Tag Archives: brand

Brand Positioning.

One of the prerequisites of marketing a new brand is to determine it’s position. According to Al Ries and Trout’s bestselling book, Postioning – The Battle of Your Mind in 1982, position stratergy is an organised system for finding a window in the customer’s mind, based on the idea that communication can only take place at the right time and under the right circumstance. A few steps should be kept in mind while determining a market positioning. 1. Analyse your competitors and their offerings- This helps in analysing gaps in the market and filling them. 2. Drafting a position statement 3. Identifying what is unique to your own product. 4. Identitfying your competitors positioning. 5. Testing the effectiveness of your brand positioning. Good brand positioning should be clear. Your audience must not misunderstand or be confused as to your offerings.

Comparative advertising and why it should be buried.

Comparative advertising has been defined by Wikipedia to be an advertisement in which a particular product, or service, specifically mentions a competitor by name for the express purpose of showing why the competitor is inferior to the product naming it. It is different from parody advertisement, where a non existing product gets advertised to be made fun of.
Comparative advertising is generally related to negativity and various stories have linked this form of advertising as having a negative impact on the brand and its conception to consumers.
Take for example the recent Patanjali ad campaigns attacking Lux, Pears and Lifebouy soaps. They’ve been injuncted by the High Court.
Their ad campaigns were laced with negativity and could have a negative impact on their brand image. Asking people not to use chemical infused soaps like the celebrities and edging people to stay away from certain brands.
This hitting below the belt advertising should be used as last resort or not at all.

Brand Storytelling

Advertising today isn’t just by showcasing what a brand has to offer.
Brands today tell stories, not just of their product and brand but those that might move us, or have a social purpose. This is a strategic move from the traditional ways of advertising.
And I’m talking about not just posting on Instagram’s Story feature, which brands have leveraged on digital today, but of well thought of stories.

 

Why storytelling is an effective marketing tool.

Brands have been using storytelling for a long time. Here is why brands use storytelling as part of their marketing strategy:
1. It gives the brand more personality. Making it more real. More relatable to the customer. Once a customer bonds with the brand it would be difficult for him/her to change.
2. It connects with the client on a more emotional level. It becomes memorable.
3. Clients would want to keep returning to the product, to see or experience more stories.

 

 

What and why is it important to be a focussed brand.

What and why is it important to be a focussed brand.
A brand that tries to please everyone and lacks having a main focus is starkly different from one that stands for something. That knows exactly why it is wanted by people. Most brands should meticulously choose what they want their main focus to be even if it means giving up on something. It’s always better to be the number one in your niche than having to settle for being the second or third in a broader category. That way you can charge a premium for your special selling point.

Influencer marketing

These days people talk a lot about influencer marketing and how it is so important in brand strategy. But what is influencer marketing?
The rise of social media marketing has led to digitally savvy influencers who are being used as marketeers.
They function as key leaders to drive a brands message to the market sphere.
Influencer marketing targets a leader who in turn has a large number of consumers who believe and follow them on various social platforms like YouTube, Snapchat, Instagram etc. These marketeers are paid to promote a certain brand for them. Used effectively they are instrumental in seducing a large target audience.
Influencer marketing goes hand in hand with social media and content marketing. Similar to word of mouth marketing but not not quite influencer marketing is said to be 2017’s top marketing strategy.

Is Product More Important or Brand?

Face it! A product has to exist in order
to create a brand.
There is no brand without a product.
Not meaning that the two are the same.
Although sometimes people associate
a brand with a product.
Both are important.
It is important to have an okay product at least,
but more important to have a fabulous brand.

According to Seth Godin,
“A brand is the set of expectations,
memories, stories and relationships
that taken together account for a
consumer’s decision to choose one
product or service over another.”

Brands help product development.
How? By evoking emotions.
By caring about the needs of a customer.
By identifying the cultural values of a
consumer base and using the information
to define a company’s direction.

“Product first is very retro, very 1980’s.
We have to put the idea first.”
Says Kevin Roberts global CEO of
Saatchi and Saatchi since 1997.
According to him finding out what
a consumer wants is better than
looking into a product and figuring out how
to make that product better.

According to Al Ries,
“It’s better to be different than it is to be better.”
Perception is what makes a brand.
Perceptions are difficult to change once they’ve been
formed and only continue to harden
in a consumers mind.
In the vast market with the emergence
of similar products ,brand identity plays
an important role.
A well crafted brand identity helps
to safeguard being drowned amongst a sea
of competitors.

J.K Rowling, who wrote
Harry Potter, and sold over 500 million copies
of it wrote a novel and had it
published under the name of Robert Galbraith.
It sold not more than 1000 copies.
After people came to know that it was
actually written by JK Rowling ,
sales jumped and it sold over 1.1 million copies.
Just goes to show what is more important.
The brand or the product.
Another case in point would be Apple’s Iphone.
In comparison to Android which has a better Operating
System, Iphone still performs better and sells
more phones than Samsung. Brands evoke emotions
and products with low emotional appeal are very easily
replaced.

What is Branding?

Branding initially started with the branding of animals such as cows. A symbol was marked on to the cow to convey a message. Typically, who the cow belonged to, what breed they were and quality. It helped to segregate the cow and to differentiate it from others. That’s what branding does. It differentiates a product from the other in a specific manner. It gives a product or service an identity. Branding creates a feeling or emotion, and is an idea of an image of a product. It creates a loyalty to a certain product or service. It expresses its value and communicates what a particular brand is. A brand unlike marketing doesn’t push a person to buy something. A person who understands a brand would just be pulled to buy it, due his faith in it. According to Jeff Bezoz “ Your brand is what people say about you when you’re not in the room “. A brand is what people think about you, it gives you a feeling of your product.