The presentation is an attempt to define what actually is a brand. It do not cover in depth details about all the components of the brand. If you need details about brand parameters drop me a mail or a comment and I will try to make a presentation on it.

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DEFINING A BRAND
Sj – Branding Specialist

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WHAT IS A BRAND?
•Too often we ask the basic question:
•What is a brand?
•There are brand gurus, pundits, mastermind who have defined a brand in variety of ways.
•Lets look at few:

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BRAND DEFINITION
•Philip Kotler/Gary Armstrong (principles of marketing):
•“A brand is defined as a "name, term, sign symbol (or a combination of these) that identifies the maker or seller of the product“.
•The American Marketing Association defines a brand as
•A name, term, design, symbol, or any other feature that identifies one seller’s good or service as distinct from those of other sellers. The legal term for brand is trademark. A brand may identify one item, a family of items, or all items of that seller. If used for the firm as a whole, the preferred term is trade name.”
•And there are 29 more you can access at:
•http://heidicohen.com/30-branding-definitions/

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WHY SUCH A VARIETY?
•We just started to understand and leverage branding, it is in it’s evolution.
•It is not a perfect science.
•Branding in larger parts is more psychological and human behavior led which has high propensity to change.

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SO HOW DO WE DEFINE A BRAND?
•For me personally there is one personal favorite that sums it all up:
•“A brand is a reason to choose”. Cheryl Burgess
Lets discuss origins and its individual part.

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ORIGINS
•It started way before somewhere in 2000 B.C. when clay artist, cattle and life stock farmers started to put their seal on the merchandise.
•From 2000 B.C. to now there have been a lot of changes and we now know its not just logo or graphical representation of a product or service.
•Now a question: “what is it?”.

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WHAT IT IS:
•Brand is a sum total of many parts and each of them plays a very specific role.
•Lets look at the important components:

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BRAND COMPONENTS

9. BRAND IS REPRESENTED BY A “NAME” AND/ OR A “SYMBOL” THAT BUILDS “PERCEPTIONS” AND INFLUENCE “INDIVIDUALS” IN THEIR “CHOICES”. - SJ
So in a sentence:

10. NAME

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IMPORTANCE OF NAME
•Naming for a brand is as important as the brand itself.
•It needs to be:
•Forward enough to sustain extension to the portfolio if necessary.
•Dynamic to engage and connect.
•Relevant. Not too technical and inhuman.

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NAMES EXAMPLES
•Existing words
•Things (or ideas)
•describing products, analogies for products, superlatives and qualities, unrelated to the product
•e.g.: Digital, Huggies, Newsweek, Oracle, Pampers, Sprint All, Best, General, Paramount, Apple, Camel, Frog and Thrasher
•people (often founders)
•surnames, first names, groups
•E.g.: Dell, Ford, McDonald’s, Aldus, Ben & Jerry’s, Quaker Oats, Roman Meal
•places (often of origin)
•specific spot, city or town, region, country, continent, larger still
•E.g.: Parliament, Wall Street Journal, Calistoga, Corning, Eastern, Great Plains, British Airways, North American Van Lines, Global, World, Universal
•Coined words
•Contractions, acronyms, initials
•E.g.: Fiberglas, Intel, Mobil, Wal-Mart, Alcoa, Nabisco, NYNEX, Texaco, CBS, KFC, IBM
•Abbreviations
•Analogous, arbitrary
•E.g.: Ampex, Compaq, Navistar, Formica, Kodak, Xerox, Unix
•Hybrids
•E.g.: Bell Atlantic, Union Pacific

13. SYMBOLS

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LOGOS/ SYMBOLS
•Symbol or logo is not a brand:
•Contrary to general perception Logos or Symbols do not represent brands directly; instead, they invoke the association or the perception embedded in consumers mind which links to the brand.

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IT CAN BE:
•Graphic devices:
•Logos, logo types, crests, monograms and flags etc.
•graphic devices may be deployed as
•static identity systems; with fixed rules
•McDonalds
•Shell
•kinetic identity systems; with rules allowing variation
•MTV
•Words (Coke, GM, Just do it) or sounds (Britannia biscuits)
•Extended it can also be:
•Packaging
•Spokesmen

16. PRODUCT
Not mentioned in the definition

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IMPORTANCE OF PRODUCT
•Lets call it the “Final Frontier”; it is the single most important “P” in the marketing P’s and for all the right reasons. Lets see why:
•It represents you i.e. the producer or the company.
•It defines the company’s standard and commitment, lousy product lousy company.
•Most importantly It defines if the consumers will do a repeat purchase or not; that is the definition of success in the marketplace.
•Companies spends a lot of valuable time and money to gauge consumer insights to bring a great product to the market, even then many Giants also fail.
“Product” is itself is big enough to have a dedicated presentation so I will only be discussing the major point.
Lets see some product examples.

