Branding - why should a company create a brand? Brand promotion by means of online advertising Advertising Was an online brand created

13.11.2019

In 1969, the ARPAnet computer network was created in the USA, uniting computer centers the Ministry of Defense and a number of academic organizations. This network was intended for a narrow purpose: mainly to learn how to communicate in the event of a nuclear attack and to help researchers exchange information. As this network grew, many other networks were created and developed. Even before the advent of the era of personal computers, the creators of ARPAnet began to develop the Internetting Project (“Networking Project”).

The success of this project led to the following results. First, the largest Internet network in the United States was created. Secondly, various options for the interaction of this network with a number of other US networks were tested. This created the prerequisites for the successful integration of many networks into a single global network. This "network of networks" is now commonly referred to as the Internet. From a technical point of view, the Internet consists of a large number of smaller networks, which are also heterogeneous. Formally, the Internet does not belong to anyone in particular.

Internet users are inventing ever more efficient ways to create, store and retrieve information. The more users on the network, the more information they produce. The Internet is today the main information medium, the place of circulation of information and its huge global repository.

The Internet has had and continues to have a very strong influence on the formation and development of the global information community. As a social phenomenon, the Internet is a global means of communication that provides the exchange of text, graphics, audio and video information and access to online services without territorial and national boundaries. This is an effective tool for research, development of trade and business, impact on the audience. Technological possibilities The Internet determines the rapid development of the global information community. And with its development, approaches to business management and marketing as one of its components are also changing.

Marketers can use a variety of online resources to obtain information about their customers, competitors, marketing assessment, analysis, research of their market sector and the industry as a whole. There are already programs that check the Internet for illegal sale or distribution of your products, illegal use of logos or other branding attributes of the company, to protect popular brands. There is a complex software for marketers, which allows you to run advertising campaigns, analyze their progress and effectiveness, and make adjustments during the campaign. Unlike any other medium, the Internet makes it possible to track the behavior of your site visitors: which pages they visited, which ones they stayed on, which ones they left, etc. Based on this analysis, you can draw conclusions about the preferences and sympathies of site visitors, adjust the marketing tactics and strategies, the course of an advertising campaign.

Internet advertising is a new concept, its generally accepted definition, perhaps, is still not there, since the definition has changed with the development of technologies and the possibilities of advertising on the Web. The main types of advertising on the Internet include:

The name "Internet" and WWW are often considered synonymous. The World Wide Web system allows you to interactively interact with the content presented on Web servers. The corporate Web server should be considered the main place and medium for advertising on the Internet. This is the most modern, convenient, promising and universal service on the Internet. It is, after all, the one most often referred to in an advertising campaign, and in its absence, such a campaign cannot be considered effective. Interactive WWW sites provide users with access to information about the product, services, services, allow you to quickly and conveniently place an order for them. Visitors to some sites have the opportunity to leave their comments, request additional information, enter into correspondence by e-mail and even monitor the progress of the order. Electronic advertising on Web servers is sometimes referred to as "come visit us" advertising.

Building a corporate Web server requires a lot of skill. The interest of Internet users can be riveted to completely different areas, not related to the company or product. Sometimes they are not even aware of the existence of information that could be useful to them. The publication of additional information on the Web server that is not directly related to the sales market makes it possible to attract additional attention to advertising. It can be news, weather information, sports information, etc. This approach serves as a means of attracting a significant part of the non-target audience, creates popularity, fame, and a stable image for the company, that is, it opens up new market segments for it. Even the creation of a Web server that does not directly affect the sales market can be considered a good marketing exercise to develop potential markets.

The obvious advantage of using a Web server is the ability to use various forms of presentation of product information - graphics, sound, animation, video and much more. The Web server can also be used as a 24/7 virtual store.

The most important type of advertising on the Internet is the so-called banner advertising (from the polyhedral Americanism "banner" - a flag, newspaper headline). A banner is a rectangular graphic image that is most often placed on a Web page and has a hyperlink to your company's server. Since it is necessary that the banner is loaded on the page as quickly as possible, there is a limit on the size of the banner in kilobytes. So, for example, for a 468x60 banner, the maximum size is usually 10-15 kilobytes.

