Moldova State University

Economics Faculty

Individual Work

“What is a brand”

Made by: Botnari Madalina

Chisinau 2018

What is a brand?
For the consumer, a brand is the sum of her or his knowledge and understanding of a product,
service or company, and provides the means for exercising choice and preference. Over time, a
product or service may develop in an individual's mind to become familiar, recognisable,
reassuring, unique and trust inspiring - in other words, a strong brand.

From an economic viewpoint, a brand can be defined as "... a reputational asset which has
been developed over time so as to embrace a set of values and attributes, resulting in a
powerfully held set of beliefs by the consumer and a range of other stakeholders” (The
Westminster Business School).

A successful brand is developed by identifying consumer needs, designing the brand, making it
efficiently and creating a unique position for it in the market.

A successful brand is managed by monitoring lifestyle changes, exploring technological change,

and measuring brand performance.

A brand is a name, term, design, symbol, or other feature that distinguishes an organization or
product from its rivals in the eyes of the customer.[2][3] Brands are used in business, marketing,
and advertising. Name brandsare sometimes distinguished from generic or store brands.

The practice of branding is thought to have begun with the ancient Egyptians who were known
to have engaged in livestock branding as early as 2,700 BC.[4] Branding was used to
differentiate one person’s cattle from another's by means of a distinctive symbol burned into the
animal’s skin with a hot branding iron. If a person would steal the animals, anyone could detect
the symbol and deduce the actual owner. However, the term has been extended to mean a
strategic personality for a product or company, so that ‘brand’ now suggests the values and
promises that a consumer may perceive and buy into. Over time, the practice of branding
objects extended to a broader range of packaging and goods offered for sale including oil, wine,
cosmetics and fish sauce.

Branding

Branding is a set of marketing and communication methods that help to distinguish

a company or products from competitors, aiming to create a lasting impression in the minds
of customers. The key components that form a brand's toolbox include a brand’s identity, brand
communication (such as by logos and trademarks), brand awareness, brand loyalty, and
various branding (brand management) strategies.[5] Many companies believe that there is often
little to differentiate between several types of products in the 21st century, and therefore
branding is one of a few remaining forms of product differentiation.[6]

Brand equity is the measurable totality of a brand's worth and is validated by assessing the
effectiveness of these branding components.[7] As markets become increasingly dynamic and
fluctuating, brand equity is a marketing technique to increase customer satisfaction and
customer loyalty, with side effects like reduced price sensitivity.[5] A brand is in essence a
promise to its customers of they can expect from their products, as well as emotional benefits.
[5]
 When a customer is familiar with a brand, or favours it incomparably to its competitors, this is
when a corporation has reached a high level of brand equity.[7] Special accounting standards
have been devised to assess brand equity. In accounting, a brand defined as an intangible
asset, is often the most valuable asset on a corporation’s balance sheet. Brand owners manage
their brands carefully to create shareholder value, and brand valuation is an important
management technique that ascribes a monetary value to a brand, and allows marketing
investment to be managed (e.g.: prioritized across a portfolio of brands) to maximize
shareholder value. Although only acquired brands appear on a company's balance sheet, the
notion of putting a value on a brand forces marketing leaders to be focused on long term
stewardship of the brand and managing for value.

The word ‘brand’ is often used as a metonym referring to the company that is strongly identified
with a brand. Marque or make are often used to denote a brand of motor vehicle, which may be
distinguished from a car model. A concept brand is a brand that is associated with an abstract
concept, like breast cancer awareness or environmentalism, rather than a specific product,
service, or business. A commodity brand is a brand associated with a commodity.

