What Is A Brand?
Christina Onodi, Web Content VolunteerChristopher Kenton author of the article “What, exactly, is a brand?,”(BusinessWeek) argues that the definition of Brand as a mutually valuable relationship between the customer and the organization and its product. Rather a brand is an image in the mind of the consumer. It is also a name, a sign a logo or symbols that distinguishes the products and services of one company from all others. A brand identifies the seller or maker. It is something the company owns.
It is not the customer who gets attached to a product what is called brand. The brand experience is a valuable factor, because a customers experience can make or break a brand reputation. It is important to look at questions like; what does your market think of your brand? How does it make your customers feel? Will they use it again? Will they recommend it to friends? Regarding to Christopher these factors are important but they don’t make up brand.
“It is a seductive thought for companies that value their clients, but it’s a misguided one. Your customers own their impressions, and you can influence those impressions with the quality of your product, and the experience you foster. But your brand is just symbol that anchors those impressions to the product you create.” (Christopher Kenton.)
A brand as a symbol has attributes because it brings to mind certain attributes. These attributes must be translated into functional and emotional benefits. For example owning a Mercedes makes the customer fell important and admired because he/she owns an expensive car. The brand also says something about the producer’s values. Staying with Mercedes, this stands for safety, prestige and performance. The brand also represents a certain culture, in this case a German culture. The brand can project a certain personality and suggests the kind of consumer who buys or uses the product. Marketers must decide at which level to anchor the brand’s identity and additionally decide about the brand’s name, logo, colors, tagline and symbol.
August 8th, 2008 at 1:13 pm
The best definition of ‘brand’ that I’ve come across yet is, “An indentifiable entity that makes a specific promise of value.”
This suggests that a brand makes a promise to somebody and they attach some value to it. Yes, that promise might be interpreted differently by each person and the value they attach to it might be unique to them, but marketers can shape the way they wish that value to be perceived while striving to promise something unique.
The brand is the unique promise of value attached to some entity while “branding” is the process used to try to communicate that promise and attach it uniquely to the product or service.
A primer at:
http://www.davedolak.com/articles/dolak4.htm