1. The use of special banner exchange services (Banner Exchange Services), which provide the display of your banners on other pages in exchange for showing other people's banners on your pages. In doing so, you can practice:

showing banners only on a certain group of servers;

showing banners with a given intensity (periodicity) or only at certain intervals;

do not re-display the banner to a user who has already seen it.

2. Implementation of a direct agreement with the Webmaster of another page to place banners on each other. It is desirable to exchange with pages that have a similar theme, but be aware that exchanging banners with a competitor's Web site can often do more harm than good. If it is not possible to programmatically track how many banners were shown and how many “foreign” banners were shown, you can focus on the indicators of page visit counters. We must try to achieve equal or better conditions by the location of the banner on the pages of Web sites.

3. Using a method of direct payment to a banner system, search engine, directory or just a popular Web site for displaying banners on their pages.

One of the most important characteristics of a banner is the ratio of the number of clicks (mouse clicks) on the banner to the number of its impressions. So, when a banner is displayed on any page 2000 times, and “clicked” on it and, accordingly, 50 people got to the advertised site, then the response of such a banner is 2.5%. According to statistics, the average response ("click / through ratio", CTR) for banners used in the WWW is 2.11%. But the CTR value is not an absolute guarantee of the effectiveness of the banner. The banner can be attractive and intriguing, compelling the user to click on it. However, by clicking on the banner and roughly understanding where he got, the user can easily click the "Back" (return) button on his browser. By using enticing but little relevant text and pictures on a banner, an advertiser can attract intrigued visitors, but on the other hand, lose really interested visitors.

Electronic advertising on the principle of mailing (e-mail) involves the formation of addresses of potential buyers and sending them private messages through channels Email(e-mail). E-mail service as a kind promotional activities has a wide distribution. The features and benefits of email are as follows:

This is an efficient and cheap communication channel with partners, colleagues, customers, dealers, subsidiaries, etc. It is effective within the country, but especially for communication with foreign countries. An ordinary e-mail will reach the addressee in any country in seconds or minutes and is very cheap. E-mail can be used to send information, documentation, drawings, drawings, video and audio materials, for an almost instantaneous exchange of views, up-to-date information(for example, about price changes, discounts on advertised products, new services, etc.).

E-mail is an efficient and convenient channel for obtaining various special information for work and professional growth. In the network, a huge amount of information (including advertising) can be received free of charge by subscription via e-mail. These are press releases, newsletters, specialized mailing lists covering many interests (including business ones), in particular, reviews of both individual market sectors and certain types products, etc. Not using these opportunities is a weakness in a competitive market, often an additional waste of funds that could be dispensed with, a rejection of the prospects and new opportunities that are constantly opening up with the current rapid development of the Internet.

E-mail enables direct communication, consultations and cooperation with leading experts in their field in any country. And this means approaching work according to the highest standards - not only Russian, but also world.

Having mail, you can, for example, put an auto-responder program with information that is most often requested by your partners, customers, customers or employees. When receiving a letter to his address, the program automatically sends back the required information (for example, information about prices, instructions, technical indicators, invoices, various reference materials, newsletters and more). Such an answering machine can free an individual employee from part of the routine work for better use of his abilities, and generally replace several staff members with others. If it is necessary to periodically inform a wide network of dealers, such an answering machine will replace regular mail, and therefore significantly save the cost of paper, postage, telephone conversations.

Many Western experts agree that the response to a well-written letter is higher than the response to banners.

Thanks to new solutions in the field of e-mail, it is possible to significantly increase the CTR.

The peculiarity of this type of advertising lies in the rather strict and individual nature of communication between interested parties. The organization of the transmission of messages and their processing is carried out with the help of special host computers - servers. This inexpensive method of transmitting advertising information can, however, require quite a long time (compared to other means of transmitting information on the Internet) due to the time spent on preparation and mass mailing, especially in the case of forwarding letters of individual content. In addition, you can specify telephones, faxes and other contact information. It is desirable that all employees of the firm have the same signature structure for emails.

