Corporate branding is where the corporate name is
the brand, and here the products tend to be described more in alpha
numeric or letter terms, and not have distinctive brand names. Such is
the case with BMW. Corporate branding gives each product the strength
of the corporate brand values and positioning, and saves a great deal
on advertising and promotional spend. It builds up the strength of the
corporate brand and its financial value.
Corporate branding is very appropriate to those companies engaged in
service industries, as their products are more intangible in nature.
When consumers cannot see the product, the company brand name helps
give them an assurance of quality, heritage, and authenticity.
Branding, a term used more and more often in the 90s, is more than just
the image of a particular product. Branding is defined by Susan
Friedmann, the Tradeshow Coach, as a basic marketing concept that is
designed to set your products and services apart from the competition.
Ward Randall, managing partner of The Brand Consultancy, a company
specializing in brand strategy, management, and positioning, takes the
definition a step further, saying, "Brands are all about making
promises and keeping them."
In a competitive marketplace, companies brand their products to help
differentiate them from the competition. It would be naive to suggest
that product branding in general is wrong or should be avoided, but it
is fair to say that software branding is too often executed poorly. The
goal of software branding is to associate the brand with the style and
quality of the product and its experience. Too often, developers
attempt to achieve this by drawing attention to the program itself. The
result is to distract users instead of delight them.
It can also go further to product range branding, where a number of
products or services in a broad category are grouped together under one
brand name and promoted with one basic identity. An example here would
be Intel's Pentium and Celeron ranges of microprocessors. Whilst
generating some economies of scale in advertising and promotion, care
must be taken to ensure that the extensions do not step away from the
central proposition of the main product brand, and that they do not
cannibalise its sales.
The task of product branding is to build intangible values and
associations around the tangible product in order to differentiate it
from physically identical products that are available. Thus, a
Nokia-branded cell phone suggests something different to a buyer and
owner than a Samsung-branded cell phone, even if the quality level and
feature set of the two phones are identical. Or detergent powder
branded Tide vs the same powder branded Wheel signal powerful
perceptual differences. Emotional benefits, sensory cues and brand
personality leveraged in advertising are powerful ways to add layers of
emotional meaning and intangible values to the basic product and
differentiate it.
House or endorsement branding uses both ideas, and the corporate name
is placed alongside the product brand name, as is the case with
Nestle's Milo. This allows the product brand to assume its own identity
and positioning, but draw strength from the values of the corporate
brand, and give consumers the assurance, in many cases related to
quality, of the corporate brand. There are a variety of ways in which
this can be achieved, with the corporate brand in lesser or greater
prominence. House branding also gives some economies of scale in
A&P, and helps with the introduction of new products, where it
can be very difficult to break into mature markets without the
endorsement of a strong and credible corporate parental brand name. One
possible disadvantage is where the product is not favourably received
and causes damage to the parental brand name.
Bearing this in mind, it becomes clear why regularly fine-tuning your
branding strategy to better suit the desires of your customers is
absolutely crucial. This is especially true if your firm is in a
particularly competitive market, up against several rival products or
services which claim to do what yours does, and possibly even better,
through their own branding. It is specifically your branding that will
separate your product from the competitors.
Companies sometimes want to reduce the number of brands that they
market. This process is known as "Brand rationalization." Some
companies tend to create more brands and product variations within a
brand than economies of scale would indicate. Sometimes, they will
create a specific service or product brand for each market that they
target. In the case of product branding, this may be to gain retail
shelf space (and reduce the amount of shelf space allocated to
competing brands). A company may decide to rationalize their portfolio
of brands from time to time to gain production and marketing
efficiency, or to rationalize a brand portfolio as part of corporate
restructuring.
In other companies the product manager creates both the MRDs and the
PRDs, while the product marketing manager does outbound tasks like
giving product demonstrations in trade shows, creating marketing
collateral like hot-sheets, beat-sheets, cheat sheets, data sheets, and
white papers. This requires the product marketing manager to be skilled
not only in competitor analysis, market research, and technical
writing, but also in more business oriented activities like conducting
ROI and NPV analyses on technology investments, strategizing how the
decision criteria of the prospects or customers can be changed so that
they buy the company's product vis-a-vis the competitor's product, etc.
In smaller high-tech firms or start-ups, product marketing and product
management functions can be blurred, and both tasks may be borne by one
individual. However, as the company grows someone needs to focus on
creating good requirements documents for the engineering team, whereas
someone else needs to focus on how to analyze the market, influence the
"analysts", press, etc.
When such clear demarcation becomes visible, the former falls under the
domain of product management, and the latter, under product marketing.
In Silicon Valley, in particular, product marketing professionals have
considerable domain experience in a particular market or technology or
both. Some Silicon Valley firms have titles such as Product Marketing
Engineer, who tend to be promoted to managers in due course.
Slogans can be just as difficult as names to create. Saying something
powerful and original in a small number of words is a tough part of the
branding process. In order to generate ideas for slogans to lead your
branding, you should always stay focused on the potential customer.
What are they looking for in a product such as yours? What values and
aspirations do they expect from a firm producing it? Why should they
buy your product in particular? What do the products and slogans of
your rivals represent? The slogan you choose should attempt to take
into account strong answers to each of these questions.
Marketing is the process by which companies satisfy customer wants and
needs. This forms the basis of repeat business. A popular definition of
marketing is the Four P's: product, price, promotion and place
(distribution). Decisions in these areas cannot be made without a clear
idea of the benefits sought by customers and those offered by the
product. Branding is a device that telegraphically communicates those
benefits to the customer.
Great product names drive strong brands. A great software product name
is memorable and concisely conveys the benefit of the product,
providing distinction in a crowded market. Hire a branding professional
to help you choose the right product name. In the long term, a
well-chosen name is far more important to your branding effort than
details like logos, color schemes, and control theming.
Introduction - introduce a quality product with the strategy of using
the brand as a platform from which to launch future products. A
positive evaluation by the consumer is important.
Article Source:
http://www.articlesbase.com/branding-articles/
branding-your-own-poducts-the-same-as-major-corporations-426789.html About the Author
Todd Ash Is An Entrepreneur and A Master Of
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