Marketing Communication and Brand-Building
Introduction
Brands are considered important elements for the success of a company’s product or service. How the logo or the slogan of a certain item impacts the consumer indicates how strong or weak a brand is. Companies on the other hand struggle to create stronger brands so as to acquire customer loyalty, higher profitability as well as better market positions. In order to do this, effective marketing communication plays an important role. As people become more and more aware of the company’s brand name, several consumers will be aware of the product and eventually, become loyal to it. Indeed, brands represent not only the product but the company image itself; it portrays how the company operates its activities and values its buyers.
Through marketing communication, consumers build relations with the company and its product brand, resulting to stronger relations. In this discussion, how the different aspects of marketing communication build and maintain brands will be explained. The concept of brands as well as the different approaches to make them stronger is also included. Finally, the analysis of these concepts will be discussed on the latter part of the essay. It is the aim of this paper to understand the value of effective marketing in the business sector as well as its effects to product brands and consumers.
Building and Maintaining Brands
A brand is a named version of a given product or service. Brand names help identify the product and brands take on their own meaning and presence because they embody a rich configuration of symbols and meaning. A good brand name should appeal to its customers, be memorable, as well as offer a distinctive image which separates it from competing products. Building a strong brand allows a product to distinguish itself from its competition. From the findings of a study, where 101 companies had been survey, respondents stressed that brand names are indeed essential to the success of products, particularly new launches ( 1997). Brands make statements to other people. They are a short-hand communication of what the company is. They create social acceptance as well as instant mutual recognition ( 2002).
Through building and maintaining brands, companies are able to relay to the consumers their intended market expression for the products or services they are offering. One example would be large companies such as FedEx and IBM. The FedEx brand ensures that the delivery needs of the customers will be provided with the highest efficiency and reliability. The IBM brand on the other hand, is used by the company to emphasize its intent to provide the best quality technological support for the customers (2001). The brands then represent the promise the companies make with their clients; by being determined to fulfill them, both companies were able to use their product brands in their favor. From this example, it is also indicated that brands help companies realize their role and mission.
The development and maintenance of a strong brand helps the companies in establishing good and more established relations with their customers. The trust or emotional bond shared by the companies and clients then acts as the business pre-seller as their product become more recognizable. This is advantageous as it could lead to increased sales and better business position (2005). Other benefits can also be gained out of brand names. For instance, negative images can be overcome by strong brand names. It also helps companies develop the image they wanted to project to the consumers, establish identity as well as save resource necessary for communication (2004).
Marketing Communication and Brands
Brand names will not reach their intended targets without efforts towards consumer awareness. Hence, means marketing communication are applied by companies. Marketing communication basically includes the different means of relaying messages to the public. In the case of the business companies, mass media advertising, sales promotion offers, company websites, sponsorship activities at entertainment events as well as direct selling using catalogues, brochures and e-mails are some of common examples of marketing communication strategies. These strategies have a number of relevant concepts and capabilities that allow the development and maintenance of stronger brand names.
For instance, it is capable of relaying brand equity and identity to the consumers. The logo, name, design, symbols, performance and packaging of the product or service are the combined factors that make up a brand identity. Brand identity then includes associations that consumers instantly think about a certain brand (1996). In the music sector for example, Elvis, The Beatles and Celine Dion are all considered as music brands that elicit individual associations to music enthusiasts; Elvis was known as the King of Rock and Roll, The Beatles had been known for their self-composed love songs, and Celine Dion as the pop diva behind well-known movie themes. By means of marketing communication, the brand is popularized to the market.
The concept of marketing communication is also capable of promoting the common brand objective of a company. For successful brand building, it has been said that the marketing team must promote a brand that represents a single goal. In particular, it should evoke both the character of the company as well as the product. By means of the marketing communication concept, consumers will be able to connect the product’s efficiency with that of the company. This then results to yet another important concept of marketing communication which is stronger business relations. When the brand is strong and powerful enough, it produces an image and identity of a certain product or company. This further establishes the relation between consumers and brands as well as the company that produces them. If the company fulfills its objective as suggested in its marketing message, customer would believe in the company and eventually, become loyal. On the other hand, the failure to do so would cause customers to patronize other brands.