Newsgroups, network news or teleconferences (Usenet) is another of the most important Internet services, which, along with e-mail, belongs to deferred services (that is, assuming a time lag between requesting and receiving information). This is a kind of newspaper or electronic bulletin board in computer networks, information in which (including advertising) in the form of articles, messages or announcements can be placed by any company. Unlike e-mail, teleconferences are oriented, as a rule, not to an individual (according to the "one to one" principle), but to a collective user - a group of recipients who "subscribe" this teleconference ("from one to many"). Each network node that receives a new message transmits it to all nodes with whom it exchanges news. A lot of people can participate in the discussion of the topic of a teleconference, regardless of where they are physically located. The news is divided into hierarchically organized thematic groups, and the name of each group consists of the names of sublevels. There are global and local (for any organization, country or network) hierarchies. For example, the hierarchical conference name is comp.sys.windows.setup. includes titles:

comp. - Group - computers.

sys. - Subgroup - operating systems.

windows. - more specifically - operating system Windows.

setup. - Even more specifically - the installation of this OS.

The number of topics of various teleconferences reaches tens of thousands and their information is addressed to different audiences. Some teleconferences are specifically designed for advertising and commercial information. Payment for transmitted advertising messages can be made in proportion to their page volume or volume in bytes.

Usenet was rapidly developing even before the advent of the WWW, but, unfortunately, there is a noticeable trend towards a gradual decrease in the attention of users to it, which was already noted earlier. As J. Kapferer notes, this is largely due to the fact that spammers primarily attack Usenet, and for one really useful message on the topic there are five letters with get-rich-quick schemes and advertisements for porn servers. Despite this, out of the tens of thousands of ongoing Usenet conferences, there are still groups that advertisers can benefit from attending.

There are sufficient grounds for singling out such special kind Internet advertisements as advertisements in the system electronic trading. This is due to the specifics and certain isolation of this system of commercial events, which includes a number of sequential operations:

2. Transfer of the order from the buyer who "reacted" to this information.

3. Payment for the purchase of any products (goods) using electronic cards.

Social networks are inherently aimed at bringing together people with similar interests or activities through the Internet. Communication between users is carried out through the service of internal mail or instant messaging. In addition, there are social networks not only for finding people, but also for finding their objects of interest: websites, favorite music, books, etc. .

Social networks have access to two important sources of information: user profile (information that a person fills in on their own) and user behavior data (involuntarily this information). The size of the advertising market in in social networks is growing steadily. eMarketer predicts that by 2013 the social media advertising market will grow to $3.8 billion.

With the help of social networks, you can effectively target advertising: by gender, age, income, profession, etc. This allows you to make the display of advertising targeted, and therefore - to achieve the maximum advertising effect. Let's give an example: let's say an advertising agency from Minsk organizes a paid professional training seminar on PR. The target audience is professionals in the advertising industry, more precisely, PR people from Minsk with an income level of more than $1,000 per month. There is a wide range of advertising media for this event: magazines, banner and contextual advertising, radio, television, etc. . Many methods involve targeting (specified air time on the radio, specialized marketing magazines, contextual advertising targeting Minsk). However, there is no maximally precise targeting. What gives in this case advertising agency social network? She can only show the promotional message to the target group. At the same time, the advertising message allows you to address each user by name and surname, with the words "Dear" or "Dear".

by interest.

Targeting is not the only advertising benefit of social media. In the West, such a technique as branded communities is very popular. This is the creation of communities of companies in which the life of these companies is actively covered, and the employees of the company correspond with consumers. This is not direct and unobtrusive advertising, users are loyal to it.

Recommendations are another method of advertising in social networks. Recommendations from friends are always psychologically very powerful advertising that we trust. Do not forget that social networks are an excellent platform for launching viral advertising. Viral advertising is an advertising message that spreads according to the principle of a human virus, from person to person, and is considered a relatively inexpensive and effective advertising technique. Often, videos with informal content ("not for display on TV") act as viral advertisements.

