Branding

A brand is defined as a "A brand is a "Name, term, design, symbol, or any other feature that identifies one seller's good or service as distinct from those of other sellers."

A brand name helps an organisation differentiate itself from its competitors. In today's competitive world customers expect products to have branding. Customers often build up a relationship with a brand that they trust and will regularly purchase products from that brand. Some people will only purchase a particular brand even though there are acceptable alternatives on the market. For example Apple Inc or UK retail chain John Lewis Partnership have a loyal customer base, who provide them with repeat business.

Brand Equity:
How much is a brand worth? Brand equity refers to the value of a brand. Brand equity does not develop instantaneously. A brand needs to be carefully nurtured and marketed so consumers feel real value and trust towards that brand. Nike, Adidas, Harrods, have high brand equity. These brands command high awareness and consumer loyalty. But how much are these brands worth? It is difficult to put a value on brands, but we all know that a pair of Nike trainers without the logo on them, is worth a fraction of the price of a pair of trainers containing Nike's logo and branding. Franchise businesses pay to use branding belonging to someone else. For example McDonalds, Subway and Nandos. Sometimes businesses will buy the names of businesses that have gone into administration. For example in 2009 Shop Direct Group purchased the right to use "Woolworth's" the name of the high street retail chain that had gone into administration in the UK.
Branding Strategies

When a company manages its brands it has a number of strategies it can use to further increase its brand value. These are:

• Line extension: This is where an organisation adds to its current product line by introducing versions of its products with new features, an example could be a crisp/chips manufacturer extending its line by adding more exotic flavours.
• Brand extension: If your current brand name is successful, you may use the brand name to extend into new business areas. For example Virgin Group extending its brand from records, to airlines, mobiles and banking.
• Multi Branding: The company decides to introduce more brands into an existing category. Kellogg’s for example have a number of brands in the cereal market and the cereal bar market. Multi-branding can allow an organisation to maximise profits, but a company needs to be weary over their own brands competing with each other over market share.
• New Brands: An organisation may decide to launch a new brand into a market. A new brand may be used to compete with existing rivals and may be marketed as something ‘new and fresh’.

The various brands available under the ITC umbrella are:

   

The Classic Milds brand comes in various types of packaging and variants:

 

Points-of-difference (POD) and points-of-parity (POP) are essentially opposite in nature, with the first referring to differences in the second referring to similarities. As a result, we can the following definitions for our purposes as students of marketing:

• Points-of-difference (POD): The aspects of the product offering that are relatively distinct to the offerings of like competitors.
• Points-of-parity (POP): The aspects of the product offering that are largely similar to the offerings of like competitors.

Both definitions refer to the offerings of competitors, so these terms are relative measures. And to clarify the word ‘aspects’; it refers to the various product features, benefits, brand equity, and other marketing mix elements (including price and place, plus any associated marketing mix elements of services).