Branding differentiates the brand name from the competitors’ brand names. It is the process by which companies distinguish their product offerings from the competition.
1. Brand Experience
Brand experience has much to do with the psychological meaning of a brand and the company’s approach to branding. It refers to how customers are being affected by the brand that they meet with. Brand experience includes customer’s unique feelings, thought, perceptions, beliefs and attitudes when they make their purchase of a product and throughout the time when they use the product.
2. Brand Image
Brand image is the overall impression of a product that consumers have. It starts with creating a brand which is the name given by a business to its product or the range of products. Brand image is an identity given to a product, or the range of products, which gives it unique personality of its own. As branding distinguishes the company’s brand from its competitors’ brands, it can create a powerful perception in the minds of consumers having real influence on marketing. It can give one firm’s products a unique personality. The particular brand image can be influenced by many factors, such as the quality of your brand’s products, the impression your firm makes through its marketing activities, levels of customer service, etc.
3. Brand Awareness
Brand awareness is an important aspect for a business organization in being able to successfully promote a product. It shows how much customers are aware of a particular brand. Specifically, how fast a given brand name comes to their mind when a product is mentioned. Brand awareness is especially important for businesses operating in markets with products that have very few factors separating the many suppliers. Brand awareness is then built around tangible factors such as taste, functions or appearance that help to differentiate products from one another.
4. Brand Development
Brand development happens after creating brand awareness. Brand development is a long-term marketing strategy meant to build, improve and strengthen the brand image. It is the marketing process of building the brand name by creating a brand strategy that is consistent with strategic vision of the firm, its mission and values. This approach to developing the brand will make a brand more successful by enlarging it over a long-period of time to ensure that it remains popular and relevant. Brand development ensures that the firm achieves higher sales revenue and gain more market share.
5. Brand Loyalty
Brand loyalty is when customers buy the same brand of a product repeatedly – over and over again for a long time. Brand loyalty occurs when customers keep buying the same brand of a product over and over again. They are devoted to the particular brand instead of choosing a competitor’s brand. When customers have brand preference over other brand names, it means that they have habitual preference for one brand compared to other similar available options on the market. Customers are satisfied with the brand, like it very much and are committed to further purchases in the future. Brands will have brand loyalty when they have the right appeal. Customers will perceive that the brand offers the right combination of quality versus price, hence they will consistently repurchase it.
6. Brand Value
Brand value is the added premium that customers are willing to pay for a product of a well-known brand instead of buying a generic equivalent. Brand equity is the value of a brand – the premium that customers are willing to pay for a brand name over and above the value of the product itself. It is built upon strong brand awareness, perceived quality and strong product associations, high brand loyalty and a variety of intangible assets such as patents, trademarks, distribution channel relationships, etc. In principle, businesses should attempt to achieve brand value.
7. Brand Extension
Brand extension refers to the use of an existing brand to launch new products under that same brand name. Once a product has an established brand, it is faster and cheaper to promote new products under the successful brand. Brand extension means using an existing successful brand name to launch new products or modified versions of the current product. Brand extension provides an increased ability to extend the brand into new goods and service categories helping to prolong brand life cycle.
In summary, branding is a form of differentiating a firm’s products from those of its competitors. Or, the way in which a firm differentiates itself from rivals.