Based on the foregoing, it can be concluded that branding is image advertising, or the process of creating and managing a brand (trademark and its perception by potential consumers), designed to create a special impression, which contribute to the overall image and attitude target segment market to brand. A managed brand reveals all the advantages of a product, distinguishes it from the general mass of similar goods or services offered in a favorable light.

A brand can be created by conventional means in real life(traditional brand), and directly on the Internet (Internet brand). In the first case, the Internet is one of the branding tools and is used at some of its stages. The second case applies to those products that are created and used only on the Internet.

The Internet is another advertising channel. You need to know its capabilities and laws and use them for their intended purpose. There are excellent analysis systems on the Internet that give us an accurate forecast of the future effectiveness of advertising, identify problem areas, and measure the result of each individual marketing action. In addition, based on the analysis of user behavior, systems have been created that allow displaying advertising based on the interests of the user, his socio-demographic characteristics. The Internet provides ample opportunities for branding goods and services.

Internet users easily move from one format to another: from e-mail to news sites, from any social network to forums, from Internet videos to Internet radio. The Internet has turned into a real information, communicative media combine, which for many has replaced traditional non-network formats.

There is an expression that first you work for the name, then the name works for you. In business, your name is the name of your company, that is, the brand.

And if you are in business for the long term, and not to “make money quickly”, then building and promoting the company's brand is one of the main tasks.

NOT ONLY A NAME

If I ask you: “What green bank do you know?”. Most likely you will answer - Sberbank. If I ask about “fruit phones”, then you will remember Apple.

Because a brand is not only the name itself or the Nth number of letters, numbers or words. This is a much broader concept.

A brand is the very name of the company, and the logo, and signs that distinguish this company from competitors (for example, unique selling proposition and positioning).

Including the meanings and associations that pop up in the head of potential consumers when they remember or hear your name. And even the history of the birth of the company also refers to this word.

For example, I will give Marlboro cigarettes (or rather, this brand). Most men know them.

And if you name this brand of cigarettes, then the image of a cowboy automatically pops up in your head, such a strong and independent man.

This is also confirmed by studies by Russian sociologists, who proved that 43% of respondents buy Marlboro cigarettes.

And not because of taste preferences or the strength of tobacco in these cigarettes, but no matter how ridiculous it may sound, because when they smoke these cigarettes they feel like a cowboy.

Yes, definitely

Once and forever

Since some of you, having got to this article, expect to see information about what the brand consists of, so as not to disappoint you with empty promises, we will single out two concepts that will help us to speak the same language in the future:

A brand is a well-formed image of a company through promotion.
Branding is the process that refers to the creation and promotion of a brand to the market.

And that is not all. I have two additional concepts that are also confused with each other.

Especially often we observe this when applying for this service to our company.

Brand promotion is one-time activities that are done at the start of a business (that is, a brand is created and activities are launched to promote it for the first touch with the consumer)
Brand promotion is a long process that requires not only financial investments, but often interesting, creative moves (that is, the promotion of the brand to the market “to the masses” is always done)

At first glance, the difference is small, but significant. And in this article we will talk about BRAND PROMOTION.

If you have a task - promotion or creation, then I recommend that you first read our two previous articles on this topic:

Repetition is the mother of learning

From experience I can say that it is at this point that we most often hear: “Yes, I know my competitors!”.

No, you know them very little. I am sure that you do not know all their channels, where they get new customers from, and do not know their plans even for the next half a year. Partially, our articles will help you with this.

1.3. Development of goals and objectives of promotion

Exactly correct definition goals and objectives will help build a successful strategy.

You must decide what you prioritize now and what you leave for a snack.

And by default, the final goal is . But to achieve it, you need to make intermediate marks:

Form a positive image of the company;
Increase company awareness in the market;
Increase consumer loyalty;
Win a new audience;
Increase staff cohesion.