In pre-literate society, the distinctive shape of amphorae was used to provide consumers with
information about goods and quality. Pictured: Amphorae for wine and oil, Archaeological
Museum, Dion

History of brands
Branding and labelling have a very ancient history. Branding probably began with the practice of
branding livestock in order to deter theft. Images of branding oxen and cattle have been found
in ancient Egyptian tombs, dating to around 2,700 BCE.[11] Over time, purchasers realised that
the brand provided information about origin as well as ownership, and could be used as a guide
to quality. Branding was adapted for use on other types of goods such as pottery and ceramics.
Some form of branding or proto-branding emerged spontaneously and independently
throughout Africa, Asia and Europe at different times, depending on local conditions. Seals,
which acted as quasi-brands, have been found on early Chinese products of the Qin Dynasty
(221-206 BCE); large numbers of seals from the Harappan civilization of the Indus Valley
(3300–1300 BCE) where the local community depended heavily on trade; cylinder seals were
introduced in Ur, Mesopotamia in around 3,000 BCE and facilitated the labelling of goods and
property; and the use of maker's marks on pottery was commonplace in both ancient Greece
and Rome [12] Identity marks, such as stamps on ceramics, were also used in ancient Egypt.[13]
Diana Twede has argued that the "consumer packaging functions of protection, utility and
communication have been necessary whenever packages were the object of transactions"
(p. 107). She has shown that amphoras used in Mediterranean trade between 1500 and 500
BCE exhibited a wide variety of shapes and markings, which consumers used to glean
information about the type of goods and the quality. Systematic use of stamped labels dates
from around the fourth century BCE. In a largely pre-literate society, the shape of the amphora
and its pictorial markings conveyed information about the contents, region of origin and even
the identity of the producer which were understood to convey information about product quality.
[14]
 David Wengrow has argued that branding became necessary following the urban revolution
in ancient Mesopotamia in the 4th century BCE, when large-scale economies started mass-
producing commodities such as alcoholic drinks, cosmetics and textiles. These ancient societies
imposed strict forms of quality control over commodities, and also needed to convey value to
the consumer through branding. Producers began by attaching simple stone seals to products
which, over time, were transformed into clay seals bearing impressed images, often associated
with the producer's personal identity thus giving the product a personality.[15] Not all historians
agree that these markings are comparable with modern brands or labels, with some suggesting
that the early pictorial brands or simple thumbprints used in pottery should be termed proto-
brands[16]while other historians argue that the presence of these simple markings does not imply
that mature brand management practices were at play.[17]

Amphorae bearing a titulus pictus and potters' stamps, found at Monte Testaccio

Numerous scholarly studies have found evidence of branding, packaging and labelling in
antiquity.[18][19] Archaeological evidence of potters' stamps has been found across the breadth of
the Roman Empire and in ancient Greece. Stamps were used on bricks, pottery, storage
containers as well as fine ceramics.[20] Pottery marking was commonplace in ancient Greece by
the 6th century BCE. A vase created in around 490 BCE bears the inscription “Sophilospainted
me” indicating that the object was both fabricated and painted by a single potter.[21] Branding
may have been necessary to support the extensive trade in such pots. For example, 3rd century
Gaulish pots, bearing the names of well-known potters and the place of manufacture such as
Attianus of Lezoux, Tetturo of Lezoux and Cinnamus of Vichy, have been found as far away as
Essex and Hadrian's Wall in England.[22][23][24][25] English potters based at Colchester and
Chichester were using stamps on their ceramic wares by the 1st century CE.[26] The use
of hallmarks, a type of brand, on precious metals dates to around the 4th century CE. A series
of five marks has been found on Byzantine silver dating from this period.[27]
Some of the earliest use of maker's marks, dating to about 1300 BCE, have been found in India.
[11]
 The oldest generic brand, in continuous use in India since the Vedic period (ca. 1100 BCE to
500 BCE), is the herbal paste known as Chyawanprash, consumed for its purported health
benefits and attributed to a revered rishi (or seer) named Chyawan.[28] One well-documented
early, example of a highly developed brand is that of the White Rabbit brand of sewing needles,
from China's Song Dynasty period (960- 1127 CE).[29][30] A copper printing plate used to print
posters contained message, which roughly translates as: “Jinan Liu’s Fine Needle Shop: We
buy high quality steel rods and make fine quality needles, to be ready for use at home in no
time.”[31] The plate also includes a trademark in the form of a 'White Rabbit" which signified good
luck and was particularly relevant to women, who were the primary purchasers. Details in the
image show a white rabbit crushing herbs, and included advice to shoppers to look for the stone
white rabbit in front of the maker's shop.[32]