One of the important concepts of marketing communication that helps in developing and maintaining brands is integration. (2005) noted that in order to achieve successful branding outcomes, companies should apply the integrated approach. By this the author meant that marketers should not only rely on a few marketing communication means. Rather, companies should make use multiple communication channels. By means of the integrated approach, companies will be able to relay their marketing and branding message to the consumers more comprehensively. This concept of marketing communication has long been introduced and applied by several companies. The concept of integration then gave rise to what is now called the Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC).
Initially, marketing practices were founded within strong barriers wherein various functions on marketing and promotion are planned and managed separately, with specific market views, budgets, goals and objectives. During this time, marketers failed to realize the importance of coordinating all marketing tools in order to enhance communication and image to target markets (1996). As several organizations began to realize how IMC can result to better branding outcomes, the concept soon became a popular marketing strategy. With IMC, companies now incorporate various marketing communication activities and promotional elements as part of their branding strategies. Early definition of the IMC concept was given by the American Association of Advertising Agencies, which defined it as the concept that recognizes the strategic role and value of every communication disciplines, which include sales promotion, direct response, public relations and general advertising. Through the combination of these disciplines, consistency, clarity and maximum branding impact can be achieved (1993).
In more recent literatures, the features of IMC have been identified. Specifically, (2000) stated that the main objective of IMC is to use direct communication in order to bring about behavioral changes and that marketing communication means should be used together in order to establish a relation between the customer and the brand. Furthermore, the concept of IMC stresses on the importance of coordination and synergy in order to develop and maintain a strong brand image. Considering the variety of communication instruments through the integration concept of marketing communications, companies are able to use the appropriate methods to strengthen their bonds with their customers and promote stronger brand names to their targets.
Analysis and Commentary
From the literatures given, it is clear that brands and marketing communication are two different concepts. While brands are the representation of the companies’ products and services, marketing communication on the other hand is the tool used in order to make the consumers aware of these brand names. Despite their distinct characteristics both brands and marketing communication are interconnected concepts. Both concepts result to certain impacts to the consumers, influencing their purchasing behaviors. Moreover, the strength and efficacy of both brands and marketing communication result to consumer loyalty, which is advantageous on the part of the business companies.
Aside from the role and impact of these concepts, certain essential points can be drawn from the literatures that should be taken into account especially among marketing and companies. For one thing, although integrating various means of marketing communication tools enables the development and maintenance of brand names, there is no standard combination of these tools for the companies to follow. In this case, the challenge lies on the full comprehension on how to utilize these IMC tools for contacting and delivering the branding message efficiently and effectively. In order for an IMC program to succeed, it is a requirement for marketers to use the right combination of communication techniques and tools, define and identify their distinct roles as well as the degree to which these tools can or should be used, and to ensure proper coordination. So as to accomplish this approach, the people in charge of the company’s communication strategies and efforts must have an understanding of the available IMC tools and the methods these tools can be used.
Aside from understanding what these tools are capable of, companies applying marketing communication for building and maintaining brand name should also have clear objectives in mind. Most importantly, applying marketing communication should be based not on what other companies have done but on what suits the company best. Thus, marketers should consider the company’s image or personality, its targets, accessible communication tools and the resources available in designing its approaches (2005). From this, it is clear that while combining branding and marketing communication may be a challenging process, users of this joint concept have access to marketing creativity and flexibility. Thus, even smaller companies, who have no access to high-end communication technologies or have considerable finances to support expensive advertisements, can apply means of obtaining successful branding and marketing outcomes.
Finally, marketing communication efficacy is not the only essential factor in order to develop and maintain strong brands. Companies should realize that their sincerity to give the best to the customers and its effort to maintain the quality of its products are also significant factors that help promote a brand name. As the success of brands is mainly dependent on the relation the companies build with their customers, companies should then adapt other means that would foster this relationship.
Conclusion
Brands are significant elements of the business companies; these represent their company and the products that they produce. In order to promote these brands, marketing communication must be used. Despite the differences of both concepts, joining them allows the development of stronger brands and company-customer relations. Marketing communication indeed builds and maintains brands through its ability promote brand identity, relay the objective of the company and combine useful communication tools. Despite these, it is still essential that companies apply other means to support its brands as well as the relations they intend to build with their clients. This mainly includes the provision of continuous quality products and services.
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