Answering your question, yes, there may be several goals, but not radically different. And besides, goals should be measurable.

For example, not just increase sales, but increase product sales by 146% in 1 year.

Tasks should be built for 3-5 years, that is, long-term. Well, I don’t even mention the fact that goals and objectives should be divided into subgoals and subtasks.

Important! When setting goals, you must decide whether you will promote your product or company as a brand.

It is logical that when one is promoted, the other will also be promoted, but you still need to place the accents in advance, since further actions will depend on this.

1.4. Definition of the target audience

The most hackneyed theme of all that can only be mentioned in marketing, but nevertheless, present in the creation of any strategy.

You must know who your most ideal client is and direct all actions towards him.

Of course, you also have to work for other segments, but the ideal client is ideal because he brings in the most money of all.

Determining the target audience will help you not only choose the necessary communication tools (more on this below), but also save advertising budgets several dozen times.

How to cut? Yes, very easy! If your audience is older, then it would be more logical to transfer it offline, instead of the Internet that is relevant for everyone. So read our article first.

And then proceed to the prescription of the target audience. And if you already have it, then detail it according to our article.

Step 2. Strategy

Another important step that you should work out as detailed as possible is the development of a strategy.

Although no, it's wrong. It is this step that is the key and it is he who decides whether your advertising campaign oil or sandpaper.

So give him Special attention and try to anticipate all the nuances, because as a rule, something will still go “wrong”.

To begin with, you determine in general strokes what steps you need to take in order to achieve your goal.

All these steps you will be based on 1 of 4 ways to promote the brand to the market:

Pulling (pull). Funds are invested in advertising, which is "sharpened" to build a brand in the eyes of end consumers and encourage them to buy within the existing goods or services.
Pushing (push). The main emphasis is placed on intermediaries (dealers) and company personnel, who will stimulate trade.
Diversification (diverse). The audience is expanding due to new products or services provided, but within the framework of an existing direction. That is, the launch of products with new additives, flavors. Even with new packaging.
Development (develop). Creation of a completely new product or a complete, radical rebranding of an old one. An example is Apple, which has been making computers all the time and launched its first phones in 2007.

From experience I can say that this moment The most popular strategies for promoting a company's brand are the first and second (Pull and Push).

Which, surprisingly, can be used simultaneously, because they are aimed at achieving different goals.

2.1. Forming of budget

Having defined the strategy, you need to determine what advertising budget you are ready to lay for it.

Let me remind you once again that brand promotion is not one-time action, and if you undertake, you must have the appropriate budgets (I mean, you need to plan advertising for at least a year).

The bad news is that when you start promoting your brand, competitors start to activate and start investing in themselves too.

And accordingly, your investment can increase, whether you like it or not. That is why always budget with a margin.

Just do not think that now I'm talking about millions of budgets. I understand perfectly well that small and medium-sized businesses have budgets in the tens or hundreds of thousands.

But even with this amount of money, you can successfully promote yourself, you just will invest resources not in paid advertising, and in the work of employees who will implement everything through.

Step 3. Tactics

As for tactics, it is already much more interesting to talk about it, since here you can already apply your knowledge, experience and tools that are already working perfectly for you in the company.

It’s easy to supplement them with features that we constantly talk about on our social networks or on the YouTube channel.

In this way, you get a wonderful mixture of reinforced, already working materials.

WE ARE ALREADY MORE THAN 29,000 people.
TURN ON

All I want to warn you about is that you also calculate the negative points, because sometimes the market shows completely unexpected outcomes.

For example, one of our clients opened new shop and pledged for the repair and promotion of the amount of 5 million.

Considering that the situation is now good and investments will pay off quickly, although we warned him that it is not necessary to look at the world so rosy.

To his sadness, the investment in repairs had to be doubled and there was no money left for advertising, so in reality, his investment will pay off for a long time. So calculate everything in negative colors, it will be more vital.

3.1. Definition of communication tools

Looking ahead, I’ll say that communication channels are not the same as.

