What is Branding and Why is it Important?

Question:

Discuss about why branding is really essential to the Organizations.

It is often seen that many new and upcoming entrepreneurs fail to realize that tremendous power of branding. Most of the new entrepreneurs focus solely on marketing and advertising but branding is something which is treated differently than these two. According to the American Marketing Association, a brand is a “name, term, sign, symbol or design, or a combination of them, intended to identify the goods and services of one seller or group of sellers and to differentiate them from those of competition.” From its definition itself, one can make out how important branding may be to the organization. It is really very important for every organization to be able to come up with something new which can distinguish themselves from rest of the organizations or its competitors. The Coca Cola brand has been able to set a very strong image in peoples’ minds about itself in a very good manner which has not only given the organization a good image but also the brand distinguishes the organization from rest of its competitors quite easily. A study can be done on Coca Cola, which has been able to be one of the most successful brands from a very long time (Baumeister, Scherer and Wangenheim 2015).

For any organization to do well in its advertising and marketing activities, it must first create a good brand for itself. Branding is something beyond logo or any kind of graphic element. Branding is something when seen, brings a whole picture of an organization into a person’s mind. A brand can be called the way customers perceive the organization. It is very important to be aware of the experience one is going to have on the organization’s brand. A good brand never just happens but it comes from a well thought out and strategic planning. The other important thing to be aware of about brand is that it is directly related to advertising and marketing. For example, if an organization doesn’t have a good brand image, then no matter how much that organization tries to attract its customers through various advertising and marketing techniques, the organization will not be able to distribute its product because the customers already have a bad notion about the organization due to its bad brand image(Washburn, Till, Priluck and Boughton 2015).

Brands not only helps the organization to get its target market to be selected over the target market but also it helps the organization in getting to know what the customers think about the organization and what needs to be provided to the organization for a long term good business. Some of the main objectives of Brands are:

• Clearly delivers the message that the organization is trying to convey to the public.
• Confirms organizations credibility.
• It emotionally connects the organization’s target prospects with its products and services.
• It motivates the customers to buy the product or service.
• And it tends to create users loyalty.

How Branding Affects Advertising and Marketing

The importance of brands is rising tremendously because the fight for the customers is going high every day. It is very important for an organization to invest enough time, research, and design and build its brand as it acts as a source of promise to the customers. The brand acts as a fundamental piece of every organization and the one that it doesn’t want to be without. Brands also act as a guide to the organizations to be aware of their goals and objectives and it allows the organizations to align marketing plans and strategies as per the objectives of the business. The other thing about brand is that it not ony creates loyal customers and also it creates loyal employees. Brand gives the employees something that they can believe in and something they can stay behind. It mainly helps the employees to realize and understand their objectives and goals better which makes them more efficient workers (Punjaisri and Wilson 2017).

A strong brand which is clear and consistent makes it comfortable for the customers because they will be able to what to expect from the organization each and every time they get to experience the brand. All these things help the organization to create a value for itself.

Whenever there are any talks going on about beverage products or any liquid products, the first thing that comes into mind is Coca Cola. This is because it has been able to create a strong brand value for itself which has helped it to be a very popular organization in the market. The brand value that coca cola has is just huge. The organization is able to make extra money from its brand name only. So, it is a well know fact that Coca Cola has established a brand which is well known and which is respected all over the globe. The coca Cola company doesn’t miss any chances in relating its products with huge global events that take place around the world which helps it to raise the brand value and a good image about its products. The factors of strategy of branding of Coca Cola have always been related with unity, joy and togetherness. The main category of occasions with which the Coca Cola company relates its goods are like family, culture, music, sports, happiness, etc (Allen 2015). While branding one has to take care of lots of factors that can affect the branding strategy or marketing of the goods. Some of the ways Coca Cola brand is helping its customers are:

• They tend to attract new customers
• As they are doing well in the market, they tend to block their competitors mainly because their loyal customers are less likely to switch to other brands.
• At times of economic downturns, they tend to help the business.
• They enable the organization to have bigger footprints which will help them to expand their business in new markets (Dekhil, Jridi and Farhat 2017).

Objectives of Brands

And to achieve such benefits, the Coca Cola has maintained it brand image on strategy that is mainly built on good recognition, trust and a very positive image.

The customers are often seen to have a lot of emotional attachment and show a lot of loyalty to the brands they know and can trust. For this, the organizations must come up with brand promises and should be able to fulfill; their promises at a consistent level at every stage of the purchase cycle. This enables the customers to gain trust over the brands (Huang and Sarigöllü 2014).

As the customers become more and more familiar with brands they tend to favor them. For recognitions, the visual representation is very important. The look, which consists of logo, looks, etc., should be able to create a different feeling which should be able to distinguish the brand from its competitors and should be easily recognized. This will create a confidence and comfort in customers on the products that the brand represents (Chernatony 2010).