Roman oil lamp, showing underside with maker's mark. Museo Bellini

In ancient Rome, a commercial brand or inscription applied to objects offered for sale, was
known as a titulus pictus. The inscription typically specified information such as place of origin,
destination, type of product and occasionally quality claims or the name of the manufacturer.
[33]
 Roman marks or inscriptions were applied to a very wide variety of goods including, pots,
ceramics, amphorae (storage/ shipping containers)[16] and on factory-produced oil lamps.
[34]
 Carbonized loaves of bread, found at Herculaneum, indicate that some bakers stamped their
bread with the producer's name.[35] Roman glassmakers branded their works, with Ennion being
the most prominent.[36]
One merchant who made good use of the titulus pictus was Umbricius Scauras, a manufacturer
of fish sauce (also known as garum) in Pompeii, circa 35 CE. Mosaic patterns in the atrium of
his house were decorated with images of amphorae bearing his personal brand and quality
claims. The mosaic comprises four different amphora, one at each corner of the atrium, and
bearing labels as follows:[37]
Scauras' fish sauce was known to be of very high quality across the Mediterranean and its
reputation travelled as far away as modern France.[37] In both Pompeii and nearby
Herculaneum, archaeological evidence also points to evidence of branding and labelling in
relatively common use across a broad range of goods. Wine jars, for example, were stamped
with names, such as "Lassius" and "L. Eumachius;" probably references to the name of the
producer.

Back section of a bracelet clasp with a hallmark of Hunnish craftsmanship, early 5th century

The use of identity marks on products declined following the fall of the Roman Empire.
However, in the Middle Ages with the rise of the merchant's guilds, the use of marks resurfaced
and was typically associated with specific types of goods. By the 13th century, the use of
maker's marks was evident on a broad range of goods. In 1266, makers' marks on bread
became compulsory. [38] The Italians used brands in the form of watermarks on paper in the 13th
century.[39] Blind Stamps, hallmarks, and silver-makers' marks, all types of brand, became widely
used across Europe during the this period. Hallmarks, although known from the 4th-century,
especially in Byzantium,[40] only fell into general use during the Medieval period.[41] Hallmarks for
silver and gold were introduced in Britain in 1300.[42]

Bass Brewery's logo became the first image to be registered as a trademark in the UK, in 1876.
Some brands, still in existence, date from the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries' period of mass
production. Bass & Company, the British brewery founded in 1777, was a pioneer in
international brand marketing. Many years before 1855 Bass applied a red triangle to casks of
its Pale Ale. In 1876 their red-triangle brand became the first registered trademark issued by the
British government.[43] Tate & Lyle of Lyle's Golden Syrup is recognized by Guinness World
Records as Britain's, and the world's, oldest branding and packaging, with its green-and-gold
packaging having remained almost unchanged since 1885.[44] Twinings Tea has used the same
logo — capitalized font beneath a lion crest — since 1787, making it the world's oldest in
continuous use.[45][46]

A tin of Lyle's Golden Syrup, first sold in London in 1885. Recognised by Guinness World
Records as having the world's oldest branding and packaging.[47]

