Brand Identity And Brand Image Marketing Essay

In business brand isn’t a new theory. It is used by marketers from long time to identify their products from other competitors that have same product category. As Van Den Heever said ” the word brand comes from the old German word “brandr” which means to burn”. (Lombard, 2007, p. 18)”A Brand is a symbolic embodiment of all the information connected to the product and serves to create associations and expectations around it ” (Kalakumari & Sekar, 2012)”The traditional American definition of brand is, a name, term, sign, symbol, or design, or combination of them, which is intended to identify the goods or services of one seller or group of sellers and to differentiate them from those of competitors” (Lee & Zhang, 2000)

2.1.1 Brand identity and Brand image

Brand image has been assigned different meanings from the day it was introduced into the marketing discipline by Gardner and Levy (1955). Some researches has define brand image as brand identity, but according to the recent studies that have claimed that brand image and brand identity are two different concepts but they are interchangeable. Moreover, there are four basics to understand and define the brand image, which are : 1)Brand image is an image in the mind created by the consumer.2) Consumers use their emotions and feelings to interpret the concept of brand image.3) Brand image is an idea fuelled by knowledge through marketing activities taken from the observation of consumer characteristics. 4) The perception of brand image designed in the mind of consumer is much more important than the actual one. However, Brand image is how a brand is perceived by consumers, while brand identity is the way that the company exposes the brand in the market, and how it wants to be perceived by the customers. Eventually, customers may not have the same image of the brand that the company presented. (Bian X., 2011) (Price, 2010)

2.1.2 Brand Power and Market Share

According to Stobart (1994) brand power and dominant market share could be occurred through perceived product quality. Generally, entrepreneurs and managers have a great impact on creating power brands. They understand a need and desire of a specific group of customers then they create products and supply the associated services that satisfy those needs extremely well. Effective ‘quality control” procedures make sure they do things right the first time in delivering those products and services. Therefore, they achieve superior quality when they sell them the high quality with a less cost of lower quality competitors. Then, they advertise and promote the benefits and the advantages they got using those products. The customer perceives the high quality and the added value offered by the product. The result : a power brand is created and dominant share follows. (Vantamay, 2004)

(draw brand power conceptual model)

2.1.3 Brand equity

According to Kwok Keung Tam (2007), brand equity is the value premium that a company realizes from a product with a recognizable name as compared to its competitors. when Companies make their products memorable, easily recognizable using its name or symbol and superior in quality and reliability, this is the process of creating brand equity. Also, it depends on the number of people with habitual purchase, in that way it could also be a strategy used by the firm to generate cash flow because people aren’t buying just an ordinary product but they are buying unique value. However, when people are ready to pay more for a standard product instead of branded one, here the brand fails that means brand equity is negative. This might happen if a company caused a widely publicized environmental disaster or had a major product recall. So, when the company wants to expand its product line, it has to consider the brand equity conceptual model.

(draw conceptual model)

For the consumers, brand equity could present them information about the brand that improves their confidence while their purchasing process. Nevertheless, the brand equity could reduce the expenses of promotions because when brand equity is positive, brand image is positive too that means consumers don’t focus on the short term promotion but on the whole brand. Brand equity has five major areas, which are Brand awareness, perceived quality, brand loyalty, brand association and brand positioning.

Brand awareness is one of main determinants of brand equity. Brand awareness consist recognition of one particular brand which allows a potential customer to recognize about a specific product or service’s existence, and confirms that he or she has previously been exposed to it and creating brand awareness is one of the key steps in promoting a product. (Csapó, 2010)

In addition according to Kwok Keung Tam (2007) there is two tasks should be done to achieve brand awareness which are namely increasing brand name identity and associating it with the product class. Also, To raise brand awareness some techniques could be useful as advertising and celebrity endorsement.

Furthermore, Using perceived quality strategy may lead to consumer satisfaction, which will be shown through perceived performance and expectation. As well, there are many definitions said by some scholars, as consumer’s perception towards tangible and non tangible characteristics of a product is perceived product quality. these characteristics may include some added value characteristics as performance, durability, conformance, features, serviceability, aesthetics and reliability etc. Moreover, sometimes the actual quality of the product doesn’t confirm all these characteristics but the perceived quality of a product could be derived from consumer’s past experiences. (Vantamay, 2004)

A consumer gives a brand loyalty by purchasing the same product or service over and over again rather than buying from other suppliers that sell the same product category. As well, brand loyalty could be defined as the degree of purchasing repeatedly the same brand by the same consumer within a product class.

Brand association is ” the linkage that exist between a brand and the other nodes stored in memory” (Korchia, 2007). Every company through consumer buyer research must understand its brand as well as competitors’ brands . Such a research studies existing and potential customers, past customers, industry experts, and intermediaries. A strong brand should be difficult to be copied by other companies, and such a powerful brand is associated with beliefs and values. (Ghodeswar, 2008)

Brand positioning occurs when brand occupies a distinct position comparative to competing brands, in the mind of the customer. Companies use this brand positioning marketing strategy by differentiating the features and characteristics of their brands, or they try to create a specific image of the brand as luxurious, inexpensive, premium and utilitarian through advertising. Branding it’s all about adding psychological value on service, products and companies. Such value could be in the form of emotional links, beliefs, values, and feelings that people relate to the brand. Once a brand is positioned, it is very difficult to reposition it without destroying its credibility. (Lee & Zhang, 2000)

2.2 Consumer Behavior

Consumer behavior is “the study of the processes involved when individuals or groups select, purchase, use, or dispose of products, services ideas, or experiences to satisfy needs and desires” (Solomon, 2007, p. 7).In other words, it is a study focuses on how, what, why, and why people buy. In addition, it studies how people choose to spend their available resources time, money, and effort.

