Brand Equity

Brand in simple terms in the English dictionary is to name someone so that they can be easily identified. The synonym can be tagging though at the actual meaning level tagging may be something of a wrong connotation if done with bad intentions.

The equity means share of the company as well as equal share in the company.

Combine these two and you have what is called brand equity and it is this brand equity which most of the companies want to achieve when they do the brand exercise.

Wikipedia says and I Quote “that it is the marketing effects or the outcomes that accrue to the product with its brand name compared those which would accrue if the same product did not have any brand equity.”

Brand power is the power of a firm or a product to pull the customer towards it as it has already established the credibility and has a equity in the mind of the consumer. The power of brands like Nike which has a brand name to die for.

Any shoes that Nike launches have that brand power to pull in customers and that is what is called as the brand power. In fact the logo swoosh is so powerful that it has been valued at millions.

There are specialized boutique firms which do only the branding and the corporate identity work and that means that they only work with the owner and the CEO and the other folks to design the new logo as well as the name of the firm .

In fact a lot of thought goes into the work creating a new logo and the new style of the existing name.

It represents the vision, mission and the values of affirms. It also represents the way the organization is moving and the business it is in.

One of the important P’s in the Four P’s is the positioning and it is this positioning which the firm tries to aim at while doing the corporate identity overhaul.

It has extended beyond the concept of brand equity to manage a brand image of a particular brand from a company. For example the company Toyota may be a brand name but they in turn have Corolla and the Camry as specialized brand extensions and they will usually have dedicated people in charge of maintaining the brand values and the brand power of their line of brands

The main company which started this brand management was P& G and very correctly so because in itself P&G is nothing but a conglomerate of brands and these brands are nothing but products in dental hygiene, baby care etc.

 Companies continually strive ways to find the ways to get in the minds of the consumer. The branding opportunities are there and the examples are the co branded credit cards which are very common for the all sorts of companies.

Airlines companies have cobranded cards then the gas stations have the branded cards as well as all stores generally have their own credit cards cobranded with either Visa or MasterCard.

Sponsorships of events is another thing which the corporates do like the sponsorship of golf tournaments. In fact the new trend is to have the corporate logo golf balls put on the balls as these will be viewed by millions on television as well as these balls are usually at the end of the tournament  taken as souvenirs.

A branding exercise and all things related to branding are done because of the fact that there is something  called brand recall.

For example Xerox is synonymous with photocopying and is almost always used interchangeably.

That is top of the mind brand recall.

Google is a brand in itself and rather than saying searching we say Google.

Corn flakes is synonymous with Kellogg and most people would say that they want to buy Kellogg as opposed to corn flakes.

The Nike swoosh, the Mercedes Benz logo and the Jaguar car logo are famous logos which have instant brand recall.