lives. We see them on TV, online, in magazines and on billboards outside of our homes. Brands are of course very important for shaping our culture – particular when we consider the idea of a distinct ‘consumer culture’ which is very much driven by the marketing activity of brands, who use marketing strategies to drum up demand for their products.
Brands are important because they entertain us and engage us in questions of trust and loyalty. Over the years, we can feel that we have built up a real relationship with our favorite brands.
