Features And Benefits Of Marketing And Business Brands

What's in the pool of "Traditional Marketing techniques"?

The concept of traditional marketing that is "Features and Benefits" is changing, but the main base remains on the same. The components of any kind of a marketing approach are:

1. Features and Benefits
2. Narrow definition of product categories and competition
3. customers are rational decision-makers
4. Methods are analytical, quantitative and verbal

The perceptions and associations consumers have about brands go beyond their functional attributes and benefits, and include non-functional, symbolic qualities, often referred to as "Brand Image". Among these aspects of brand image are perceptions and associations about the brand's "personality," the "set of human-like characteristics associated with a brand". This brand image is the only thing that is to be kept intact to get the maximum "Customer life-time value" or the "Customer equity value".

Culture as the basis of Brand image building:

The brand perception is an important factor while taking any decision regarding the brand image building for any type of product category. The perceived personality of a brand can be shaped by marketers via "transferring cultural meaning" into it in various ways, such as by associating the brand in communications with an endorser or place that already possesses the personality or meaning considered strategically desirable for that brand. Any brand value can be factored into five components which differentiate one from the other.

The factors as leveled are:

a. Sincerity (sample item: honest)
b. Excitement (daring)
c. Competence (reliable)
d. Sophistication (upper-class)
e. Ruggedness (tough)

The need for "Consumer Oriented Marketing":

Now-a-days the concept of "Experiential Marketing" is gradually up-coming, so the marketers need to follow the suit and design their products to satisfy the customers at the maximum possible level. The companies are offering strategic Experiential Modules (SEMs) which have its own distinct structure and marketing principles.

The marketers need to be familiar with all the relative measures, like-

a. Sensory experiences(SENSE)
b. Affective Experiences(FEEL)
c. Creative Cognitive Experiences(THINK)
d. Physical Experiences and entire Life-Style(ACT)
e. Social Identity Experiences (RELATE)

CRM as the new weapon for the marketers:

In the present era "Cause Related Marketing "is taking a huge space in the marketing arena, so the marketers are opting for viable opportunities which would strengthen their positioning in the market place. In most of the cases the consumers feel an ownership with the brands and that should be the strategic objective for any marketer. Marketing aesthetics practically equated "equated needs" with "aesthetic needs".

Brand characteristics:

A major avenue for revenue growth in companies today is the extension of their existing brands into new categories, requiring the systematic study of many candidate categories on "personality" and "image" dimensions to see which ones "best fit" and "match" the personality of the brand being extended. Many companies also seek to leverage their existing brand assets via licensing deals to other manufacturers in other categories or via co-branding promotions and arrangements. If the "recall rate" is good enough, the company launch its new varieties and if it's not, then it has to re-launch the present entire product portfolio.

Try to differentiate between "Category personality" and "Brand personality":

The "Category personality" and "Brand personality" are the two different things which are to be differentiated by thy marketers. In any case, any factor analysis of a (pooled brand × category data matrix) must partial out the "category personality" from the "brand's personality," for otherwise it could confound the two. The "category generic" attributes are common to all the products in the same product range. Those brands which best capture a category's mythic "desired" personality might gain in preference, since their brand personality is now most "relevant" to consumer choice criteria in that category. There exists a need for the development of research methodologies that keeps apart product category influences from brand personality perceptions.

Brand Stewards:

The brand stewards or the brand managers, marketing managers are responsible for the welfare of any brand. Brand stewards also include those who work on brand assignments at marketing communication agencies and who have a major influence on the brand's marketing program. The "Brand Team" is referred to that group who ideally complement each other in managing brands and their identities.

Branding Rules:

Marketers urgently need tools to manage vast groups of brands, not as individual elements or collections under one corporate roof, but as complex systems that transcend corporate boundaries. The popularity that a brand carries with it is to be well maintained to move up to the value chain. So it is all about the correct decision at the correct time and everything that does matter is the execution part of the whole cycle. New formulations are to be made to beat the competitors; a brand survives in the minds of consumers. Most of the customers fall under "impulse buying category".

Experiential Brands are the market leaders:

Brands are the most valuable assets of any company, so while launching a brand a company must look into its feasibility by doing market research and compare that with the competitor's product. These steps always give an insight about the fate of the brands. Definitely the war has started between brands and not between any organizations. So to continue with this kind of stature that the brands posses, the companies need to offer more and more lucrative proposals. The brand value or brand worth is always in a stake if not taken care properly.

Individual Ideas On Business Branding

Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all.

-Dale Carnegie

As a copywriter, I make my differences a place of value, because I sell from a point of originality. Without that difference, everyone else has the same program and I'm not going to make any real differences. If not original, what are we?

Quite honestly if there's another person just like me, one of us becomes obsolete.

It used to be said that opposites attract. With all the dating services online, they look for similarities and not differences.

We used to celebrate originality.

Is this survival or is this the demise of our society, of our people, and of our lives? Are we, by creating identities with no individualism, loosing our soul and spirit, giving up our purpose of existence?

As a business, your identity rests on your brand and the recognizable differences you represent. Have you considered the value of a non-conforming BRAND?

What power is there in conformity? If you’re in the military, it’s nice to know everyone is pointing their guns the same direction and what each member of your team is doing. However, if you’re in direct competition with your neighbor’s business, conformity means you’re doing the exact same thing. What competition is there?

In my hometown, I run a tax office. I prepare tax returns for small (usually home based) businesses, from my home based business. I’ve been condemned repeatedly for working from my home, but that’s what works for me. No, it isn’t ‘natural’ and I probably don’t have as much clientele as I would have on Main Street. But… my clients know that if there’s a question about a deduction, I’m not going to generically dismiss it, I’m going to review it, research the issue and figure out if it’s a legal deduction or not, rather than simply dismiss it as a gray area deduction. I charge a little more than some of the tax preparers downtown, but honestly, I provide more. And when a client comes to my door, I offer them coffee, something the offices downtown can’t do anymore because the liability is too great. I can continue to do this, because my clients are guests.

My differences make my business valuable. Without them, it would be ‘just like any other tax office’ and my clients would not make the effort to come here, because the extra effort would not be necessary.

Yes, there is power in conformity, but there’s value in difference. Would you rather have the power of being a member of the multitude or the simple value of being different?