The widespread use of modern brands is associated with 19th century mass-marketing
originating with the advent of packaged goods.[11] Industrialization moved the production of
many household items, such as soap, from local communities to centralized factories. When
shipping their items, the factories would literally brand their logo or company insignia on the
barrels used, effectively using a corporate trademark as a quasi-brand.[48]
Factories established during the Industrial Revolution introduced mass-produced goods and
needed to sell their products to a wider market - to customers previously familiar only with
locally produced goods. It quickly became apparent that a generic package of soap had
difficulty competing with familiar, local products. Packaged-goods manufacturers needed to
convince the market that the public could place just as much trust in the non-local product.
Gradually, manufacturers began using personal identifiers to differentiate their goods from
generic products on the market. Marketers soon realised that brands to which personalities
were attached outsold rival brands. By the 1880s, large manufacturers had learned to imbue
their brands' identity with personality traits such as youthfulness, fun, sex appeal, luxury or the
'cool' factor. This began the modern practice now known as branding, where the consumers
buy the brand instead of the product and rely on the brand name instead of the retailer.
The process of giving a brand "human" characteristics was, at least in part, a response to
consumer concerns about mass produced goods. [49] The Quaker Oats Company began using
the image of the Quaker man in place of a trademark from the late 1870s, with great
success. [50] Pears' soap, Campbell's soup, Coca-Cola, Juicy Fruit chewing gum and Aunt
Jemima pancake mix were also among the first products to be "branded" in an effort to increase
the consumer's familiarity with the product's merits. Other brands which date from that era, such
as Uncle Ben's rice and Kellogg'sbreakfast cereal, furnish illustrations of the trend.The Quaker
Company was one of the earliest to use a character on its packaging, branding and advertising.
Pictured: The Quaker Man, c. 1900
By the early 1900s, trade press, advertising agencies and advertising experts began producing
books and pamphlets exhorting manufacturers to bypass retailers and advertise direct to
consumers with strongly branded messages. Around 1900, advertising guru, James Walter
Thompson, published a house advertisement explaining trademark advertising. This was an
early commercial explanation of what is now recognized as modern branding and the
beginnings of brand management. [51] This trend continued to the 1980s, and is now quantified
in concepts such as brand value and brand equity. Naomi Klein has described this development
as "brand equity mania".[52] In 1988, for example, Philip Morris purchased Kraft for six times
what the company was worth on paper. Business analysts have reported that what they really
purchased was its brand name.
With the rise of mass media in the early 20th century, companies soon adopted techniques that
would allow their messages to stand out; slogans, mascots, and jingles began to appear
on radio in the 1920s and early television in the 1930s. Many of the earliest radio drama series
were sponsored by soap manufacturers and the genre became known as a soap opera.[53]
By the 1940s, manufacturers began to recognize the way in which consumers were developing
relationships with their brands in a social/psychological/anthropological sense.[54] Advertisers
began to use motivational research and consumer research to gather insights into consumer
purchasing. Strong branded campaigns for Chrysler and Exxon/Esso, using insights drawn
research methods from pyschology and cultural anthropology, led to some of most enduring
campaigns of the 20th-century. [55] Brand advertisers began to imbue goods and services with a
personality, based on the insight that consumers searched for brands with personalities that
matched their own. [56]
April 2, 1993, or Marlboro Friday, is often considered the death of the brand.[52] Philip Morris,
after more than 50 years investment in advertising to build a premium brand image, announced
a 20% price cut for of Marlboro cigarettesin order to compete with generic cigarettes. In
response to the announcement, advertising expenditure declined and Wall Street stocks nose-
dived[52] for a large number of branded companies: Heinz, Coca-Cola, Quaker
Oats, PepsiCo, Tide, and Lysol. Some analysts thought the event signalled the beginning of a
trend towards "brand blindness" (Klein 13), questioning the power of "brand value," however the
fall proved to be short-lived.

Concept
Corporate brand identity
Simply, the brand identity is a set of individual components, such as a name, a design, a set of
images, a slogan, a vision, a design, writing style, a particular font or a symbol etc. which sets
the brand aside from others.[58][59] In order for a company to exude a strong sense of brand
identity, it must have an in-depth understanding of its target market, competitors and the
surrounding business environment.[5] Brand identity includes both the core identity and the
extended identity.[5] The core identity reflects consistent long-term associations with the brand;
whereas the extended identity involves the intricate details of the brand that help generate a
constant motif.[5]
According to Kotler et al. (2009), a brand's identity may deliver four levels of meaning:

