Brand elements analysis Brand elements analysis The market competition is very fierce so most companies are not only having one brand product; they often need to launch a new brand to develop new markets. Behind every new brand, there is not only a motive power from intense market competition but also is the companies’ ambitions of expand territory. New brand will not have too much influence to the companies’ original brand which means company tend to be undertake less risk. Thus it is a good choose for companies to launch a new brand to expand the size of company.
When company wants to launch a new brand, they need to consider many brand elements and there are six general criteria (which are memorable, meaningful, likable, transferable, adaptable and protectable) that use to assess these brand elements. The main brand elements are Names, logos and symbols, characters, URLs, jingles and packaging. First of all, every product needs a name that is the most basic and central elements of a brand. Brand name is the sign of a product which should have brand awareness and brand association. Yahoo, Dove and Tide are just a few example.
Brand names can be enhancing the brand recognition and useful to make people have a verbal imager. However, there are some limited on transferable and meaningful. It is not easy to change the brand name which means adapt is difficult. As a successful brand name, it should be easy to make consumers remember and recognized as a means to memorable. Take coca-cola as an example, it first shipped in shanghai in 1924 and the first Chinese name of coca-cola was very strange in spelling and meaning, so the sale volume was low. Next year, they changed to a simple Chinese name which is easier to pronounce and writing.
As a result of it, coca-cola had becomes famous and got a good sales volume in China. A good brand name can also save millions of dollars over the product’s life because it describes the product’s advantages. It is the most effective lasting publicity products and it is the easiest ways become the company’s brand advertising. In addition to brand name, URLs is another area in which including in brand elements. Memorable and protectable are important for URLs. Of course, companies have to register and pay for their own specific URLs. Moreover, Brand recall is critical for URLs, it is obvious that consumers need to remember the URLs so hey can get the site. Keep URLs as simple as possible; avoid cliches and have unique personality is more necessary. Most famous brand’s URLs are simple and straightforward, like Burberry (www. burberry. com) and Armani (www. armani. com) just a few example. The benefits of URLs are that it will increase more opportunities to the company to sale their products and increase the popularity. Company can sets up a good publicity and fully display products through their website. Moreover, URLs gives customers more convenient to choose products online, widen the sales channels as well, in order to develop international business.
Although the central element is the brand name, company still needs some visual elements. Logos are some outstanding word marks, such as Coca-cola while non-word mark logos are symbols. Logos and symbols are satisfied all six criteria for brand elements, especially on transfer and protect. Companies can get many benefits from logos and symbols. “Logos and symbols are often easily recognized and can be a valuable way to identify products, although consumers may recognize them but be unable to link to any specific product or brand” (Keller 2008).
Another advantage of logos and symbols is that it can provide a good transfer of cultures and appropriate for a range of different categories product, such as Surf and Dettol. Sometimes, Companies could use logos to represent the full brand name. For example, Due to the long and cumbersome brand name, McDonald’s Corporation often uses their logo Golden arch to instead full brand name. Finally, logos can make changes easily than brand name, especially when companies need some contemporary look. For example, a Chinese sport brand LI-NING revamped its flutter red flag trademark this year, making its logo more abstract.
The new logo looks like a famous gymnastics action which created by the gymnastics champion of Olympic Games Li Ning. ”This is to encourage everyone dares to make a change and break through, it is a summons to new generation creator as well. ”(Li Ning, 2010). On other hand, logos and symbols still have some drawbacks. If just use the literal to expression of brand name or only use symbols, the effect may be reduce. Moreover, consumers may not understand the logos’ meaning if there do not have any word to explain its meaning. Characters are a brand symbol that shows people or real-life characteristics, such as McDonald’s Ronald.
Characters can be chosen to reinforce the brand recognition, meaningful and really excellent on protectable, But characters have some limited on transfer and adapt. Companies can use characters to enhance brand personality and make their products closer to consumers. Disney’ main consumer is kid, so most of its characters are come from lovely cartoon. Those characters always have valuable licensing properties which help companies to explore more value and get more benefits from it. Moreover, characters can be updated to suit the changing time. Different from other elements, jingles are not just a word or design but a kind of musical messages.
Jingles have its advantages for reinforce brand positioning and enhance POP’s. It is can also express almost any type of association explicitly. Like characters and logos, Jingles can be protectable and do well on it. What’s more, verbal imagery can be provoked by the jingles. Brand awareness tends to be enhancing mostly by jingles, the reason is that most jingles always repeat the brand name and the tune is very rhyming. Take McDonald’s as example, they invited famous singer to sing the jingles “I’m love it” which is easy to sing and remember. As a result of it, McDonald’s income got double increased. FactSet Research System Inc) However, due to its musical nature, jingles are not like other brand elements can transfer easily. Finally, product packaging cannot be separated from brand element. All products need a packaging. “Packaging is the activities of designing and producing containers or wrappers for a product. ”(Keller 2008) Packaging can improve the brand recognized and express the meaning of brand; it has a good transferability and can design typically as well. But packaging often are not unique so it can be copied, the protectable is weak.
Packaging can help to identify the brand that means strong brand association with the style of company’s packaging. For example, when people asked what comes to mind when they think of Pepsi, most of consumers may say it is “blue”. Packaging offers advantages in convey descriptive and persuasive information. At the beginning, Pepsi emulated Coca-cola on packaging. But coca-cola had a strong brand identifier-red color while Pepsi just use a taller bottle to make a different from Coke. In the 20th century, Pepsi introduce a new color and shape on packaging: red- white-and-blue cap design.
After Pepsi use blue as its packaging background this globe shape became its recognition element and the sales also increased. So, a prefect packaging is a lifetime advertising of product which makes consumers “heartbeat”. According to an American survey shows that 50% to 60% of consumers will affect by the product’s packaging and have a desire to buy the product (JD. Power and Associates). So commodity packaging will affect consumer’s buying behavior. When company decided a name for brand they often give a special meaning Brand name undoubted is the most importance thing of brand elements.
Also, a critical element for a new brand launch in the fashion arena. “If you can build a powerful brand you will have a powerful marketing program. If you can’t, then all the advertising, fancy packaging, sales promotion and public relations in the world won’t help you achieve your objective. ” (Al Ries, Jack Trout 1998) It is the first step for creation a new brand. As a new brand the first impression for consumers often given by the brand name. Brand name should be different and unique which makes consumers can recognize easily and do not mix it up with other brand.
A good brand name can spread by itself and it’s also a kind of advertisement. For example, Pepsi’ Chinese name means everything is very well. So, many young people use Pepsi as a greeting. In a word, a good name may not help a bad product to improve sale volume, but a bad name must make a nice product unmarketable. In conclusion, we can easily found that launch a new brand cannot without these brand elements, especially brand name. Every brand elements are playing important role in new product promotion process and most of these elements are memorable that makes consumers can recognize and recall.
Each brand element has advantage and disadvantage, so it is necessary to marketer to mix them together in order to maximize bring into play their function. Launch a new brand successfully means the companies may establish a business expansion territory through multiple brand strategy and whether the companies can continue to grow strong. Reference [1]Keller, K. L. (2008) 3th Edition Strategic Brand Management: Person Education [2]David A. Aaker, Building Strong Brands(New York: Free Press,1996),203 [3]The importance of branding name <http://www. afzhan. com/Invest_news/Detail/227. html> [Accessed on 26th October. 2009]
