Экзамен 3 курс / Brand

Brand

A brand is a name, term, sign, symbol, association, trademark or design which is intended to identify the products or services of one provider or group of providers, and to differentiate them from those of competitors. A brand has functional and emotional elements which create a relationship between customers and the product or service. In marketing, a brand is the symbolic embodiment (олицетворение) of all the information connected with a product or service. A brand typically includes a name, logo, and other visual elements such as images or symbols. It also encompasses ([инкампэсес] заключать) the set of expectations associated with a product or service which typically arise (возникать) in the minds of people. The brands guarantee a certain quality level. Brands should add value to products but customers must believe they get extra value for money.

A great role in succeed of the brand is playing brand awareness. Brand awareness is the act of creating public awareness of a specific brand in order to maximize its recognition (признание), successful brand awareness strategies should define a company's uniqueness and set it apart from competitors. The increasing of brands recognition leads to the brand loyalty. Brand loyalty is the situation when a consumer is reluctant (неохотно) to switch from buying and consuming the product from the brand he knows and trust. It means if Vasia has brand loyalty to Company A he will purchase Company A's products even if Company B's are cheaper and/or of a higher quality.

Also, popular and strong brand names that deliver higher sales and profits have the potential to spread their magic on other products. The most efficient way to do this is brand stretching. Brand stretching refers to the use of an established brand name for products in unrelated markets. For example the move by Yamaha (originally a Japanese manufacturer of motorbikes) into branded hi-fi equipment, pianos and sports equipment.

In order to achieve high level of brand awareness and brand loyalty the brand promotion should be very efficient. For example extra discount or 5 years guarantee may increase brand loyalty. But sometimes even very big international companies with a large experience make mistakes in their promotion campaign. One of such companies – the famous fast food company McDonalds. McDonalds offered a Big Mac for 55 cents instead of $2. Only when customers were at the cash register, they found that they had to buy french fries and drink at the full price to get the cheap burger. This promotion was unpopular with McDonalds customers.

There are a lot of advantages of branding. Strong brand gives an edge over the competitors. It helps to create a good image of a company and gets extra benefits from franchising and offering license right.

The most successful brands that I know are; Nvidia (the producer of high-quality video cards for extreme gaming experience) Intel (it is a manufacture of processors that are very popular all over the world) Microsoft (producing modern software and now starting the producing of some hardware), IBM, Cocа-cola, Ford….

Nowadays the main problem that manufactures with a strong brand faces is brand protection. The better known the brand name, the more people want to rip it off. The fake goods not only reduce the company’s own sales but damage its brand image by linking it to poor quality. For the manufactures it is very hard to struggle against the fake because its price is very low. Many people prefer to purchase illegal copy of a well-known brand in order to save a large sum of money and gain fashion label, for example on their jeans. On my point of view the only way for the manufactures to cope with this situation is to introduce good relationships with local authorities in the countries of operation in order to stop counterfeiters, trough toughening (ужесточение) the punishment for producing fakes.