Branding. What Is Branding All About? What It Is That Makes Us Pay So Much For One Item Because It Has A “Logo” On It?

Introduction

Branding. What is branding all about? What it is that makes us pay so much for one item because it has a “logo” on it?

For our marketing paper we will focus on the core concept of branding and its importance as a foundational piece in the marketing communication of an enterprise.
Marketing and branding are such key elements of the business system. But few truly understand therole of marketing and even fewer get the meaning of branding.
A brand can be described as an organization, product or service that is composed of a number of attributes communicated through a logo, name or symbol shaped by the audience to create value. It is therefore more than putting a label on a fancy product. Many perceive a brand to be solely created by a designer when in fact a designeronly forms a foundation. It is the public who shape and create it. Nowadays, a corporation, law firm, country, university, museum, hospital, celebrity, and even we in our future career could be considered as a brand. As has been said previously, branding forms the foundation of marketing and links with business strategy.
The reason we chose this particular topic is to gain knowledge of the coreaspects of branding and the importance it holds as a business strategy. We are fascinated by the fact that certain enterprises can expand and grow their brand to reach global levels and in some cases becoming a ‘mega’ brand. These are category leaders and are referred to as ‘mega’ due to their world recognition and sales figures. Coca-Cola, for example, has become a cliché of brand management.There are a number of objectives we want to achieve by researching this topic:

- We want to find out what exactly makes a successful brand and how successful enterprises build their brand. We will do this by researching a specific company who has established, grown and expanded their brand at a corporate level. By gaining an insight into an organisation that has expanded their brandsuccessfully we will thoroughly understand how a brand can be built.
- Is branding different from naming? What is the difference between brand, identity and logo? (Many people misunderstand them). What is the purpose of brand positioning? And does branding apply to...whom? Those questions will run through the whole paper and will be answered and clarified along the way.
- We also want to gain anunderstanding of customer trends regarding particular brands. A logo is part of the core of branding and in some cases the logo may even become bigger than the actual brand itself. Do consumers buy a particular product due to the logo printed on the item? Is the ‘logo’ all that matters? Does price become an issue when purchasing logos or is price out of the picture? And do consumers feel they gaina sense of value for money when purchasing branded goods? In order to retrieve the necessary statistics we will carry out a survey using detailed questions regarding consumer trends and relationships with desired brands.
- At the same time, with the country in a critical economic situation in a period when consumers and companies alike are spending their money more carefully, branding mightseem like a no-brainer. Consumers are focusing on price more than where they purchase goods or which brands are they interested in. So it is one of our objectives to do some research to analyze how the grips of a recession affect branding and how enterprises are meant to respond. Is it important to be a moving target? Is it making a brand difficult to copy, giving shoppers a reason to spend alittle more on the brand working anymore?  Whether it’s packaging, labeling, health claims, or new flavors, are customers interested in spending more money at a time when store products are starting to engage customers and grow over well-named brands?

In conclusion, our final goal is to achieve a great and deep knowledge about what is branding now in 2011 given the global economic and environment...