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TO KNOW MORE ABOUT WHY BRAND FAILS READ “BRAND FAILURE” BY MATT HAIG
Successful Products
Failed Products

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YARDSTICKS FOR PRODUCT PERFORMANCE
•For product to be successful in market there are few things that are a absolute must:
•Solving an issue: First function of the product is to address consumers dissatisfaction/need that he may (Visa – easy pay) or may not (Ipad) have identified.
•Unique: Call it USP (unique selling proposition) or competitive advantage or product differentiations, all means the same things: What is different about your product?
• This is one fundamental question that needs to be answered before we launch a product else it can be a great product but it will not have any traction in market.
•Quality: in current day and age consumers have choices that runs in thousands. If the product quality is not as per consumer expectation the product is bound to fail.

20. PERCEPTION
The most critical part for developing a Brand

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BRAND PERCEPTION: WHY IS IT SO IMPORTANT?
•Perception management is the battle field
•Brand perception is the reason for consumer to “Choose” your brand or competition (provided product is better or at par with competition or it is a new proposition).
•Broadly speaking Brand perception comprise of the following:
•How do you want the consumers to perceive the brand – Brand Positioning
•What the brand stand for – Brand Promise
•What the brand believe in – Brand Reason to believe
•What brand represent – Brand Image
•What differentiate the brand vs. others – Point of Differentiation
•Lets look at them individually:

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BRAND POSITIONING
•Positioning is owning a piece of consumer’s mind
•It is not what you do to a product, It’s what you do to the mind of the prospect.
•You position the product in the prospect’s mind
•‘ It’s incorrect to call it Product Positioning’ – Ries & Trout
•Examples
•Colgate is Protection
•Lux is Glamour
•Pond’s DFT is Confidence
•Axe is Sexual Attraction
•Gillette is Quality

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BRAND PROMISE
•A brand promise is simply the expectation your consumers have from your brand and is usually encapsulated by your company slogan or mission or vision.
•The best companies in the world are the ones that make a promise to their consumers. And keep it.
•Examples:
•FedEx promise: ‘The World on Time’.
•Domino’s Pizza promise: Famous for delivering your order in 30 minutes or less, or your money back.
•Virgin promise: “Be genuine, fun, contemporary and different in everything we do at a reasonable price.”

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BRAND REASON TO BELIEVE
•The Reason to Believe is the support that the brand delivers the benefits that it promises to deliver, and that the benefits are true and credible.
•Reason to believe follows the brand positioning. It is one clear supporting premise that increases the consumer confidence. It should never be a conclusion.
•It builds the case for the target audience accepting your brand position or unique selling proposition as true and credible.
•Criteria for evaluating Reasons to Believe:
•Does it provide support for your key benefit?
•Is every link substantiated?
•Does it state simply the reason WHY the benefit is true?
•Does it cement the link between your product and your key benefit in the mind of your target?

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POINT OF DIFFERENTIATION
•Differentiation is a critical component of branding process as brands are based on promises and trust, they must be credible.
•Brand differentiation is to determine how to make the brand meaningful to consumers by identifying those differentiators that not only make a brand important to consumers but also affect their purchasing decisions.
•Example:
•Pepsi: When Coke was “classic,” Pepsi became the choice of the new generation.

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TO SUM IT UP AGAIN:
•Brand perception comprise of the following:
•How do you want the consumers to perceive the brand – Brand Positioning
•What the brand stand for – Brand Promise
•What the brand believe in – Brand Reason to believe
•What brand represent – Brand Image
•What differentiate the brand vs. others – Point of Differentiation
•Each of the above point deserves a full presentation in it self. But this presentation purpose is to define a brand only.

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AND A:
Brand is represented by a “Name” and/ or a “Symbol” that builds “PERCEPTIONS” and influence “Individuals” in their “Choices”. - Sj

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TO CONCLUDE
•There are many way in which people will define a brand but this is my approach to define it. We did not go into details of many concepts which probably is required for few but this was just to define a brand.
•Once you know what a brand is then there are many components that you will be working with like:
•Brands health
•Brand audit
•Propagation etc.
•If you are interested in any topic that you want elaboration on do leave a comment or mail me at sjhus10@gmail.com and I will develop a presentation and post it.

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ARIGATO ----- THANK U 