Brand Communication Management on Organic Products

Brand Communication Management on Organic Products

In the class text in Chapter 11 entitled "Designing and Implementing Branding Strategies" that the brand-product matrix and the brand hierarchy help a company to characterize and formulate branding strategies. This is done by defining various relationships that consumers have among brands and products. In the matrix, brand-product relationships are graphically represented to set up a brand-product portfolio. From this portfolio, the elements in the breadth of the product mix and the depth of the product mix can be determined. In this way we can implement the proper brand architecture guidelines (Keller 1997, 503-518).

This is really a "back to the basics" reminder of why a brand was born in the first place. Traditionally, brand positioning can also be defined as how customers perceive a brand or product in relation to similar products offered by your competitors in your market. Marketers usually try to create brand position through advertising and promotions in an attempt to influence customers' perceptions of their brands. However, in today's world of busy schedules and nonstop messages, companies need to find different ways to position their brand. By listening to your customers and making changes internally, you can build your brand position organically (ibid).

Customer perception can make or break a product. For example. If your customers perceive a brand as representing poor customer service or quality, a company must make the necessary internal changes to ensure that the customers get the best-in-class customer service. The customers then need to hear about this service. In other words, it is necessary to make the internal changes to meet customers' needs. This will in turn lead to the brand experience and perception that a company wants to convey (Nirmalya and Steenkamp 2007, 237).

Organic products are different than many in the branding strategy that needs to be pursued in marketing them. Many issues with such products are unique due to small and specialized markets. Research results have suggested that such niche marketing is a highly effective strategy for countering price competition in a mature industry. They identify key success factors, the most important factor of which was found to be a thorough understanding of the targeted consumers. The marketing mix plays a more important part than is generally suggested in the literature. The communication of non-price product attributes to the niche market. Small samples limit the generalizations beyond the companies and comparable firms in the U.S. textile and apparel/clothing industry. Niche marketing is a promising competitive strategy for mature industries as well to enter specialized markets (Serrat 2010, 2-3).

Organic brand positioning is a reactive strategy because it requires you to listen to your customers, but it's also an effective strategy. To position any brand, niche or not, one needs to look at everything in totality affects a brand image and therefore the customers' perception of the brand. From customer service to pricing and advertising, every part of an organization has some effect on the customers' overall perception of your brand. This leads to factors that affect organic brand positioning including (Martin, Stewart, and Shashi 2005).