Brand Power/Brand Image ©. brand is a name, term, sign, symbol, design, or a combination of these intended to identify the goods or services of a company or a group of companies. Another purpose of a brand is to differentiate one company from another. The most important skill of professional marketers is the ability to 5 create, maintain, protect, and enhance the brands of their products and serviei Branding has become so important that today hardly any company or product is without one. Brand power refers to the relative strength of a company’s brand in the minds of consumers. It can influence consumer choice of produets. Brands are powerful to © the extent that they confer high brand loyalty and strong brand associations. They also confer name recognition, perceived quality, and other assets such as patents and trademarks to a company. A strong brand can be one of a company’s most important assets. Measuring the real value of a brand name is difficult, but according to one estimate, brand value of the following companies in US dollars is: © $68 billion for Coca-Cola, $65 billion for Microsoft, $53 billion for IBM, $42 billion for GE, and $35 billion for Nokia. High brand power provides a company with many competitive advantages. A powerful brand enjoys a high level of consumer brand awareness and loyalty. Because consumers expect stores to carry the brand, the company has more bargaining *° power when negotiating with retailers. And because the brand name brings high credibility, a company with a strong brand can more easily launch new products with the same brand name. For example, Coca-Cola used its well-known brand name to introduce Diet Coke, and the Johnson & Johnson brand, originally known for its Johnson & Johnson Baby Shampoo, was later used to introduce products such as Johnson & Johnson Baby Oil, Cotton Swabs, and Dental Floss. Brand image refers to the ways in which consumers perceive the company and the brand. Because every © differentiate — to contrast; to set apart confer — to give; to grant recognition — identification © trademark —a logo; a registered symbol of a manufacturer © eredibility — reliability; believabilityJogo — a manufacturer’s symbol or trademark associated — affiliated with; related to °° precisely — specifically; clearly °° sophisticated — cultured; refined © utilize — to put to use customer has a different perception about brands, designing a new brand is not simply about designing a logo or a name. Rather, the image should send the consumer the correct message visually, verbally, and conceptually. Therefore, marketers must pay attention to every detail of their brand, even color. Different colors have different meanings, and those meanings are often associated with whatever bears the color. The colors used in a brand logo say a lot about the image of the brand. Banks, such as Wells Fargo and Goldman Sachs, use black and blue as their representative colors precisely because these colors are perceived as sophisticated, wise, serious, and rich, Likewise, most hospitals’ logos include the color green because it is perceived as refreshing, restful, peaceful, and hopeful. Moreover, according to statistics, people tend to prefer rounded brand logos as opposed to triangular ones. Therefore, many brands such as Coca-Cola and Tide use rounded logos. Many companies use the advantage of a strong brand image and brand power strategically to expand their businesses. When a company introduces an additional item with a new flavor, form, color, or package size in a given product category and under the same brand name, it is called a line extension, Companies utilize this low-cost, low-risk strategy to introduce new products which will satisfy consumer desire for variety. Another strategy is called brand extension. For example, Honda uses its company name for different products, including automobiles, motoreycles, snowmobiles, and marine engines. This allows Honda to advertise that their customers can fit “six Hondas in a two-car garage.” Under a third strategy, multibranding, companies introduce additional brand names for products in the same category. This strategy is used to create separate brand images for individual products which may differ in some way from their other products. For example, Japan’s Matsushita used separate names for its different product families: Panasonic, National, and Technics. Brand recognition is certainly important. Because consumers often hold long-standing perceptions about brands, high brand power ensures a company continued sales of its products. EEE minutes seconds 668 words 8