1. attributes
2. benefits
3. values
4. personality
Brand personality refers to “the set of human personality traits that are both applicable to and
relevant for brands.” [61] Marketers and consumer researchers often argue that brands can be
imbued with human-like characteristics which resonate with potential consumers.[62] Such
personality traits can assist marketers to create unique, brands that are differentiated from rival
brands. Aaker conceptualised brand personality as consisting of five broad dimensions, namely:
sincerity, excitement, competence, sophistication, and ruggedness.[63] Subsequent research
studies have suggested that Aaker's dimensions of brand personality are relatively stable
across different industries, market segments and over time. Much of the literature on branding
suggests that consumers prefer brands with personalities that are congruent with their own.[64][65]
Consumers may distinguish the psychological aspect (brand associations like thoughts,
feelings, perceptions, images, experiences, beliefs, attitudes, and so on that become linked to
the brand) of a brand from the experiential aspect. The experiential aspect consists of the sum
of all points of contact with the brand and is termed the consumer's brand experience. The
brand is often intended to create an emotional response and recognition, leading to potential
loyalty and repeat purchases. The brand experience is a brand's action perceived by a person.
The psychological aspect, sometimes referred to as the brand image, is a symbolic construct
created within the minds of people, consisting of all the information and expectations associated
with a product, with a service, or with the companies providing them.
Marketers or product managers responsible for branding seek to develop or align the
expectations behind the brand experience, creating the impression that a brand associated with
a product or service has certain qualities or characteristics that make it special or unique. A
brand can therefore become one of the most valuable elements in an advertising theme, as it
demonstrates what the brand owner is able to offer in the marketplace. The art of creating and
maintaining a brand is called brand management. Orientation of an entire organization towards
its brand is called brand orientation. Brand orientation develops in response to market
intelligence.[citation needed]
Careful brand management seeks to make products or services relevant and meaningful to
a target audience. Marketers tend to treat brands as more than the difference between the
actual cost of a product and its selling price; rather brands represent the sum of all valuable
qualities of a product to the consumer and are often treated as the total investment in brand
building activities including marketing communications.[66]
Consumers may look on branding as an aspect of products or services,[citation needed] as it often
serves to denote a certain attractive quality or characteristic (see also brand promise). From the
perspective of brand owners, branded products or services can command higher prices. Where
two products resemble each other, but one of the products has no associated branding (such as
a generic, store-branded product), potential purchasers may often select the more expensive
branded product on the basis of the perceived quality of the brand or on the basis of the
reputation of the brand owner.
Brand awareness
Brand awareness involves a customers' ability to recall and/or recognize brands, logos and
branded advertising. Brands helps customers to understand which brands or products belong to
which product or service category. Brands assist customers to understand the constellation of
benefits offered by individual brands, and how a given brand within a category is differentiated
from its competing brands, and thus the brand helps customers & potential customers
understand which brand satisfies their needs. Thus, the brand offers the customer a short-cut to
understanding the different product or service offerings that make up a particular category.
Brand awareness is a key step in the customer's purchase decision process, since some kind of
awareness is a precondition to purchasing. That is, customers will not consider a brand if they
are not aware of it.[67] Brand awareness is a key component in understanding the effectiveness
both of a brand's identity and of its communication methods.[68] Successful brands are those that
consistently generate a high level of brand awareness, as this can often[quantify] be the pivotal
factor in securing customer transactions.[69] Various forms of brand awareness can be identified.
Each form reflects a different stage in a customer's cognitive ability to address the brand in a
given circumstance.[7]
Marketers typically identify two distinct types of brand awareness; namely brand recall (also
known as unaided recall or occasionally spontaneous recall) and brand recognition (also known
as aided brand recall).[70] These types of awareness operate in entirely different ways with
important implications for marketing strategy and advertising.

