Firstly let us discuss what does brand means?
First and foremost what is a brand? Where did it all get started? Who were the first people that introduced it to the world? In the medieval period people use to brand the livestock but that is not the type of branding we are discussing out here, it was cruel and barbaric.
Let’s focus and go deeper
Through ancient times people are engaging in buying and selling of good and services. Out of which few sellers were standouts, due to the quality of their products, their way of interaction or use intelligent pricing were able to sale more and grow their loyal consumer base.
These people were successful in differentiating themselves from the crowd with the use of intelligent marketing tactics and able to establish them self in the market, were the first brands that mankind have ever seen.
Limitation and opportunities
A brand is not confined in the boundary of a logo or trademark of a company only. Sure the logos and the trademarks help the companies get recognized and adapt different identity from its competitors. But all this is not brand. As the saying goes,
“Rome was not built in a day; likewise, you can’t build a brand in a day. Not including Facebook in this list, its take years and years of hard work to establish a product as a brand.”
Just giving a catchy name or logo to your product does not make you a brand. People have to accept you as a brand. Being a brand means being a market leader in your segment, and it does not come by that easily.
A brand should personally appeal to you
The brand should give some sense of belonging to the customer, so they can relate to it on the personal level and feel connected. There are many successful brands in the market like Harley-Davidson is a machine, rest are bikes. The masculine aura that surrounds the product along with its distinctive sound is the brand that has defined the giant motorcycle company.
Like-wise Rolls Royce is trusted to deliver excellence, Google is not just a search engine but the way of life, Sony like no other out there, Nike just do it.
All these brands are highly successful and distinctive in their own way. Is it not all that we want from life? Probably not but we can all dream, and dream high to reach the sky.
It’s a continuous cycle
As far as marketing tactics go the brands do not have to push the sales. They have already established themselves in the market, people know their name and the brand value they will keep buying the products, irrespective of market condition.
The company which thinks like that, destined to be doomed. Human memory span is short, and today’s time even shorter. If you are not out there in front of their eyes, they will forget you, and move on to the next big thing in line.
Driven by money, motivated by growth
So let us concentrate on Brand Marketing because it’s important. It’s not like that the brands are not marketing well; the matter of the fact is that you can buy a small country just with their advertisement money.
As per the official data, the US has spent about 11427.1 million US dollars for the financial year 2018 on marketing. This is just an insane amount of money. They have a huge number of expert people who spend countless hours of their time to keep the brand name relevant.
If it is easy, it’s not brand marketing
Brand marketing is not an easy job, in today’s changing world. Something new keeps popping up in the market due to the infusion of technology. It has changed the way we perceive and interact with a particular brand. So they have to think ahead to counter and grab the opportunity that the new innovation has brought in.
Brand has magnetism
As we have disused above the brand does not have to push for the sale, it has to pull instead. This is one of the perks of being a good brand. They do not have to go out and keep bugging the consumer to buy their product. But they have to maintain the relationship that they created with the consumer, through these brand marketing tactics over a period of time.
So what do we have in our hand? Well, a lot actually
As the market has expanded, so did the means of brand marketing, online, offline, under the sea, over the sky, you just name it, they have done it. After doing all these and spending millions of dollars the result will bring just a slight change in the market position of the brand.
The brand marketing mechanism of these companies is so good that they can predict the next trend pretty accurately. Somehow there is one puzzle that they were unable to crack, which can provide them 100% accuracy in prediction of the next big market trend. It is the most unstable variable that the market has to offer, the human mind.
All they want is to control your brain
As a human being we all like to think, that is where the problem lies. The companies do not want us to think, they want us to be a hoard of shopaholic zombies, who crave for brands only. And somewhat they have succeeded in their plan as of now.
I am not saying the brand marketing that the businesses use is bad, but sometimes they go up and over to get what they want. I don’t want others to influence my buying habits by tracking my footprint online. But that is just wishful thinking.
Bare necessities that all we need
As a consumer, I want a product which has good qualities, services that meets my expectations and peace of mind. But that is just me; different people expect different things from a brand. Let’s take an Apple phone and discuss what people expect from it. Some buy it to show off their present status, some buy it for its unique feature, some buy it because others have bought it and some think about buying it see the price and buy an android phone instead.
Above example give us three different types of consumer and one potential consumer of the brand Apple. As Apple has placed itself in the premium segment of the phone market, the first consumer is instantly want to connect with it as it matches with his status. The second one has the money but does not have to buy an Apple phone, could have chosen some other phone but some feature that is only exclusive to an apple phone has bought him in and the third one belong to the hoard of shopaholic zombies.
Snipe for niche
We can see that the brand does not target all, but a specific segment of the market that it had niched out over a period of time and carter only their needs. It allows them to prepare a design for brand marketing targeted towards their specified consumers.
Brand marketing in the future
As we look at the horizon far beyond our time, where do we see these brands go in the growing field of marketing? What tools they can develop to keep their share of the market or make it grow bigger if we don’t blow up the earth before that. That exactly what we want from all these brands, to get into green marketing to decrease the emission of carbon into the atmosphere. Which will ultimately help our future generation greatly, and who knows they might buy an Apple phone, not the android.
