One can find a plethora of definitions of what is Marketing, Branding, Brand Management, or Advertising. Yet many of these are quite confusing and often inaccurate. Most understand marketing as promotional offers, preferably on social media. Some throw in the guerilla element to be cool. The impression one gets is that marketing is about hunting celebrity endorsements, creating catchy phrases and vivid designs, and doing whatever it takes to increase overall media exposure.
Sadly, many marketers do just that – trying to outshout the other “promoters”, with less and less campaign efficiency, weakening Brands, negative marketing ROI, and ultimately decreasing trust and respect from their consumers.
Yet to be able to promote a product, it first needs to be created, developed, branded, and its strategic target audience needs to be defined. For a product or service to become a Brand, it needs to be continually managed to achieve its full market potential. Thinking that marketing is just promoting your product to the shoppers is a recipe for failure. So if you are not sure where Marketing starts and where Branding ends, here is a straightforward clarification:
MARKETING & BRANDING DEFINITIONs
MARKETING
Marketing is the science and art of creating and sustaining a mutually beneficial relationship between the brand’s Producer and the end Consumer.
In this relationship, the primary benefit for the Producer is usually the revenue and the profit. The benefit for the Consumer is that the brand bought satisfies their needs, ultimately improving their lives.
For this relationship to be sustainable, the marketed Brand needs to deliver the promised consumer benefit(s) better and cheaper than the alternative solutions. It also needs to be available in more places and channels than the competition. And obviously, the potential consumers need to be made aware of the Brand and the consumer benefits it offers. The consistent delivery of the promised benefits by the Brand is fundamental to building loyalty, trust, and ultimately brand advocacy.
MARKETING MIX
Marketing Mix refers to the set of marketing tools and techniques that Brand Management uses to achieve its business objectives in the target market. (Remember, ultimately, the goal is to create a mutually beneficial and long-lasting relationship with the target consumer!) These tools and techniques can be organized into four key groups related to (i) the creation of desirable Products or services, (ii) selling them at an attractive Price, (iii) making them available in the right Places and channels, and finally (iv) Promoting them by driving awareness, trial, and loyalty. This organization of marketing activities is known as the 4P classical Marketing Mix model. To win the competition, marketing companies need to excel in all four areas.
BRAND MANAGEMENT
Brand Management is the function (organization and processes) that executes the marketing for a Brand in a Company. It reflects the business concept where a Brand is managed as a standalone enterprise, with its own objectives, goals, resources, and financial and marketing plans, many times competing with the other brands of the same company.
BRANDING
Branding refers to the design that connects a product with a particular name, look, and feel, to make people notice the Brand. Good branding is unique, consistent, and memorable, ensuring that the brand stands out from the competition, and is easily recognized and recalled by the consumer.
Key elements of Branding are the logo, color palette, shapes, selling line, tone of voice and vocabulary, fonts, imagery, and positioning. And while Branding defines mostly the visual design of a brand, it needs to reflect and support all the key elements of the Brand Strategy. In other words, Branding is the visualization of the Brand Strategy.
BRAND STRATEGY
Brand Strategy defines the emotional and functional benefits promised and delivered to the consumer, the brand character, the reason to believe, and the target audience. As such, it is a concise summary of what your Brand stands for. It lists the long-term strategic characteristics of the Brand that ultimately result in the awareness and preference by the chosen target audience. Brand Strategy defines therefore your Brand’s formula and message. It also serves as a fundament for Branding that defines the look and feel of the Brand.
BRAND EQUITY
Brand Equity is a financial term that refers to the extra value premium that a business can generate from a recognized brand when compared to a similar product with no name recognition. When a Brand’s Equity is positive, consumers are more willing to pay a higher price for the product or service, even though they could get a similar product from a competitor for less. They pay a price premium to do business with a company whose Brands they recognize, trust, or admire.
ADVERTISING
Advertising is the creative material used to bring products, services, entities, or causes to public notice, with the objective of persuading the audience to respond in a certain way toward what is advertised. It is frequently used interchangeably with Media, which is in simple terms rather the channel or technology on which Advertising appears. Most advertising messages involve promoting a Brand that is for sale, but advertising can also encourage people to live healthy, to support various non-profit organizations, or to vote for political parties, among many other examples.
MEDIA
Media is the plural form of medium. In the marketing context, Media are the communication outlets or channels used to deliver information to the target audiences. In everyday language, the term refers to segments of the mass communications industry, such as print media, publishing, news media, outdoor billboards, cinema, broadcasting (radio and television), and digital media.
MEDIA PLANNING
Media Planning is the process by which marketers determine where, when, and how often they will run an Advertising Campaign in order to maximize engagement, conversion, and ROI.
FINAL THOUGHTS
In the digital era, your potential customers are bombarded with a clutter of choices to their relevant or never heard of consumer needs. Consumers are more connected and more dependent on instant intelligence than ever. The escalation of the available information empowers the consumers to make better choices, but the sheer volume of it also makes it harder to find the best answers to their needs.
Naturally, many companies that market a brand feel the pressure to be present everywhere. They throw their money to catch a potential customer when and where they can. They gather the likes, the tweets, the events. More thinking goes into how to reach the market and how eye-catching the message could be, than into the consumer or product itself. And the result is even more noise and more clutter.
Therefore, the discipline of a well-thought-through Marketing Mix and the use of proven brand-building techniques are more important than ever. A winning Brand Strategy needs first and most a critical and honest look at the actual product and its target audience. Before chasing consumer traffic in the highest demand, one needs to analyze what the technology actually delivers, and which consumer segment is most likely to appreciate the benefits the product offers. Remember, If the Brand is not delivering its promises, the value of its equity turns very fast into negative.