Branding the Use of Names

Branding

The Use of Names in Branding

Explain the concept of a brand and why it would be important to use a brand name.

A brand is a vital part of any company's identity, and in the case of consumer companies, it is the majority of their identity. Think of the most powerful brands in the consumer market including Apple, Coca Cola or Nike and the role of brand becomes indistinguishable from the identity of the company; in effect they merge and strengthen one another. A brand must be managed consistently to ensure the highest level of equity gets generated over time and the company attain high levels of trust with its potential and present customers. Consistency of messaging and execution, a continual concentration on underscoring the core values of the company and a commitment to deliver exceptional products and services all contribute to a brands' equity over time.

A successful brand name and brand strategy enables greater performance both online and offline as well. The growing importance of both online branding correlates to the continual growth of e-commerce globally over the Internet. As a result, brand name online is becoming increasingly important, especially for those companies who have existing business models that are based on retail operations. These include Wal-Mart, J.C. Penny, Kmart, Target and Sears who each experienced more than a 20% growth in the number of unique visitors to their sites after launching major online branding initiatives in 2001 (Janoff, 2001). Many studies also suggest that most customers do not distinguish between branding efforts online and offline, and prefer to the interactivity and knowledge available from websites and online tools as viable alternatives to learning more about a company. Personalization of websites is 25 times more likely to generate return traffic (Chiagouris & Wansley, 2002), and that the most successful offline and online brands do not confuse customers with variations in messaging between each approach.