We are now talking about ways to communicate with your potential customers, as well as ways to convey information about your brand or product to them.

That is, about what will allow the client to understand what your service or product represents, and what he can do with it.

For example, if you are engaged in the construction of houses, then it is at this step that you should consider whether you will only have a local telephone number or whether a whole hotline 8-800.

But it's not just about how we communicate with you. Also, communication between the client and the brand can be created through physical packaging (it also conveys information), exhibition stands, sites and so on.

I hope I've made it as clear as possible. If you have any questions, ask in the comments or read the article.

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Protecting your brand

There are several reasons to bet on your own brand. The first is usually inexpensive. These are usually the most relevant words leading to a high CTR, and therefore a high Quality Score and low CPC.

In the example below, the brand's total spend is 9% of the total monthly budget, and the brand's campaign is responsible for 59% of total conversions. Sellers also have competitors behind the brand name.

If the seller had a generic name, it might just be a case of broad Google search matching. However, the brand has a unique name and two competitors bid on its company name. Their ads are shown between the paid brand ad and the organic listing. These paid listings ensure that customers will find that particular brand instead of the competition.

Brand competition

One Google search shows that Punctual Plumber has the same problem except they have three competitors between a paid ad and an organic listing. So there is a good chance that the company would lose many clicks to its competitors if it did not bid on its own name.

Keep in mind that if a competitor's PPC was first on the list, customers could have chosen one of the other companies. Many users don't see the difference between paid ads and organic listings.

In another case, the total brand spend is only 3% of the total budget, and the conversions are 19% of the total. This relatively small amount of money ensures that the brand appears in search with its message.

Controlling the target audience's message

Another reason to bet on your brand is to manage your message. Creating a different ad text for your brand campaign will give you the opportunity to test different messages in the text and measure effectiveness. These tests can help determine if it's time to consider updating organic text.

Searching for Bed Bath & Beyond, you can see that they include a CTA to promote their bonus program. Their ad also mentions that they offer free shipping, although this doesn't show up in the organic listings.

Since they don't have competitors showing up in brand search, they take full advantage of the extra space between their paid ad and organic listings. It also makes it possible to test different messages with links to the site, as is done with wedding registration and finding the nearest store.

You can also use paid ads to test different landing pages other than the home page. For example, if someone searched for Amazon Reviews, you can send them to the reviews page. Or if you've been looking for Amazon Complaints, you can send them to the customer service page so they can easily find out where to go with their concerns.

Brand names are cheap

PPC bids on a competitor's brand are often cheaper than some non-brand words. However, this also works for the company itself. If she doesn't bid on her name, it will give competitors a chance to get cheap clicks at her expense.

Does any of your competitors forget to bid on their brand name? You can take advantage of this opportunity. But it is worth bearing in mind that once they find out about this, they may respond in kind (the so-called war of rates). At the very least, you need to make sure that the company protects the interests of its own brand.

If someone decides to bid on competitor brand names, there are a few rules to keep in mind. You can buy their names as keywords, but you can't use their names in your ad text. In addition, you need to make sure that the headings do not use dynamic keyword insertion. Google does have an AdWords Trademark Policy to protect companies from brand infringement.

Other benefits of contextual advertising for a brand

One of the clients could not succeed in contextual advertising. Or so it seemed. His CPL often exceeded 5000 rubles, and it was much higher than their goal. So for the past year they have run their brand campaign along with a very small non-brand budget.

Revenue from this network is rarely shown in Analytics. A few months ago, they set up third-party call tracking and found that 82% of conversions from contextual advertising were pricing calls. Without third-party tracking, the company would have no understanding of call performance.

After listening to some really great calls generated by the universal keywords, the company raised non-brand spending. All of a sudden, she was making $170,000 from paid ads for two months in a row. Analytics showed that the brand was responsible for 92% of all revenue. This doesn't even take into account the extra income from quotes that were sent out for non-branded calls.

However, the only change was an increase in non-brand costs, and it can be assumed that this led to an increase in brand revenue. Plus, once phone calls kicked in, CPL dropped from 5,000 to 1,640, which was below Google's average of 2,300.

