Strategic Brand Management and factors

The press, the machine, the railway, the telegraph are premises whose thousand-year conclusion no one has yet dared to draw - Friedrich Nietzsche

There are some strategic assets available to a company that can cater a lasting competitive advantage, and even then the life span of the benefit is getting shorter. Brands are one of them, along with R&D, a regular consumer orientation, an efficiency culture, employee involvement, and the capacity to adapt and respond quickly. This is the mantra of Starbucks, Apple, and Wal-Mart.

Managers know that the first loyalty is brand loyalty, not monetary value loyalty or deal loyalty, even though as a opening it is important to create behavioral barriers to exit.

What is a brand?

Curiously- one of the hottest points of contention between experts is the definition of a brand. All expert arrives with his own interpretation, or nuance to the definition. How should one assess the value of a brand? What factors adds up as indicators to measure a brand to judge what is commonly called brand equity? 

• customer-based that Concentrates entirely on the relationship clients have with the brand. 
• value-based that aims at producing value in dollar, yen or Euros. 

Both approaches have their own champions.

Branding Value

In our materialistic world, people prefer to give significance to their consumption. Only brands that add esteem to the product and narrate a story about its buyers, or place, their consumption on a scale of intangible values, can provide this meaning. Take for example the cult of luxury brand, or other cultural champions like Apple or Adidas. We stress the need for brands to have brand message, revealing their culture. To resonate with existing and prospective consumers, brand must realize that, apart from market share competition, there is also a values competition.

Today, every organization wants to have a brand. Beyond the genuine brand world of producers and distributors of fast-moving consumers goods, whose brand are competing neck and neck, branding has turn into a strategic issue in all spheres: hi-tech, low tech, commodities, utilities, elements, services, and business-to-business. Amazingly, all types of organization or even persons need to be managed like brands: International soccer superstar Messi was named Global Brand Ambassador for Turkish Airlines. Undoubtedly the airlines must have paid whooping amount to secure this soccer hero. It expects to recover this sum through popularizing the airlines by using the name.

It takes more to establish a brand

Although communication is essential to make a brand, it is far from being adequate. Certainly a brand encapsulates in it’s identify and its visual symbol. All the goodwill made is through favorable experiences of clients or prospects with the organization, its products, its stores, its communication and its people.  Nevertheless, this means it is necessary to manage these points of contact in an integrated and focused approach. This is the core skill needed.

Empowered clients

Today, with Internet, and social media, clients are empowered as never before. They have access to a world of prescription, free tips and confidential information on the web. They talk to other clients. Only those that satisfies the consumers will remain, whether they offer extremely low prices or a rewarding experience, service or performance. Similarly, retailers are also becoming more powerful than many of the brands they distribute. 

As we have seen, contemporary branding has a broad function and works best when it is the responsibility of everyone in the company. Therefore, marketing can be defined as a focused part of that organization, and one must never forget that factor. 

Reference: JNKapferer