Today, many markets are overpopulated with both large and small companies and overexposed with marketing messages. This has made for a difficult landscape to get a marketing message noticed. And with the rising costs of getting a new product or service ready for the market, it has become even more important to cut through this clutter. The one sure-fire way of doing this is by having a corporate branding strategy.
Powerful corporate branding can equip most any new product or service with instant credibility and value that simply can’t be reproduced with any sort of product-focused marketing campaign. That is why it is vitally important for any serious corporation that wishes its product offerings to be successful to create and protect a strong corporate brand.
How do you do that? Well, first throw away the notion that branding only involves marketing, i.e. putting an image out there. Yes, it involves that, but a huge part of it also entails relations with investors, media, competitors, government and others.
By the way, don’t confuse corporate branding with corporate identity, two completely different things. Corporate identity involves a company’s logo and design strategy only. It is merely a component of an overall brand strategy.
Successful corporate branding is all about establishing a long-term vision for a company and crafting the company’s operations to meet that objective. Some companies that do this well include Microsoft, Intel, Singapore Airlines, Disney, CNN, Samsung and Mercedes-Benz. The kind of brand strength these companies enjoy takes a long time and a lot of work to establish, and there’s a lot of research and tracking to maintain. But it’s not as difficult as it sounds. Today, a company of virtually any size can use the same sophisticated branding research tools the big boys use.
Why is it important to worry about these kinds of things?
Because a strong corporate brand adds depth and value to a company’s product offerings. It’s also a public statement of the company’s culture and values. For Eg, HSBC bank, one of the world’s largest banks, has the tagline “The World’s Local Bank,” which both represents the size of the bank, but builds on its purported focus on individual people.
A Strong Corporate Brand:
Good corporate branding can also enhance budgetary efficiency. With product development costs becoming ever higher and product life cycles shorter, it’s important for companies to recoup costs however they can without sacrificing quality or service. With creativity, a strong corporate brand can do the work of many expensive product-marketing campaigns. Apple does this very well. While offering many different products, all of them are laden with cutting-edge design and innovation hallmarks of Apple’s overall branding strategy. This model isn’t right for everyone, but if a company determines through research that this kind of consolidated brand strategy would work for them, they should do it. If not, there’s no good reason to try.
Strength of a brand is a good indicator of the strength of a company and its financial value many actually list their brands on their balance sheets. But even that estimate is probably understated. In short, in this over-populated, over-marketed business climate, having a strong brand is more than half the battle.
Brand Marketing:
Search engine rankings, usability, Flash web design and Web site stickiness have each had their time in the limelight as the most important element of web marketing. One last important piece of the web marketing pie is brand marketing.
Brand marketing is the art/science of making the right impression on prospects. It’s the active process of discovering, developing and bringing the right image or identity of your company to the marketplace. Too often, clients are focused on the later stages of the brand identity development process, such as the presentation on a Web site or advertisement in a magazine.
Effective Brand Marketing is a complete process of researching the market and developing an image for your corporate identity, and then engineering its presentation at optimal times and places. Since search engine users are looking for a specific product or service, having your well-constructed brand presented in search engine listings, is perhaps one of the best brand impressions you can make.
At Brand, we bring together all the elements of good brand development and deliver it to a specifically targeted audience who is ready and willing to see it. That’s market timing at its very best and only the Web offers that kind of high quality, measurable marketing.
What are the elements of brand marketing?
• Target market research: collecting information on prospect needs and preferences
• Features and benefits: identifying target prospects are interested in and which will move them to purchase
• Brand presentation: designing a web page that maximizes the impact and impression of your business.
• Brand experience: creating a Web site or other advertisement that makes the users meeting with your product or service memorable, fun or useful.
Let us design your brand impression in the marketplace. We manage every face of brand development including brand name, brand design, logo design, brand communications, corporate branding, and product branding.
Let us build and shape your brand marketing campaign. A strong brand is a big asset online and offline. On the Web, creating and building a well-differentiated brand is worth the challenge. It’s not enough just to reach customers today. You have to reach them in a way that is compatible with their beliefs, language, needs and expectations.
Build a strong brand that makes both an impact at the right time and place, and you’ll have eager and loyal customers.
