Samba

    Abstract

Good Brands are the invaluable assets of any kind of organization- Profit or Non-Profit. Developing, nurturing and managing good brands are the daunting tasks for the organizations across the world. Given the huge impact of good brands on the organizations’ market capitalization and ultimately on the very success of that, developing good brands by invoking innovative as well as time-tested brand building methods makes sense. Therefore, the Researchers are trying to give a wholesome treatise on various Branding methods in order to make a solemn appeal to the organizations across the sectors by keeping in mind that if a brand should defy the dynamic changes in the business environment over the period of time and attain the status of immortality in the collective psyche of the customers, the organizations have to start the brand building endeavors on the firm footing given by these methods.         

Key words: Branding methods, Brand Archetype and Brand Resonance.

The Concept of a Brand

A brand is a set of associations that a person (or group of people) makes with a company, product, service, individual or organization. These associations may be intentional – that is, they may be actively promoted via marketing and corporate identity, for example – or they may be outside the company’s control. The following points elucidate concept of a brand from different perspectives.

       A brand is the source of a promise to its customers. It promises relevant, differentiated benefits.

       A brand is the personification of an organization and its products or services. It has a personality and character and can be trusted or not.

       A brand resides in the mind of the customer. It is the sum total of all experiences and associations that the customer has with it.

       A brand consists of identity elements that link to associations in the customer’s mind.

     A brand is a gut feeling about an organization and its products and services.

       A brand is a promise consistently made backed by an experience consistently delivered.

       The primary indicator of a brand is the ability to charge a price premium over commodities in the same product/service category.

       A brand indicates the unique source of a product or service.

       The brand is the story behind an organization and its products and services.

       A brand is the identity applied to an organization and it products and services.

       A brand is the value delivered above and beyond the functional value of the product or service

The key ingredients of a Brand

The following words, which are in bold, indicate various ingredient of a typical brand. Every good brand has a big idea behind it. In order to correctly understand the big idea, one has to ponder over on the following things: the core focus of the company; the kind of value the company fundamentally imbibe; the core vision of the company; if the company is personified, the kind of personality type it would like to be seen and understood; the core nature of the company’s offer - on what basis, it is different from others; the kind of personality trait that could be ascribed to the product; exact nature of the customer’s need. A good brand should reflect its organization’s vision. There are many forms of vision of an organization. It may be about what that organization would like to achieve in future or it may be about ways and means to challenge the market or transform an industry or it may be a big one or as simple as offering an existing product in a completely new way.

It is essential of a brand to imbibe certain values and that can be communicated either explicitly or implicitly. The following are the few examples of Values in the context of a Brand: quality, openness, innovation, individual responsibility, fairness, and respect for the individual, empowerment, passion, flexibility, teamwork and pride. The value can be expressed through graphic design, language, advertising, staff training, the materials used in product manufacture and so on. After completely doing the fundamental spade work of establishing ‘big idea’, vision and values in connection with a brand, one has to infuse a personality trait around the brand.  Personality traits could be ‘efficient and businesslike’, ‘friendly and chatty’, or perhaps ‘humorous and irreverent’, although they would obviously have to be appropriate to the type of product or service sold. The product design, package, color being used, packaging, brand name, brand logo, Unique Selling Proposition, the kind of media channel chosen, celebrity chosen, etc., should be in tune with that personality trait chosen for the brand.

Need for a brand

Effective branding elevates a product or organization from being just one commodity amongst many identical commodities, to become something with a unique character and promise. It can create an emotional resonance in the minds of consumers who choose products and services using both emotional and pragmatic judgments. People are generally willing to pay more for a branded product than they are for something which is largely unbranded as branded products ability to give perceived value to the customers. Creating a connection with people is important for all organizations and a brand can embody attributes which consumers will feel drawn to.

Essential Qualities of Good Brands

      Well-known – without awareness, nothing else counts; a brand can’t be in people’s purchase consideration sets unless they are aware of the brand.

      Relevant – the brand must be perceived to be relevant to people’s hopes, needs and desires.

      Differentiated – to stand out among competitive alternatives, the brand must be unique in ways that matter to customers.

      Customer-Centric – only when the brand knows its customers and their needs well, can it deliver exceptional purchase and usage experiences.

