What is ‘Brand Management?’
Brand management is a function of marketing that uses techniques to increase the perceived value of a product line or brand over time. Effective brand management enables the price of products to go up and builds loyal customers through positive brand associations and images or a strong awareness of the brand. Developing a strategic plan to maintain brand equity or gain brand value requires a comprehensive understanding of the brand, its target market and the company’s overall vision.
| Brand management begins with having a thorough knowledge of the term “brand”. It includes developing a promise, making that promise and maintaining it. It means defining the brand, positioning the brand, and delivering the brand. Brand management is nothing but an art of creating and sustaining the brand. Branding makes customers committed to your business. A strong brand differentiates your products from the competitors. It gives a quality image to your business.Brand management includes managing the tangible and intangible characteristics of brand. In case of product brands, the tangibles include the product itself, price, packaging, etc. While in case of service brands, the tangibles include the customers’ experience. The intangibles include emotional connections with the product / service.Branding is assembling of various marketing mix medium into a whole so as to give you an identity. It is nothing but capturing your customers mind with your brand name. It gives an image of an experienced, huge and reliable business. |
| It is all about capturing the niche market for your product / service and about creating a confidence in the current and prospective customers’ minds that you are the unique solution to their problem. |
The aim of branding is to convey brand message vividly, create customer loyalty, persuade the buyer for the product, and establish an emotional connectivity with the customers. Branding forms customer perceptions about the product. It should raise customer expectations about the product. The primary aim of branding is to create differentiation.
Strong brands reduce customers’ perceived monetary, social and safety risks in buying goods/services. The customers can better imagine the intangible goods with the help of brand name. Strong brand organizations have a high market share. The brand should be given good support so that it can sustain itself in long run. It is essential to manage all brands and build brand equity over a period of time. Here comes importance and usefulness of brand management. Brand management helps in building a corporate image. A brand manager has to oversee overall brand performance. A successful brand can only be created if the brand management system is competent.
“A product is something made in the factory; a brand is something the customer buys. A product can be copied or imitated by a competitor; a brand is unique. A product can be outdated; a successful brand is timeless.”
− Stephen King (WPP Group, London)
Today, the commodity marketplace is flooded with various brands. The requirement of the seller’s brand to stand out among other parallel brands is crucial. Hence, there is a fierce competition among the sellers to make their products or services stand out in the market, thereby winning new consumers and retaining the existing ones. At times, it even leads to diverting the consumers following other brands to the seller’s brand. To remain competitive in the marketplace, strong brand management is required.
Brand Management begins with understanding the term ‘brand’.