2.2.1 Consumer Buying Behavior

“The consumer buying behavior concept is the individuals and households who buy goods and services for personal consumption” (Tam, 2007).

“For companies the buying decision is the most crucial part of their enterprise, yet no one really knows how the human brain makes that choice. Buying decisions are made at an unconscious level” (Csapó, 2010). Furthermore, there are many theories explain the meaning of consumer buying behavior, one of them is Role theory. It suggests that consumers satisfying a need or desire, for this reason they change their consumption decisions, their evaluation criteria. The 7 P’s of marketing stimuli consumer buying behavior which are product, price, place of distribution, promotion, people, process, and physical evidence (KHOURY, 2008) Moreover, there are many factors called buyer’s characteristics that affect the buying behavior, which are economical, cultural, personal, psychological and social. All these inputs enter the buyer’s middle box, then many consumers’ responses observed as product choice, brand choice, dealer choice, purchase timing, and purchase amount. (Csapó, 2010)

(conceptual model vanda article)

2.2.2 Factors Affecting Consumer Buying Behavior

Culture factors:

Buyer culture, subculture, and social class are factors that affect consumer buying behavior.

Culture is the piece of every society and behavior of people is deeply influenced by their culture. Moreover, Culture is the collection of beliefs, behavior, values, customs and attitudes. Marketers should be careful by analyzing every culture because needs, wants and buying behavior vary from country to other.

Culture is divided to many subcultures, and each subculture is a group of people with mutual value systems based on common life situations and experiences. Moreover, subcultures includes nationalities, religious, racial groups, and geographic regions. Marketers should segment the market into different small portions using these groups.

Every society contains many social class(upper class, middle class, working class and lower class) which are determined by different factors such income, education , wealth and occupation. These social classes are used by marketers in market segmentation, and it is an important factor because all similar social classes recommend same marketing strategy and every social class its members shares same interests, values and beliefs. (Griffin & Pustay, 2003)

Social factors :

Social factors which are reference groups, family, role and status also influence the buying behavior of consumers .

Reference groups could form the attitude or behavior of a person. The impact of reference groups varies according to products and brands’ types. As an example if the product is visible as clothes, the impact of reference groups is high. Moreover, there is a person who has special skills, knowledge or characteristics which called leader, his opinion is considered by a reference group in many societies.

Family members could deeply influence buyer behavior. Hence marketers are trying to know every role of every person in a family, husband, wife, and children. However, they also try to find out who buys a specific product, if husband then they will try to target the men in their advertisements. So, here we should understand that buying roles vary with evolving consumer lifestyles.

In the society, roles and status change from one person to other because every person is a member of a specific clubs, organizations or groups… For example a husband is working as a coach of football team, that means he will buy the kind of clothing that reflects his and status in his work. (Csapó, 2010)

Personal factors:

Personal factors have impact on buying behavior, such as the buyer’s age and life cycle, occupation, lifestyle, and personality and self concept.

Age and life cycle shape the consumer buying behavior. Purchasing of goods and services of people change with time because every stage of life has its own interests. Life-cycle of a family consists of diverse stages such as young single, unmarried couples, married couples which facilitate marketers to design specific products for each stage.

Occupation of a person will affect his purchasing behavior. For example a accounting manager of an organization he should purchase business suits, but a regular or low position worker will purchase cheaper clothes.

Economic situation of a consumer has great impact on his buying behavior. The more the income of a consumer is high the more his purchase will be high. However, a person with low income will purchase cheap products.

Lifestyle is an important factor that affect strongly the buying behavior of people.” lifestyle is a person’s of living as expressed in his or her psychographics” (Kotler & Armstrong, Principles of Marketing, 2001, p. 146). Moreover, people coming from same subcultures, occupation, social class may have quite different lifestyle because lifestyle is determined by customer opinions, interests, activities (work, sports, shopping etc.)

Personality varies from person to person, place to place and time to time. the behavior of a person it is his personality not what he wears or what he eats. Personality includes some characteristics such as : self confidence, positive attitude, dominance , active etc which could be useful to determine the selection of products or services for a person.

Psychological factors:

There are four factors affecting the consumer buying behavior, which are Perception, motivation, learning, beliefs and attitudes.

Motivation level that affect the buying behavior. Every person has specific needs such as biological, social, and physiological needs etc. Moreover, these needs vary from one person to another because every person has priority in his needs, and some of these natural needs are pressing more than others. So, These needs which are pressing strongly become motive for a person to reach satisfaction.

Perception is a process to produce a meaningful experience in the mind of consumers which contain three steps: Select, organize, and interpret information. Furthermore, there are three different perceptual methods. First method which is selective attention, this case is used by marketers to grab customers’ attention. Second method is selective distortion, this case is used to interpret the information available about the product in a way to support the customers’ beliefs. However, third method is selective retention, which is used to retain information that supports customers’ beliefs.

Every customer has specific belief and attitude towards diverse products. However, some of these beliefs and attitudes marketers are interested in them because they affect buying behavior and make up brand image. Moreover, there are some campaigns done by marketers to change customers attitudes and beliefs. (Kotler & Armstrong, Principles of Marketing, 2001)