      Trustworthy – this implies being honest and authentic, consistent and predictable, reliable and dependable, and always delivering on its promises.  

The Concept of Branding

If a brand results from a set of associations and perceptions in people’s minds, then branding is an attempt to harness, generate, influence and control these associations to help the business perform better. While absolute control over a brand is not possible due to outside influences, intelligent use of design, advertising, marketing, service proposition, and corporate culture can really help to generate associations in people’s minds that will benefit the organization.

Innovative Branding Methods to Develop Good Brands                   

Method 1: Communicating the Brand Promise in an effective way                    

As far as this method is concerned, the following are the ways and means to communicate the brand promise in an effective way.

      Storytelling - to tell the brand’s story through communication elements such as corporate identity, packaging, stationery, marketing materials and so on.

      Credibility - with the brand’s own tone of voice, personality and visual identity it could sell the products with greater credibility.

      Differentiation - A great deal of branding is about defining and presenting a point of differentiation in the sector.

      Engaging with customers in all possible ways.

      Multiple brands and Brand ‘Stretch’ – If a company operates in multiple sectors with a corporate brand or family brand, brand stretching is inevitable. To make the brand stretching effective, developing a sub brand for each different sector the company operates is advisable.             In some cases it may actually be more effective to develop a completely distinct brand for the different sectors rather than stretch the existing brand to meet new markets.    

      A slightly more sophisticated possibility is to set up ‘endorsed’ brands. These is where the organization creates a new brand in its own right but allow the ‘parent’ brand of the company to feature as an endorsement of the new brand. Playstation, for example, is a powerful brand in its own right, but it has always been endorsed as Sony Playstation, leveraging the reputation of Sony Corporation.

      Reinvigorating the brand by effecting a few changes in the product’s quality, features, packaging, advertisements etc.,

      Brand names are an important aspect in setting the tone and personality of the brand, as well as being a key element in marketing activity. There are different types of brand names. In the light of unique situation of the brand, it can adopt any one of these names. Descriptive names- which simply say what the company/brand does; Evocative names- which suggest associations to the brand but do not try to describe the offer precisely; Abstract names- that break sector rules and stands out and make no clear reference to the nature of the business.

Method 2: Imbibing Universal Branding Truths

According to this method, following are the universal branding truths:

      Leverage information via hypothesis-led data analysis.

      Understand the competition and maintain the  point of difference

      Be consistent with the brand  positioning over time and across platforms

      Know what the target consumer wants.

      Get the right pricing that offers value in the eyes of consumers

      Motivate the team via thought leadership. Building a successful brand requires dedicated support, not just from the leader but from the whole multifunctional team -- sales, research, R&D, finance. To do the same, the brand leader needs to have a clear vision for the brand and enlist the team toward the same.

Method 3: Tapping into People’s Deepest Desires

Brands that tap into people’s deepest desires make strong lasting connections with those people. Deep desires most often come from a feeling of lack but can also result from seeking a place of safety, peace or comfort. The following are deep desires into which brands can tap:

      To be smart

      To be accomplished

      To have high status

      To be safe

      To be attractive

      To be sexy

      To be admired

      To be liked

      To be unique or different

      To make a difference in the world

      To belong

      To be in control

      To be sovereign, free or independent

      To be noticed

      To have a purpose

      To have power over others

Any brand that can make people feel as though they have a little bit more of one or more of these if they interact with the brand will connect with those people on a deeply emotional level.

Method 4: Using Archetypes to develop Good Brands

Concept of Archetype

An archetype is a universally understood symbol, term, or pattern of behavior, a prototype upon which others are copied, patterned, or emulated. Archetypes are often used in myths and storytelling across different cultures. In psychology, an archetype is a model of a person, personality, or behavior. In philosophy, archetypes are referred to as ideal forms of the perceived or sensible objects or types. In the analysis of personality, the term archetype is often broadly used to refer to: A stereotype-a personality type observed multiple times, especially an oversimplification of such a type. An epitome-a personality type exemplified, especially the "greatest" such example. Archetype refers to a generic version of a personality. In this sense, "mother figure" may be considered an archetype, and may be identified in various characters with otherwise distinct (non-generic) personalities.