 Most companies aim for "Top-of-Mind" which occurs when a brand pops into a
consumer's mind when asked to name brands in a product category. For example, when
someone is asked to name a type of facial tissue, the common answer, "Kleenex", will
represent a top-of-mind brand. Top-of-mind awareness is a special case of brand recall.
 Brand recall (also known as unaided brand awareness or spontaneous awareness)
refers to the brand or set of brands that a consumer can elicit from memory when prompted
with a product category
 Brand recognition (also known as aided brand awareness) occurs when consumers see
or read a list of brands, and express familiarity with a particular brand only after they hear or
see it as a type of memory aide.
 Strategic awareness occurs when a brand is not only top-of-mind to consumers, but also
has distinctive qualities which consumers perceive as making it better than other brands in
 the particular market. The distinction(s) that set a product apart from the competition is/are
also known[by whom?] as the unique selling point or USP.
Brand recognition
Brand recognition is one of the initial phases of brand awareness and validates whether or not a
customer remembers being pre-exposed to the brand.[69] Brand recognition (also known
as aided brand recall) refers to consumers' ability to correctly differentiate a brand when they
come into contact with it. This does not necessarily require that the consumers identify or recall
the brand name. When customers experience brand recognition, they are triggered by either a
visual or verbal cue.[7] For example, when looking to satisfy a category need such as toilet
paper, the customer would firstly be presented with multiple brands to choose from. Once the
customer is visually or verbally faced with a brand, he/she may remember being introduced to
the brand before. When given some type of cue, consumers who are able to retrieve the
particular memory node that referred to the brand, they exhibit brand recognition.[7] Often, this
form of brand awareness assists customers in choosing one brand over another when faced
with a low-involvement purchasing decision.[71]
Brand recognition is often the mode of brand awareness that operates in retail shopping
environments. When presented with a product at the point-of-sale, or after viewing its visual
packaging, consumers are able to recognize the brand and may be able to associate it with
attributes or meanings acquired through exposure to promotion or word-of-mouth referrals. [72] In
contrast to brand recall, where few consumers are able to spontaneously recall brand names
within a given category, when prompted with a brand name, a larger number of consumers are
typically able to recognize it.
Brand recognition is most successful when people can elicit recognition without being explicitly
exposed to the company's name, but rather through visual signifiers like logos, slogans, and
colors.[73] For example, Disney successfully branded its particular script font (originally created
for Walt Disney's "signature" logo), which it used in the logo for go.com.
Brand recall
Unlike brand recognition, brand recall (also known as unaided brand recall or spontaneous
brand recall is the ability of the customer retrieving the brand correctly from memory.[7] Rather
than being given a choice of multiple brands to satisfy a need, consumers are faced with a need
first, and then must recall a brand from their memory to satisfy that need. This level of brand
awareness is stronger than brand recognition, as the brand must be firmly cemented in the
consumer's memory to enable unassisted remembrance.[69] This gives the company huge
advantage over its competitors because the customer is already willing to buy or at least know
the company offering available in the market. Thus, brand recall is a confirmation that previous
branding touchpoints have successfully fermented in the minds of its consumers.[71]
Marketing-mix modeling can help marketing leaders optimize how they spend marketing
budgets to maximize the impact on brand awareness or on sales. Managing brands for value
creation will often involve applying marketing-mix modeling techniques in conjunction with brand
valuation.
Brands typically comprise various elements, such as:[74]

 name: the word or words used to identify a company, product, service, or concept
 logo: the visual trademark that identifies a brand
 tagline or catchphrase: "The Quicker Picker Upper" is associated[by whom?] with Bounty
paper towels
 graphics: the "dynamic ribbon" is a trademarked part of Coca-Cola's brand
 shapes: the distinctive shapes of the Coca-Cola bottle and of the Volkswagen Beetle
are trademarked elements of those brands
 colors: the instant recognition consumers have when they see Tiffany & Co.’s robin’s
egg blue (Pantone No. 1837). Tiffany & Co.’s trademarked the color in 1998.[75]
 sounds: a unique tune or set of notes can denote a brand. NBC's chimes provide a
famous example.
 scents: the rose-jasmine-musk scent of Chanel No. 5 is trademarked
 tastes: Kentucky Fried Chicken has trademarked its special recipe of eleven herbs and
spices for fried chicken
 movements: Lamborghini has trademarked the upward motion of its car doors