Unit 1 BRANDS

1. What is branding and why do we need brands?

2. Types of brands. What for do we need new brands?

3. What do you know about the history of brands?

4. How distribution channels are usually organized?

What is branding and why do we need brands?

For the consumer-in-the-street, brands, along with advertising, are the most visible parts of marketing. A brand is a product with unique and easily recognizable character. For example, we all recognize the Coca-Cola brand, not only by its logo but by the shape of its bottles, the colour of its cans, the taste of the product and other features.

A brand takes the form of a symbolic construct created by a marketer to represent a collection of information about a product or group of products. This symbolic construct typically consists of a name, identifying mark, logo, visual images or symbols, or mental concepts, which distinguishes the product or service

The studies have shown that only one out of a hundred marks survives and becomes the brand. Some categories of the names can not become the good trademarks because of different reasons. It is impossible to apply the commonly used terms and words. You should avoid the descriptions, abbreviations, names, which are mixed up with already existing. It is concerned the names which can cause the unpleasant associations in language of any country where the product is on sale. It is particularly important for goods planned for export.

Branding has become part of pop culture. Numerous products have a brand identity: from common table salt to designer clothes.

Types of brands. What for do we need new brands?

Attitude branding is based on the 'feeling', rather than the physical characteristics, of a product. The product may be promoted as making people feel free, energetic or powerful. This is commonly used for soft drinks and sportswear.

Symbolic branding is similar to attitude branding and it is often used for services, such as banks and phone companies. Symbolic branding uses the emotional aspects of a service, such as a sense of security, to attract and retain customers.

Functional brands. In some cases, the functional or physical characteristics of a product or service are more powerful than the emotional aspects. Functional branding promotes the reasons why someone should buy a product or service. These could be that it is unique or that it offers a better price or performs better than other products on the market.

Individual brands. Some businesses choose to give each of their products and services a separate brand. These can sometimes compete against each other, such as with different flavours of soft drink that are produced by the same company. Individual branding can also be used to keep different parts of a business separate, particularly if they span a number of areas, such as in a business that sells food as well as clothing.

Own brands, sometimes referred to as private labels or store brands, are brands that carry the retailer's name. These are commonly used by large supermarket chains. Smaller businesses may also use their own brands - for example, a beautician may also have their own line of beauty products that they use and sell.

What do you know about the history of brands?

Brands originated with the 19th-century advent of packaged goods. Industrialization moved the production of many household items, such as soap, from local communities to centralized factories. These factories, cursed with mass-produced goods, needed to sell their products in a wider market, to a customer base familiar only with local goods. It quickly became apparent that a generic package of soap had difficulty competing with familiar, local products. The packaged goods manufacturers needed to convince the market that the public could place just as much trust in the non-local product.

Many brands of that era, such as Uncle Ben's rice and Kellogg's breakfast cereal furnish illustrations of the problem. The manufacturers wanted their products to appear and feel as familiar as the local farmers' produce. From there, with the help of advertising, manufacturers quickly learned to associate other kinds of brand values, such as youthfulness, fun or luxury, with their products.

This kick-start of the practice we now know as "branding".

How distribution channels are usually organized?

Distribution is one of the four aspects of marketing.

-A distributor is the middleman between the manufacturer and retailer. After a product is manufactured it may be shipped to the next echelon in the supply chain, typically a distributor, retailer or consumer.

A number of alternate 'channels' of distribution may be available:

· Selling direct, such as via mail order, Internet and telephone sales

· Agent, who typically sells direct on behalf of the producer

· Distributor (also called wholesaler), who sells to retailers

· Retailer (also called dealer or reseller), who sells to end customers

-Advertisement typically used for consumer goods

Distribution channels can have a number of levels.

Дата добавления: 2015-11-14