 

Jungian Archetypes

The concept of psychological archetypes was advanced by the Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung, c. 1919. In Jung's psychological framework, archetypes are innate, universal prototypes for ideas and may be used to interpret observations. A group of memories and interpretations associated with an archetype is a complex (e.g. a mother complex associated with the mother archetype).

Archetypal Stories Are Universal C.G. Jung used the term “archetype” to refer to universal ideas or characters he found appearing consistently in dreams and stories from cultures around the globe. He felt that the archetypes were what made up the content of our “collective unconscious.” These characters shared fundamental similarities across time and across geographies. Jung outlined five main archetypes:

       The Self, the regulating center of the psyche and facilitator of individuation.

       The Shadow, the opposite of the ego image, often containing qualities with which the ego does not identify, but which it possesses nonetheless.

       The Anima, the feminine image in a man's psyche.

       The Animus, the masculine image in a woman's psyche.

       The Persona, the image we present to the world, usually protecting the Ego from negative images (like a mask).

Although archetypes can take on innumerable forms, there are a few particularly notable, recurring archetypal images

The Child       The Hero       The Martyr       The Great Mother       The Wise old man or Sage       The Wise Old Woman/Man

The Damsel in distress       The Trickster or Fox       The Devil or Satan       The Scarecrow       The Mentor       The Warrior

Jung also outlined what he called archetypes of transformation, which are situations, places, ways, and means that symbolize the transformation in question. These archetypes exist primarily as energy and are useful in organizational development, personal and organizational change management, and extensively used in branding.

Brand as Stereotype and Archetype

Stereotype

Archetype

Brands rooted in Culture-specific norms are simplistic and undifferentiated

Brands rooted in Universal and eternal truths are rich and distinctive

 

         

                    Source: www.livingbrands.co.uk

                           Figure 1: Brand as Stereotype and Archetype

An archetype is a universally familiar character or situation that transcends time, place, culture, gender and age. It represents an eternal truth’ (Figure 1). Brand development is nothing short of creating a story that people want to be part of; a character with values that have deep resonance which the  target audience. Archetypes can be manifested – and often combined – in a multitude of distinct ways, each of which taps into primal needs and motivations whilst retaining the freedom and flexibility to change external trappings with the times.

Companies can develop their brand strategies by identifying the “archetypal” story that best expresses their brand experience. These are stories like the hero, the caregiver and the mentor, stories that have been told around the campfire since the dawn of man. Archetypes prove to be very powerful tools to align a brand around a key emotional need in a way that both the client and the consumer can readily grasp. This approach has worked successfully for some of the largest consumer brands in the world, as well as for small non-profits and even business-to-business companies.

Consumers don’t just buy products — they buy the story about the products, and all the emotion that comes along with these stories. The power of identifying a brand with one of these timeless stories is that the story already exists deep within our subconscious — it does not need to be created. The task for the brand is to simply evoke the story with cues. If it does this well, the brand will also evoke the emotion that consumers seek to derive from the brand. Archetypal stories like the “hero” story have existed through the ages because they deliver on very important emotional needs all the humans share. The hero story helps us understand our mortality and speaks to our desire to achieve great things. Such timeless stories bring understanding and meaning to our lives.

The task of an established brand is to discover and clarify its core archetypal (Figure 3) story. Psychological interviews and their projective techniques are essential because the company needs to discover the core emotional benefit that the fans derive from the brand, and consumers often cannot tell that or are hesitant to tell marketers their true reasons for buying a brand. The task of new or undefined brands is to identify an archetypal story and stick with it. The key to selecting the right story is to conduct the projective qualitative research to understand consumers’ emotional needs in the category. Once the emotional need is identified, the team should select the archetypal story that delivers this need. Other key consideration is how competitors have positioned themselves and whether or not they own a relevant archetypal space (Figure 2). If so, the companies have two options: (1) outspend the competitor and try to usurp the archetypal story, or (2) pick a different story. Archetypal branding works because it appeals to deeply shared human needs like stability, belonging, discovery and achievement.

