Branding: what it is and how to take care of your business image
Branding: what it is and how to take care of your business image
- June 29, 2022
- 0 Comments
- 8 minutes
Taking care of branding is taking care of the brand name in the long term. Learn how to do it the right way
Branding is a concept that has increasingly called the attention of brands and businesses around the world.
Therefore, it is essential to build it when thinking about selling more products and having a long-term relationship with the customer.
What is Branding?
Branding is the dynamic, intelligent, strategic and creative management of all the elements that constitute a brand identity (tangible or intangible) and that contribute to building a promise and a distinct, relevant, complete and sustainable experience over time.
The term originated from the marking that cattle breeders used to make on their animals, creating a symbol that represented ownership.
Besides, it wouldn’t be a surprise to hear from some executives of large companies in response to the question: what is branding?, answers such as: “It’s everything to do with the logo and the brand image” or “It’s the strategies and actions that are developed to give visibility and notoriety to the brand”.
However, these answers are not totally wrong, although they are rather incomplete.
How does Branding work?
What really draws attention is the lack of understanding of the concept of branding, not only by those who hire the service, but especially by those who sell this service.
Thus, although there is much planning and strategy in its development, Branding is not a strategy, process or regulation.
Therefore, it is necessary to know how branding works: it is a working approach, a philosophy to which all elements of a company should be linked.
Thus, it is through the dynamic filter of this philosophy that all assets, without exception, linked to brands are managed during construction, growth, maturity and management
What is Branding for?
When asked what branding is for, it is possible to identify several functions.
Firstly, one of the functions of branding is to define premise and promise with a unique value proposition or competitive advantage.
In addition, branding is important for designing the brand platform, strategic communication support and protection of the organisation’s decisions.
Thirdly, the function of branding is also to design a brand positioning strategy in the industry, in a comprehensive and competitive way, market-oriented and aligned with premise and promise.
Also, an important function is to establish a line of communication that promotes and responds to the brand platform.
It is also a function of branding: to align all members, employees and those involved with the organisation under premise and promise, and to respond in a consistent and aligned way to all stakeholders at all points of contact.
Finally, possible applications are: conferring the brand exclusive attributes, values and meanings; configuring and establishing the personality of this brand; increasing the company’s value for shareholders, partners, consumers, society and other players.
Furthermore, developing the emotional dimension of the organization through a motivating and structured work environment that supports and drives the organization’s business activity is also part of branding.
What are the advantages of Branding?
First of all, it is necessary to know the advantages of branding. Thus, it presupposes the construction of brands from the inside out, with their identity at its core.
This goes against what the market is used to, which is simply the communication and external expression of that brand, most of the time without taking its essence into account.
Moreover, it is already established that consumers of our times are looking for deep qualities in brands, a way to identify and interact, as if that acquisition was a personal achievement.
Therefore, those who seek Branding, seek a management philosophy where not only the product, distribution, consumption segment and category are considered, but also all the relationship dynamics with all the public involved
Finally, an important objective of branding is the intense management of all sorts of relationships between brands and people: the more intangible the values to be managed, the more important this relationship becomes.
What is the difference between branding and brand?
In fact: there are several differences between branding and a product brand. Therefore, it is necessary to know the concept of each of them.
For Philip Kotler:
“A product’s brand is not just its name, but everything (or anything) that makes consumers identify it: colour, sound, corporate identity, symbol or design.”
Furthermore, for David Aeker:
“Brand is the promise a company makes to the customer to deliver what it symbolises in terms of functional, emotional, social and self-expression benefits.”
This being so, the examples cited prove that the Branding approach adds the intangible to the meaning of brand, therefore, a brand is not logo, it is not visual identity or product.
Therefore, as branding, we must understand something more than a simple name and image: it is the emotions, feelings and perceptions that occur in the minds of consumers.
In this way, the strategy keeps the brand at the centre of all decisions, departure and arrival, premise and promise, defining the ideal scenario for its growth and following this construction in the consumers’ minds.
Firstly, once the initial promise has been established, the phrase that underpins the whole creation of the brand, and from it, its name, is derived from this definition.
Thus, this phrase must be attractive to the most diverse points of contact, for the development of its premise, in addition to being valid for the long term. This dimension is called Brand Concept.
Secondly, the set established by the story and the premise make up the next dimension: Brand Identity. It defines ‘who’ the brand is, what it intends and how it should be perceived by the target audience and the general public.
Another important point is Brand Awareness (or brand recognition), where it manages to be identified, recognized and remembered by its target audience and by society in general.
Moreover, with Brand Positioning, it is where it is defined what space the brand will occupy in the consumers’ minds and what is the trigger that will trigger this perception.
Still, loyalty: the Brand Loyalty dimension desires, plans, proposes and accompanies the degree of commitment of the consumer.
Brand Equity (or brand value) refers to the capacity to generate more sales thanks to its notoriety.
Finally, Brand Influence refers to the influence of brand management on the success of the organization and its partner organizations. Was it possible to understand about branding and its importance? Make a comment below so we can take even more questions.
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