Branding Strategies

Branding Strategies:

From Creation to Extinction

Outline

I. Introduction

II. Choosing the Brand Name

A. Take a Stand

B. Narrow the Focus

C. Beware of Brand Inflation

D. Expand the Business

III. Advertising the Brand Name

A. Logo Sizes

B. Attention Getting

1. Research

2. Mention the Product

3. Show the Product

4. Show the Name and Logo

5. Call Attention to the Logo

6. Headline Company Names

7. Use Theme Lines

IV. Brand-Building

A. Build Brand without Mass Media

1. Let Brand Strategy Drive the Business Strategy

2. Clarify the Brand's Identity

3. Create Brand Visibility

4. Involve the Customer

5. Make it Happen

B. Creative Brand Building

1. "Give Away the Farm"

2. Conduct "War" Using Public Relations

3. Work the Web

4. Make it Funny

C. Extend the Brand Name Across More Product Lines

V. Brand-Consumer Relationships

A. Love and Passion

B. Self Concept Connection

C. Interdependence

D. Commitment

E. Intimacy

F. Partner Quality

G. Nostalgic Attachment

VI. Routes to Brand Extinction

A. Brands Must Satisfy Emotional Needs

B. Brands Decline When Fads and Trends are the Only Focus

C. Brands Fail When Emotional Need and Fads and Trends are not Satisfied

VI. Conclusion

"A brand is a name and/or mark intended to identify the product of one seller or a group of sellers and differentiate the product from competing products (Etzel 242)."

Branding strategy is more than just the advertising of the product; it is finding what is the best name or mark that people will remember most when they need to buy that product. Branding strategies start with choosing the brand name, advertising the brand name, building the brand, finding the best brand-consumer relationship for the product, and avoiding brand extinction.

Choosing the Brand Name

Choosing the brand name is not as easy as choosing scrambled or poached eggs with a big slam breakfast at Denny's. It takes critical planning. There are four steps to follow when choosing the brand name.

First, take a stand. You can't stand for everything and stand for something. So ask yourself, "What does the brand stand for?" (Ries 30) An example is Coca-Cola. Coca-Cola stands for the first cola, and everything else is an imitation Cola (Ries 30).

Second, Narrow the focus. If someone else was there first, narrow the focus towards another product (Ries30). Packard Bell is an example of this. They were not the leader in personal computers, so they focused on home computers, and are now the leading home computer brand with about 50 percent of the market (Ries 30).

Third, beware of brand inflation. Instead of doing step two, narrowing the focus, most companies have a habit of inflating the brand name so that the name means nothing to the customer (Ries 30). "What's AT&T? According to chief executive Robert Allen, "AT&T is fundamentally a networking company." (Ries 30) This is funny because people associate AT&T as being strictly a long-distance telephone company.

And fourth, expand the business. " A company can keep a narrow focus, yet expand its business (Ries 31)." For example, Honda is the seller of imported Japanese cars, but they also started Acura, a line of luxury cars made in the United States (Ries31).

Advertising the Brand Name

The average person believes that advertising is everything when it comes to the marketing of a product. It might not be everything, but it is very important to advertise your brand in a good way so you don't kill your product by bad advertising.

According to Richard Evans, a writer for Advertising Age Magazine, companies do not advertise the logo or the name of their brand for more than three seconds at the end of their commercials. He came up with seven points to get the customer's attention to the brand name of the product.

First, research the commercials to see how many people remember the brand name or logo when they view the advertisement on television or in a magazine (Evans 27).

Next, mention the product name orally and/or visually at least twice before the end of the advertisement (Evans 27).

Also, any tangible products being advertised should be shown at least twice during the advertisement (Evans 27).

Fourth, the advertiser's name should be on the advertisement long enough so the viewer can see it (Evans 27). An Example of this would be the Western Union commercial when a woman is floating in her living room because the money she needed to fix her pipes was not sent Western Union. It flashes the Western Union name up for about two seconds not long enough