In addition, in Analytics, when comparing organic and paid campaign CPC, you could see a slight decrease in organic yield, but the increase in paid yield was significant.

The average monthly organic revenue was $31,724, but after the increase in non-brand costs, the brand's paid-in revenue began to rise. Over the past two months, combined organic and paid income has averaged $86,870. It looks like a similar efficiency is expected next month, which was not visible in the analysis of direct traffic.

Brand Performance

An article from Search Engine Land reports on research showing that paid ads drive more conversions than organic listings. They say the conversion rate can be 4 times higher than organic. They also proved that having a paid ad next to an organic search results in a 32% increase in clicks.

In addition, if a company decides to add additional budget to its non-brand and display campaign to improve brand awareness, it should continue to monitor the performance of its brand campaign. Monitoring brand conversions or impressions can help determine if these efforts are contributing to brand awareness.

In another study, they reported an overall improvement in click-through rates for a brand when paid ads were also present in search results. Their study suggested that paid ads in the results get a fraction of the organic traffic and also perform 31% more effectively.

In the study mentioned above, the theory goes further. In the case of this client, the increase in non-brand spending led to an increase in the overall return on paid and organic results. This means that non-branded ads may have been a contributing factor in increasing brand revenue. As you can see below, CPL was way too high until marketers turned on phone calls in August, and the increase in spending pushed up overall revenue.

conclusions

One Google study showed that customers respond best to a brand when it has paid ads along with organic ads. This Google Brand Awareness study is a bit dated from 2014, but even now, the benefits of brand bidding outweigh the disadvantages.

Do not confuse trademark and brand. Trademark is easy corporate identity(logo, booklets, business cards, etc.), branding is aimed at creating additional value for which the consumer is willing to pay more than for a less promoted product. A smartphone with a big name will always cost more than a smartphone with similar characteristics from an unknown manufacturer.

Good branding is very important in modern world. It helps to promote a product or service, make it more expensive, increase loyalty to the company. A good example is a company Apple and iPhone. Someone zealously follows developments and buys the latest models of iPhones, someone hates Apple phones, but everyone knows about them.

Brand and branding - what is it

Branding is a complex of marketing processes aimed at developing a brand of a product, promoting it to the market, and ensuring its prestige. A brand is a trademark under which a product is produced, its "mental shell" - that is, a complex of characteristics, associations, emotions and ideas about a product or service in the mind of the consumer.

Own brand allows:

increase brand awareness and consumer loyalty to the product;
increase the cost of the product, because branded items are always valued higher than goods from "no-names";
increase the level of expertise in the eyes of the target audience: companies with big names are always listened to.

The main directions of branding

Commodity. This direction is considered one of the most successful. In this case, it is not the company that is promoted, but one product. Several brands may be used for different company products. A prime example is Coca-Cola. Every day, consumers around the world drink more than 1.9 billion servings of this drink. Although the company produces more than 3,900 varieties of drinks, it was cola that gained particular popularity due to proper branding. The brand is also important in the development of the network and.

Service branding. In this case, a certain service or a set of services is promoted. Vivid examples - Russian operators cellular communication MTS, Beeline, Megafon. In 2006, these names were in the top three in terms of brand value in Russia. They promote their services through various channels - through TV advertising, the Internet, physical media.

Private. In this case, one person advances. Promotion most often occurs through showing expertise to a wide range of people or a narrow target audience. For example, successful example personal branding was shown by David Ogilvie - the most successful advertising agent, the founder of his agencies, the founder of copywriting.

Interior. Its chain is to emphasize the role of the employee in the success of the company, to inform the employees about the goals of the company, to form a strong team of experienced professionals. A vivid example is the KFC network, in which all employees follow the principles of the company not in words, but in deeds.

HR branding. It is aimed at attracting valuable employees with extensive work experience, fresh ideas, and great potential to the company. To do this, the company opens vacancies, offering excellent working conditions - for example, rest at the expense of the organization, increased vacation, bonuses. A striking example of such branding is Google Corporation, which offers premiums, a full social package, bonuses, a free canteen and a gym.