There is a broader and more important matter at stake which is beyond that visual image when it comes to brand. It involves perception and reputation about everything that the brand represents conveying the details about the organization that is there behind it. The Organization’s policies and activities also help its brand to have good image. For example, if an organization is doing a lot of social works like charities and all, this will also help the customers to recognize the its brand and have a good image about its products (Anselmsson, Vestman Bondesson  and Johansson 2014).

Marketing Mix is a very important element of marketing strategy that almost all the organizations follow. Under marketing mix, mainly four factors are mostly considered namely, Product, Place, Price and Promotion which are collectively called the 4Ps of Marketing Mix. Keeping in view about the branding strategy of Coca Cola, it will be good to discuss about the marketing mix of Coca Cola (Hamzah and Sutanto 2016).

Product

The Coca Cola has a very wide portfolio when it comes to beverage industry which comprises of more than 3300 products distributed all around the world. And even these products are divided into various categories like fruit juices, drinks, water, energy drinks, etc. On the basis of Neilson’s data, Coca Cola Company is everyone’s favorite brand when it comes to sparkling beverages and juices (Smarandescu and Shimp 2015).

The Rising Importance of Brands in the Marketplace

Price

As it has a very wide variation of products, the pricing of the product is done accordingly with market and the geographic segment. So, each of its brands have their own pricing strategy. And this is where the branding becomes very useful to the organizations. The products with a good brand image will have a greater sales rate with a greater price and vice versa.

Place

Coca Cola being one of the favorites of all is distributed all across the globe. The Coca Cola Company follows the pattern of FMCG distribution. The effective and powerful distributing strategy of Coca Cola has been able to drive off and erode many small and middle level players in the market. In some parts of the world, they even have captured the extreme rural areas through a strong network of distribution pattern (Stobart 2016).

Promotion

Coca Cola adopts various kinds of advertising and marketing strategies to create extra demand and new customers all around the world. Even in this case, the brand plays a very important role. Coca Cola has managed to keep a very strong brand which has been helping it to promote its good in the most successful manner. The Coca Cola invites various celebrities and other well known personalities to advertise its products. It also indulges in various social works which allows people to have a good notion about the organization and its products (Nestle 2015).

Conclusion

For any organization to be able to survive or be successful in today’s highly competitive market, it is very important for them to have a good brand image and a very good overall marketing strategy. As discussed in the report. This important because the organizations must be able to know what the customers really want and demand from them and also they have to realize the fact that they must be able to make the general public recognize them and their brands. The recognition of the brand is most important thing as it is the major part that helps in advertising and marketing.

References

Allen, F., 2015. Secret Formula: The Inside Story of How Coca-Cola Became the Best-Known Brand in the World. Open Road Media.

Anselmsson, J., Vestman Bondesson, N. and Johansson, U., 2014. Brand image and customers’ willingness to pay a price premium for food brands. Journal of Product & Brand Management, 23(2), pp.90-102.

Baumeister, C., Scherer, A. and Wangenheim, F.V., 2015. Branding access offers: The importance of product brands, ownership status, and spillover effects to parent brands. Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, 43(5), pp.574-588.

De Chernatony, L., 2010. Creating powerful brands. Routledge.

Dekhil, F., Jridi, H. and Farhat, H., 2017. Effect of religiosity on the decision to participate in a boycott: the moderating effect of brand loyalty-the case of Coca-Cola. Journal of Islamic Marketing, 8(2).

Hamzah, S.B. and Sutanto, J.E., 2016. The Role of Marketing Mix (7P) for Consumer Buying Decision Pastry Cake in Malang City.

Huang, R. and Sarigöllü, E., 2014. How brand awareness relates to market outcome, brand equity, and the marketing mix. In Fashion Branding and Consumer Behaviors (pp. 113-132). Springer New York.

Nestle, M., 2015. Search results: Coca Cola. The Guardian.

Punjaisri, K. and Wilson, A., 2017. The role of internal branding in the delivery of employee brand promise. In Advances in Corporate Branding (pp. 91-108). Palgrave Macmillan UK.

Smarandescu, L. and Shimp, T.A., 2015. Drink coca-cola, eat popcorn, and choose powerade: testing the limits of subliminal persuasion. Marketing Letters, 26(4), pp.715-726.

Stobart, P. ed., 2016. Brand power. Springer.

Washburn, J.H., Till, B.D., Priluck, R. and Boughton, P.D., 2015. The Effect of Co-Branding on the Brand Equity of Constituent and Composite Brands Before and After Trial. In Proceedings of the 2000 Academy of Marketing Science (AMS) Annual Conference (pp. 394-394). Springer, Cham.