In today’s ever-changing and highly competitive world, corporations have to continuously change in order to grow and sustain their businesses. To manage this scenario and beat the competition, corporations have a vital asset with them – brand. The success of brands has increased the organization’s responsibility along with creating a differentiating value proposition.
A brand is a product with a unique character, for instance in design or image. It is consistent and well-recognized and is a way of differentiating products and services. There are many definitions for the word ‘brand’ in marketing literature; but very often, Kotler et al. (2013) refer to the definition given by the American Marketing Association as “a name, term, design, symbol, or any other feature that identifies the seller’s goods or services as distinct from those of other sellers” (p. 261).
The key for brand management and development is to understand what kind of benefits consumers are looking for. Modern consumers are more demanding and require comfort. They not only concentrate on functional benefits, but also are looking for intangible advantages like status, image, lifestyle, success, personality, and other factors that can also be strongly identified as benefits. Therefore, the psychology of the consumer goes beyond the physical and tangible aspects of the product. This added value or the incremental utility of the product that comes with the brand name is termed brand equity.
|