Political. The purpose of this promotion is to create an image for political party or a specific person, politician. To do this, they raise the awareness of politicians, run for president, and highlight their participation in charity. Vivid examples of political branding in Russia are Medvedev, Putin and Zhirinovsky. They are discussed, praised or condemned, but everyone knows about them.

Sports. Three directions can be attributed to it at once - promotion of an athlete, team and events. Vivid examples of the first direction are Maria Sharapova, Lionel Messi, Ainar Bjoerndalen. A good result of the promotion of the team is shown by Real Madrid, Barcelona. The most recognizable and promoted event is the Olympic Games.

Territorial.In this case, a certain resort, city or even region is being promoted. It attracts tourists or residents. For example, Venice, Paris, Sri Lanka have good tourist branding. And in Russia there is good example branding to attract residents - to Far East give out plots to almost everyone.

Website branding. This direction is responsible for the promotion of sites. Popular sites are often mentioned in social networks or other web resources. They are trusted, so they can be used as a great promotional tool. Vivid examples in Runet are the resources of Tinkoff Journal, Banki.ru, Texterra.

Brand strategy development

Before you start building a brand, you need to decide on the right strategy. We will look at four main strategies.

Cobrand. This is the name given to the merger of two or more companies in order to strengthen market positions, increase demand, and increase profits. Co-branding - Team work enterprises, for example:

conducting joint research;
participation in charity;
release of a joint product.

For example, in 2006, Apple and Nike offered consumers an interesting solution. Nike has released a shoe that transmits workout information to an iPod and an armband that can fit an iPod.

Multibrand. In this strategy, the company develops under several brands at once. Moreover, subsidiaries trade marks- are perceived by consumers separately from maternal ones. Usually, products under different brands are similar, but are intended for different distribution channels or for different groups target audience. For example, Schwarzkopf & Henkel produces Shauma and Seborin shampoos. The former are sold in stores, the latter in pharmacies.

Monobrand. This strategy provides for the use of a single brand of the company for the release of products. It is usually used by companies that are 100% sure of the quality of their products, because all products come out under a single sign. A striking example is the automobile concern Mercedes.

sub brand. In this case, the company uses additional brands for services or products. They are slightly different from the main products, but are closely related to it. Each additional brand is usually focused on a specific target audience. This strategy is a bit like a multi-brand. Its vivid example is the Nestle company, which creates sub-brands with a reference to the main one: Nescafe, Nesquik, Nestea.

Stages of building a brand - we analyze the example of Uber

No. 1. Market analysis

At this stage, you can find a fresh idea, analyze the needs of consumers or make a full-fledged market analysis. Large companies are usually engaged in serious research, using entire departments for work: they evaluate supply and demand in a selected market segment, conduct market analysis, analyze competitors, identify the target audience and segment it.

It will help you to understand the issue:

No. 2. Brand design

This stage includes the design of the brand itself, and the creation of a product - a product or service - for the brand. Brand design includes naming, corporate style development, and other events (which is in the complex). To the creation of a product - any processes from launching a site to arranging a production line.

Number 3. Brand promotion

Brand promotion should be understood as various marketing tools that allow you to increase company awareness and attract more customers, buyers, and investors. For example, brands buy advertising space in different sources - from websites to television. AT large companies entire marketing departments or PR departments are working on it. Startups are often forced to use less expensive promotional tools, such as teaser advertising.

No. 4. Efficiency mark

Evaluation of the effectiveness of the brand and its refinement is a process that occurs continuously. It is necessary for the natural growth of the company. As part of performance evaluation, they usually measure ROI, study consumer demand and adjust to it, introduce new services or launch new product lines. All this allows you to increase the interest of consumers and constantly remind you of yourself.

Branding can significantly increase the company's income and make it a leader in its segment, but it requires a significant investment of time and money. In your opinion, do startups need branding and will the costs for it be justified?