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BRAND AND BRAND PLATFORM IN MODERN MARKETING


BRAND HISTORY

In modern marketing, the need to create a strong brand and structured brand management are key tasks for the management of any company or enterprise. Indeed, today it is not enough just to open a company, set up the production of a product or service and wait for profit. The real world is somewhat different - without investing resources in the development and promotion of the brand among potential buyers it will not be possible to achieve even a modest success in the market. The majority of buyers are fully aware of the price and quality of goods on the market, do not want to spend time even on a brief acquaintance with a new product, trust proven manufacturers and are constantly under the influence of marketing of strong and time-tested competing brands. To win in such starting conditions without creating a strong brand is almost impossible. On the contrary, having a strong brand creates significant advantages and additional profit compared to unbranded products or weak brands.

To successfully create a brand and manage it, it is necessary, first of all, to understand the essence of this concept. So what is a brand?

Historically, the word brand comes from the Old Icelandic word brandr. Icelandic farmers in old times started branding farm animals to mark their ownership. Over time, branding spread to other areas of life, where there was a need to separate own property or goods from similar ones. That is, in the past, branding was used exclusively for the purpose of marking ownership or separating certain items from a homogeneous set of goods. For example, the brand on barrels or bales was used in sea transportation in order not to mix the ownership, while the goods inside could be quite identical.

Over time the meaning of branding has gradually changed. Brands of more successful merchants remained on the market, and those of less successful ones disappeared. The brands of the more successful merchants began to gain a perception of success, reliability and quality, first among merchants and eventually among consumers. The evolution process of the concept of brand lasted centuries until finally it came to current meaning.


WHAT IS BRAND NOWADAYS

A brand is a unique set of physical (tangible) or abstract (emotional) properties of a product, which separates the product from other products with the same functionality and has a value different from other products from the consumer point of view.

If we think superficially, when we say that this or that product is a brand, we mean a strong brand recognized by consumers and competitors as the one having advantages over other products. Indeed, now there are practically no goods without trade marks, but it is strong brands that are called brands, while weak ones are called nonames (those that nobody has conventionally heard of or about which a consumer opinion has not yet been formed).

If we look at the definition, we see that a product becomes a brand when consumers recognize that:

• the product is physically better than other products in terms of quality, functionality, innovation, reliability, appearance, etc.;

• the product, unlike others, evokes positive emotions for the consumer, such as satisfaction, joy, exclusivity, status, belonging to a certain social group, etc.

It is important to understand that recognition of a product as a brand by consumers is not necessarily based on the tangible advantages of the product. More important task is the creation of a positive perception of the product by consumers, even in conditions where the product itself is not very different from similar products of competitors. Of course, having tangible advantages makes it much easier to turn a product into a strong brand, but tangible advantages are not a precondition for a successful brand.

Companies invest in the brand, first of all, for the sake of creating unique properties of the product in the eyes of consumers, which in turn provide a number of competitive advantages and lead to the achievement of a high level of profitability. Indeed, strong brands provide companies with higher demand and higher prices due to customer loyalty - copying technologies and production processes is possible (look at the entire range of manufacturing in China), but it can take decades of successful marketing efforts to create a strong brand perception among consumers (remember decades it took Samsung and LG to achieve current customer perception).


BRANDING AND BRAND PLATFORM

From the perspective of companies, a powerful brand is a valuable intangible asset that ensures and guarantees a firm's strong market position primarily through consumers' perceptions and perceptions of the product. Production that is disrupted due to fire or earthquake can be restored through insurance payments, attracting new investors or credit funds, but a brand, destroyed due to reputational, marketing, or other mistakes, is almost impossible to restore in a short period. Therefore, successful companies have numerous teams of marketers and brand managers who deal specifically with brand issues, i.e., they engage in branding.

Accordingly, branding is the process of creating, developing, and managing the brand as an intangible asset of the enterprise, providing competitive advantages for the product in the market.

The main task of branding is to create and increase brand equity - a set of consumer perceptions, associations, and behavior towards the product that provides competitive advantages, ensures demand, and guarantees a significantly higher profit than non-branded products.

The concept of brand equity holds a prominent place in branding. Large companies inevitably have a strategic branding department or strategic brand management that is responsible for developing and implementing a marketing plan for creating, measuring, and managing brand equity.

In practice, the creation of brand equity begins with the formation of a brand platform - one of the possible systems for building a brand, which includes 4 stages:

• Forming the essence of the brand.

• Forming a list of attributes and benefits chosen for promotion in the consumer's awareness.

• Forming final judgments and impressions of consumers, the achievement of which is defined as the goal of marketing promotion.

• Forming the target behavior and actions of consumers as a result of promotion.

In fact, the brand platform determines which product attributes will be promoted, what associations need to be created, and what relationships the brand should build with consumers.

Achieving the commercial goals of a company through effective marketing requires a deep understanding of the market situation, understanding consumer needs, the ability to analyze and find alternatives, and a creative approach to problem-solving. Our company has extensive experience in determining the optimal marketing strategy for the client's business, creating a powerful brand and market positioning, as well as developing a marketing mix for the implementation of the chosen strategy. You can familiarize yourself with the services and solutions our company offers on the "Services" and "Solutions" pages, respectively.