Essay On Strategic Marketing

 

Branding is the method or process where a strong and positive perception of a company is created using various tools of marketing (Franzen and Moriarty 2015). The perception about the brand can be created by creating a strong presence about their services and products. The idea is to combine various elements such as the logo, design, mission statement, and vision and maintain a consistent theme through various marketing communication (Davis 2017). This is done so that people can relate the brand more to those products and services, even the logo, the color, and other elements. Branding can help in creating a differentiation between the various organization. This is by far the most important aspect of branding. In the modern-day competitive market that exists in every industry, it is quite important to have a differentiation to stand out and move ahead in the market. Branding plays a major role in giving the brand that competitive edge by creating valuation and differentiation (Kasapi and Cela 2017).

 

There has to be a commercial valuation for the brands and their products and services. Brand equity is simply the derivation of the commercial value of a brand that is perceived by the consumers and general population, however, this valuation perception of the customers is due to the brand name of a particular product and service rather than the product or service itself (Shariq 2018). The perception will determine the valuation or the equity of the brand, if people think highly of the brand, then naturally the valuation will increase and if they think low of the brand then their valuation will fall. For example, Apple as a brand has very high brand equity, they are not considered a brand of everyday needs. They have always been considered a luxury brand a brand that represents class and acts as a social status symbol. Despite competitors having products that provide better features at a competitive rate such as Samsung, people still consider Apple as the better brand due to their valuation, the valuation of name and logo rather than their product features, quality, and price. The importance of brand equity is tremendous. Firstly, it increases the market share. Brand equity allows rapid expansion over the markets and also creates loyalty amongst customers (Keller and Brexendorf 2019). This allows the brand to never fall on the customer share percentage unless and until they are involved in a negative scandal. Brand equity also allows the premium pricing strategy to be used (De Oliveira, Silveira, and Luce 2015). Premium pricing can only be possible when the brand valuation is high as they will have substitutes and high competition but due to the brand valuation, people will still pay a higher price for the product (Holt 2016).

 

Various models are involved in the process of building brand equity. It is not easy to create a strong brand presence. To have the human brain subconsciously thinking and relating everyday elements with the brand's name and logo or even connecting with the brand is the brand equity everyone wants. The brand resonance model is one of the models that can be effectively used to create or analyze and offer a perspective on brand equity. the brand resonance model is often compared to a pyramid where the structure follows from the base to the peak (Farjam and Hongyi 2015). There are a total of six brand building blocks. Following the concept of duality two routes are established one is the rational route on the left and the other is the emotional route on the right as shown in figure 1.

 

Figure 1: Brand resonance model pyramid

 

Essentially there are four steps from the bottom to the peak. The first step is the identity step. The simple function of making sure that the customers can identify the brand or should be able to easily associate the brand with a specific class of products or need. The first block is brand salience can be found in this step (Moura et al. 2019). This decides how often or how easy it is for the customers to think or consider the brand under various purchase or consumption situations. For example: when the discussion or thought process is high budget and high-performance cell phones the first company that pops into the subconscious, as well as the rational conscious part of the human brain, is Apple. Whenever people even refer to or use the word Apple instead of Apple as fruit the brand Apple as a tech-based brand will be thought off by the customers. The next step is the meaning step where the idea is to establish a meaning within the brain of the customers regarding the various tangible and intangible associations. There is both rational and emotional block involved in this step. The rational block is the performance of the brand. Every customer will need performance, hence the product or service provided by the brand must meet those functional demands or needs of the consumer then only this block will be completely satisfied (Shieh and Lai 2017). For example, iPhone has iOS as an operating system that already allows fast processing and lag-free operation. on top of the optimization is done with perfection making it the leader in the market in terms of performance. An iPhone with 2 Gb ram can easily outperform any 4 GB ram model phone. So, when it comes to performance customers associate Apple's iPhone more than any other brand. Brand image is the emotional part that focuses on satisfying the psychological and social needs of the brand. For example, The brand Apple has been considered a social status symbol by consumers all over the world thus, satisfying the emotional needs in this step. The third step is known as the response step. Here the idea is to extract proper customer responses in terms of feelings and their judgment about the brand. The first block present in this step is the brand judgment block where the personal opinion of customers is taken into consideration and the brand tries its best to respond in a positive way to the opinion and evaluation of the customers. The emotional block here is known as brand feelings. This is referred to the emotional response and feelings of a customer toward the brand. Then comes the final step which is the relationship stage. This stage will focus on not only converting customers but also making sure that they develop a relationship that is strong and everlasting. They focus on ensuring that an intense and active loyalty towards the brand is created. The final block that is found in this stage is known as resonance. The customers must be able to feel synchronized with the brand on such a level that every need will be met and despite differentiating factors loyalty will make them choose the brand over anybody else. For example: Despite other mobile phone brands offering better specifications devices Apple users will always prefer iPhone over any other brand products. The resonance of their customers with the brand is so high that when a new model is launched on the launch day there are huge ques of customers in front of the shop and within hours of retail launch the new models are sold out. 