Archetype that can be considered to build Good Brands

Order

 

Group Belonging

Self -Knowledge

Change

 

      Source: www.theblakeproject.typepad.com

                                      Figure 2: Archetypes to Build Good Brands

Creator - GE

Brands Telling Archetypal Stories

Stability

Discovery

Achievement

Belonging

Innocent – Coca-Cola

Mentor The New York Times

Explorer – Jeep

Hero Nike

Rebel Apple

Magician Disney

Lover AXE

 

Source: www.brandgarten.com

Figure 3: A few Good Brands and their Archetypes

Method 5: Using Brand Resonance Model to develop Good Brands

According to Kevin Lane Keller (2008), a good brand has essentially the following dimensions:  Brand salience, imagery, performance, judgments, feelings and Resonance. The Brand salience is to what extend consumers aware about the brand. If the customer knows very well about which product category the brand belongs to and what kind of need the brand fundamentally fulfills, one can infer that there is a good Brand Salience. The Brand Performance focuses on product quality and service quality. It entails the following aspects of product quality and service quality: Product characteristics and secondary features, product reliability, durability, and serviceability, service effectiveness, efficiency, and empathy, style, design and price. Brand imagery tries to create unique image about the brand in the customers’ mind. The aspects like User profiles, Purchase & usage, Situations, Personality and values, History, Heritage, and Experiences are parts and parcel of this dimension of a strong brand.

Brand judgments talk about the basis in which customers evaluate the brand. In the light of the bases like Quality, Credibility, Consideration and Superiority, the customers evaluate and judge the functional strength of a brand relatively. Brand feelings make the customers emotionally attached with the brand. Infusing a few of the emotional constructs like Warmth, Fun, Excitement, Security, Social approval and Self-respect in to a brand, marketers try to reach out to the customers by making them emotionally connected with the brand. To develop Brand resonance is the ultimate aim of a good Brand. One of the reliable yardsticks to know whether a brand is a good brand is measuring the degree of brand resonance it makes with its customers.  One of the significant indicators of Brand Resonance is the existence of group of emotionally attached loyal customers.

Method 6:  Building a Good Brand through Valued Discrimination    

According to Harsh V Verma (2002), if a brand delivers certain benefits which are desired by the customers, provided that competitors in that product category fail to deliver those benefits can be called as “Valued Discrimination.” Answering to the following three questions will help a company to understand the kind of valued discrimination it could infuse in to its brand. For who is the product meant? (The Target Customers), what do competitive brands offer? (The similarity) and what do customers desire/value but do not get? (Discriminative Value). The procedure to achieve Valued Discrimination consists of the following steps: Identify Segments ,understand the key drivers of buying, determine Relative Importance of those drivers from the perspective of the target customers and find sources of Discriminative Value by singling out important drivers of purchase that are not offered by the existing competitors.

Conclusion

The kinds of branding methods discussed in this paper are not only innovative but also timeless. If these strategies are considered, either by using one of that or a few of that combinely, and adopted in an organization in right earnest, there is no looking back as far as the organization’s future business prospects are concerned. It seems that everything in the universe is governed by everlasting immutable laws. It is applicable to branding also. It is a proven fact that understanding the underlying laws behind branding and applying that through appropriate methods without any compromise are sure recipe for any organization’s long-lasting success.            

Reference

1.      Keller, K.,(2008),’Strategic Brand Management’, New Delhi: Pearson Education

2.      Verma V Harsh (2002),’Brand Management, Text and Cases’, New Delhi: Excel Books

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5.      http://www.designcouncil.org.uk/resources-and-events/Business-and-public-sector/Guides/The-power-of-branding/

6.      http://adage.com/article/cmo-strategy/marketing-strategy-7-universal-brand-management-truths/141298/

7.      http://www.brandingstrategyinsider.com

8.      http://www.brandingstrategyinsider.com/2010/12/using-archetypes-to-build-stronger-brands.html

9.      http://theblakeproject.typepad.com

10.  http://www.brandgarten.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/Using-Archetypes-to-Build-Strong-Brands.pdf

11.  http://consumerworks.com/Archetype%20Analysis.pdf

12.  http://www.warc.com/fulltext/admap/76945.htm

13.  http://www.livingbrands.co.uk/Assests/Articles/Brand%20Archetyping%20%28Admap%20article%201%29.pdf

14.  http://boblyman.net/englt345/handouts/Carl%20Jung%20and%20Archetypes.pdf]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archetype              

Sampath Kumar