On This Page: Branding Definition | Brand Experience | Brand Management | Your Brand Creator
Before you celebrate commercial free hockey games on TV, think about your last visit to the grocery store. In a world without branding, there would be nothing except rows of silver cans and white boxes with their contents plainly printed on them.
No big deal? Think again. You grab a tin labelled "corn" and at dinner you find the seasoning of it not to your taste - certainly not like the tasty corn you enjoyed last week. Too bad it was also in a silver can labelled "corn" and you think, “gee if only there were a way to decipher between the corn I really like and this one.”
Welcome to the basic concept of branding, the ability of telling one product or service from another.
define: branding
At the most basic level, branding is a name. It may be just a word or any combination of slogans, symbols, shapes, signets or colours that work to identify it from a competitor’s product or service.
Branding started as a way for one rancher to tell his cattle from another’s herd by marking them with a hot iron brand. The logical extension of this surrounds all today when we walk into that grocery store to the various labels, logos, colours, and claims differentiating “Corn A” from “Corn B”.
Today a “brand” is interchangeable with “identity”. It has come to be much more than an “X” on the side of a steer or a can and actually holds a personality defining an experience. This perception is affected by the view customers or prospects have about the brand itself or the company that stands behind it.
brand experience
As a brand gets more exposure to its market, there becomes a psychological effect that weighs against a brand’s success. As it matures, a brand becomes associated with the thoughts, images, personal experiences, attitudes, beliefs of a customer to form a perception which defines each individual’s brand experience.
The experience one has with a brand will shift over time with that customer's mindset and is influenced by a range of emotions and thoughts ranging from perceived quality straight through to even the political position of the company behind a brand.
For example, people may love the product, “Yummy Corn”, which is a tasty food that maintains high quality. This is the ideal. However, if it were come to light that “The Great Corn Company” who makes it were engaging in undesirable actions such as polluting or even lobbying against a consumers belief structure, then the overall brand experience may well become poisoned and the desire to buy “Yummy Corn” may diminish. If enough of the core target market experience this shift, the success and growth of "Yummy Corn" can be negatively affected and that is where brand management comes into play.
brand management
Simply, is the process of creating and maintaining the positive brand experience in the core target market’s mindset. Brand Management evolved from an internal memo at Proctor and Gamble in 1931 when Camay advertiser Neil McElroy vented his frustration at having to overcome competition from other P&G brands like Ivory Soap as well as having to fight off external competitors like Leever Brothers.
Brand Management addresses the realization that different product qualities, expectations and price points appeal to different market segments. By identifying the core target market for a new or existing brand, one can manage that brand to be attractive and relevant to them through definition, positioning and delivery.
your brand creator
As “Your Brand Creator”, Falcon Innovation Group works closely with clients to identify the right core target market and then develop the right brand promise so your brand becomes relevant in their day-to-day lives.
Learn more about how Falcon Innovation Group can help create, grow and manage your brand through our set of branding services:
For more information, please contact your brand creator at 1-866-570-5344 or visit the contact page of our site.
