INTRODUCTION TO

BRANDING
 Contents

Concept of branding
Significance of branding
How branding evolved
Need to build strong brands
Key issues in branding
 The status dilemma
Neha is a working woman, and she needs a
lunch box to carry to office. She remembers
her father leaving for work every morning
clutching his colourless stainless steel lunch
box. But Neha shudders to even visualize the
look on her colleagues faces if she walks into
office with such a lunch box. Neha has a
number of options available in the market to
choose from, but she needs bright trendy
containers, which can keep the food fresh for
longer periods of time.
 Concept of branding
For the consumers, a brand is a
product. But for the maker or the
seller, a brand is an identifier of its
goods and services and a promise of
consistently delivering the
features/benefits that the consumers
desire from the brand.
 Brand to the rescue
Neha found exactly what she was looking for when her
friend Meena brought her lunch box to office one day.
Meena told her about Tupperwarea global brand,
recognized the world over. Tupperware products were
excellently designed and had won prestigious awards
like the Red Dot award in 2009 (an award for excellence
in product design instituted by Design Zentrum
Nordrhein Westfalen in Essen, Germany), and the
company was also featured in Forbes.com Platinum 400
Americas Best Big Companies List for the sixth time
in a row in 2009. Tupperware had a range of high
quality, lightweight, rust- and break-proof, colourful,
airtight, stylish containers, which kept food fresh for
longer, thus avoiding waste (Superbrands 2009). They
were leak-proof as well, which meant that Neha could
carry and store curry and gravy items.
Significance of Branding
Branding is one of the key issues and biggest
challenges in corporate and marketing
strategies.
A product that is not branded is a commodity,
such as sugar, rice, etc., and while purchasing a
commodity, one only considers its physical
attributes and benefits.
A brand, on the other hand, is a lens through
which the consumers view the product and the
firm.
It is basically a product with added dimensions,
which make it different in some way or the other
from other products that satisfy the same needs
 Brand defined
According to the American Marketing
Association, Brand is defined as:
a name, term, sign, symbol, or
design, or a combination of them,
intended to identify the goods or
services of one seller or group of
sellers and to differentiate them from
competitors
 What can we brand?
A servicefor example, Life Insurance Corporation,
State Bank of India
A productfor example, Nokia mobile, Lux soap, Knorr
soup
A storefor example, Big Bazaar, Shoppers Stop
A place/geographic locationfor example, Taj Mahal,
India (the Incredible India! campaign)
A personfor example, Aamir Khan, Amitabh
Bachchan
An ideafor example, World Wildlife Fund
An online organizationfor example, Amazon, Make
my Trip
An organizationfor example, UNICEF
Difference between a Product and
a Brand

BRAND
Symbols
Brand
personality
Country of Scope
origin
Functional Attribute
benefits
User
PRODUCT imagery
Organizational
associations
Product
Quality/value uses

Emotional
Brand benefits
customer
relationship Self-expressive
benefits
 Rationale for Building a
Brand
Benefits of Building Strong Brands
Organizational Perspective
Identifier
Shorthand for information
Legal protection
Differential advantage
Unique associations
Price premiums
Enhancing customer loyalty
Higher market share
Inelastic response to price increase
As a barrier to entry of other brands
Can be bought and sold as an asset
 Rationale for Building a
Brand
Benefits of Building Strong Brands
Customer Perspective
Source of identification
Heuristic or proxy for quality
Source of evaluation
A tool to simplify decision making
Risk reducer
Financial risk, performance risk, time risk, social
risk, psychological risk
Tool to express self image
 Types of Brands

Functional brands
Image brands
Experience brands
 Branding challenges
Intelligent and educated customers
Growth of private labels
Brand proliferation
Increasing trade power
Media fragmentation and the rise of new
media
Increasing cost of product introduction and
support
Increasing job turnover
 Overcoming branding
challenges
Brand equity
Brand loyalty
Brand switchers
Habitual buyers
Switching-cost loyal
Friends of the brand
Committed customers
Brand Loyalty Levels

Committed customer/consumer
Level 5 Take pride in using the brand
Recommend brand to others
Friends of the brand
Level 4 Emotional attachment with the brand
Truly like the brand and consider it as a friend

Switching-cost loyal
Level 3
Satisfied with the brand and have a switching cost
Competitors need to overcome switching cost

Habitual buyers
Level 2 Satisfied buyers, absence of any dissatisfaction
Vulnerable to competitors stimulations

Brand switchers
Level 1 Indifferent
to the brand name
Buying decision based on price, availability etc and
Brand name does not play a significant role in the purchase decisions
 Key issues in branding
Whether to brand or not
How to build brand equity
How to measure brand equity
Understanding customers and how they purchase a
brand
How to position the brand
Which marketing mix strategies to choose
How to design branding strategies
How to manage brands over time
How to manage brands across geographical
boundaries
 Quick Recapitulation
Concept of branding
Significance of branding
How branding evolved
Need to build strong brands
Key issues in branding
Questions?