 

When it comes to branding it can be considered something that cannot be duplicated. Legally due to patents and licensing the logo of the brand and the name cannot ever be taken up by another organization. So, it is a unique aspect and something that cannot be copied. Hence this can be considered a competitive advantage. Branding will always impact consumer buying behavior greatly. They will influence the purchasing behavior (Olga 2018) and subconsciously make the consumer inclined towards the brand. For example, when purchasing cell phones if the options are the latest Nokia model and an older Apple model then people will naturally buy apple's older model. At the same time, the power of having the freedom of setting up the pricing strategy on their own for a brand and not getting influenced by the industry standards and competitive market is a huge advantage. Naturally, branding allows the brands to implement a pricing strategy where despite having a premium price model and selling at higher rates the customers will still choose the brand due to its brand equity. This will give them a better flow of revenue and consistency which can always be a great competitive advantage. Needless to say, brand awareness acts as a competitive advantage element as well. The brand equity creates awareness amongst consumers and keeps them updated on the various news related to the brand about their new launches or campaigns and even their CSR activities. This always sparks curiosity and a positive marketing impact that gives them the edge. For example, if there are constant updates of a new launch of a new model of the iPhone are done then awareness of the product will create interest in it then pre-booking offers will start to generate revenue long before even the product is launched in retail. This is always advantageous at the same time it is to be understood that when expanding to a foreign nation for the first time if the general population there is already aware of the brand, then the expansion will have a higher chance of success as compared to the expansion of operations of the other brands thus, providing another competitive advantage. Market share is also one of the important aspects of branding, and this in the long run will act as a competitive advantage. 

 

Internal branding is the process of ensuring various activities and methods of inspiring and having a positive impact on the employees of the brand. This will allow the employees to have more brand knowledge and product knowledge allowing them to serve the customers better (Punjaisri and Wilson 2017). 

 

 

There are various important principles of internal branding:

 

 

1. The first aspect is choosing the right moment. To capture the imagination and the attention of the employees the correct moment must be chosen. If the correct moment is chosen then that can automatically turn out to be the turning point for the brand. The internal branding campaign can ensure external repositioning.

 

 

2. Linking the internal and external marketing messages is very important. The marketing method can be different for both environments. However, the message must always remain the same. To spread different information and message to internal people and another completely different message to the external environment people can be harmful. Thus, it is important to plan and ensure that both the internal and external messages for the branding remain the same. For example, the vision and mission statements displayed or communicated to employees should be the same as that is displayed or communicated to the consumers outside. Hence it can be observed that the vision and mission statement for the brand is visible on the website for customers and even on social media pages and elsewhere where customers can access at the same time within the organization it is something that is preached to the customers. 

 

 

3. Bringing the brand alive for their employees is also another principle for internal branding. The idea is to make sure that the brand is one with its workforce. The workers must not become robots and work because they have to as they are getting paid. They must love their work and at the same time, they must love the brand they are working for. A huge impact in this step takes place when the culture of the brand focuses on respecting and encouraging the workforce in growth and other areas. To fill them with positive energy so that they feel more alive working for the brand. The advantages of this aspect are simple the employees will be more energized while working therefore they can serve more customers with more energy generating a positive customer service situation at the same time their overall productivity will increase (Terglav, Ruzzier, and Kaše 2016). 

 

 

Two approaches exist for measuring brand equity. There is the indirect approach and then there is the direct approach (Keller and Brexendorf 2019). The direct approach will have a primary focus on assessing the various impact of brand knowledge on the different customer responses to the various aspects of marketing that can have a significant impact both positive as well as negative on the brand valuation. When it comes to the indirect approach, they assess the various significant sources of brand valuation or brand equity (Rodrigues and Martins 2016). They do that by identifying and tracking consumer brand knowledge structures. There is no rule that there has to be the implementation of any one of the approaches. It is a fact that they are complementary and for better results, both can be used. In simpler terms to ensure that brand equity is functioning properly to understand whether the brand equity can be a success story or not firstly the different sources of brand equity and the method of how they can impact the interest are to be understood then how these various sources and outcomes may or may not change over time is to be understood.

 

The first step should always be a brand audit. Here the various sources of brand equity are uncovered along with the recommendations of various methods that can be implemented to improve brand equity and leveraging of its equity takes place. The brand audit should be conducted by marketing managers various marketing strategies are to be implemented or marketing planning is taking place. When there is a shift in the direction of the marketing strategy a brand audit can be extremely useful (Brandão, Sousa, and Rodrigues 2020). 

 

 

The second aspect is brand tracking studies that should take place ideally after the brand audit. The concept here is to collect quantitative data from the consumers over some time to ensure that a proper analysis is done. This analysis will make sure that there is constant baseline information on how the various brands and marketing programs are performing being provided to the marketing teams so that they can further analyze and utilize it properly. Tracking helps in understanding what can be the various possible methods that can be used to increase the brand valuation. 

 

Branding can be considered to be perhaps the basic aim of any company. They must not aim for revenue but aim for building a brand. The leaders the business models strategies and technology and many other elements that have made the company achieve revenue or market advantage will eventually become obsolete and will cease to exist with time new ones will come to replace them however the brand name the brand equity will be the only constant that can only be developed with time. It is safe to conclude that branding is a complex task. The study of branding requires an in-depth analysis of various brands, their methods, and various products and services to carefully understand how every single element can impact the brand valuation. It can be observed from the study that elements such as internal branding do play a major role in increasing the overall effectiveness of brand equity. Observations also show that various models can be used to strategically devise a plan or analyze brand equity. these models can involve pricing models as well. As observed from the study earlier premium pricing does not work unless the brand equity is high and not all brands can maintain that for a long time consistently. So, when a brand achieves high brand valuation, they tend to switch to premium pricing the concept is that there has to be a value of the brand that acts as goodwill as a status symbol for many. For example, Lamborghini as a car brand is the definition of a premium product. Their models are always highly-priced as they follow premium pricing. However, due to the brand value, people will always choose Lamborghini as the brand defines social-economic status for the customers. Even though there are brands such as Audi and Mercedes that provide sports car brands such as Lamborghini, Koenigsegg, and McLaren due to their brand valuation will have success in adopting the premium strategy model. At the same time, it can be concluded that branding is something that can never stop and can only be improved hence it is important to ensure constant research and development of the elements of marketing and branding, in general, is taking place. Branding provided a competitive advantage to the brands hence the management must treat this as a priority at all times.

 

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