Intangibility

Inseparability
Services cannot be seen, tasted,
felt, heard, or smelled before Services cannot be
purchase separated from their
providers

Services

Variability
Perishability
Quality of services depends on
who provides them and when, Services cannot be stored
where, and how for later sale or use

BRANDING
Brand
A name, term, sign, symbol, or design, or a combination of these, that identifies the products or
services of one seller or group of sellers and differentiates them from those of competitors.
Consumers view a brand as an important part of a product, and branding can add value to a
consumer’s purchase. Customers attach meanings to brands and develop brand relationships.
As a result, brands have meaning well beyond a product’s physical attributes (Kotler, 2018).

Building and managing brands are perhaps the marketer’s most important tasks. We will
discuss branding strategy in more detail later in the chapter.

Selecting A Brand
Step 1: Articulate the heart of proposed Brand
Define the following;
 Purpose: Why do you exist?
 Vision: What future do you want to help create? What does the future look like?
 Mission: What are you here to do? How do you create that future?
 Values: What principles guide your behaviour?
Combined, these elements influence everything you do (including choosing a name). 

Step 2: Look at the Differentiators (Competitors)

Understanding what makes the product unique from the competing products in the market
is the key to finding a brand name. Keep these differentiators front of mind through the
naming process.

Step 3: Brainstorm
Gather all the stakeholders and host a structured brainstorm. The discussions can start with
certain prompts or specific exercises. For example:
 Write down all the adjectives that describe the product/service.
 Describe what the customers would feel when they use your product/service.
Another useful way to brainstorm is to think of the different categories of brand names
(Alina Wheeler, 2012)
 Founder: A name based on a real or fictional person, such as Ben & Jerry’s, Warby
Parker, or Betty Crocker.
 Descriptive: A name that describes what you do or make, such as General Motors. 
 Fabricated: A totally made-up name or word, such as Kodak, Xerox, or TiVo.
 Metaphor: Mythical, foreign, or imagery-heavy things, places, people, animals, or
processes, such as Nike or Patagonia.
 Acronym: A name that uses initials or an abbreviation, such as DKNY (Donna Karan
New York) or GE (General Electric).
 Magic spell: A name that is a portmanteau (two words together) or a real word with
a made-up spelling, such as Face Book or Flickr.

Challenge your team to come up with a name for every category. You’ll probably start to see
a trend or preference for one type over the other. Try to come up with 15-20 names. 

Step 4: Evaluate Your Brand Name

I. Narrow your brainstormed list down to the team favorites (ideally those 15-20)
II. Then search all the databases for a similar registered name
III. Narrow down to unregistered brand names
IV. Rank the available names on priority

Step 5: Test the narrowed down names

1. Think logos, product packaging, and homepages and test your top three names.
2. Test the names with the customers
3. Choose the most acceptable brand name for your product

Adopting these five steps would lead to selection of a suitable brand name.

Advantages of Branding
1. Brand names help consumers identify products and differentiate from other similar
products.
2. Brands indicate product quality and consistency—buyers identify the same features,
benefits, and quality with the brand
 3. Branding helps in creating Customer Loyalty
4. Branding helps the seller in charging a premium price for their product because a
strong brand can charge a higher price than its competitors which in turn leads to
higher profit margins for the company.
5. The seller’s brand name and trademark provide legal protection for unique product
features that otherwise might be copied by competitors.
6. Having a strong and established brand in the market can be a barrier for entrance of
new competitors on the same market
7. Branding helps the seller to segment markets.

Disadvantages of Branding
1. Huge development costs: The biggest disadvantage of branding is that it involves huge
cost because brands are not created overnight and companies have to spend huge
sums on advertising and publicity.
2. Limited quality flexibility: Limited flexibility in the quality of the products and services
of the brands is emerging from the fact that they offer quality for premium price.
3. Changing the perception for the brand is hard: If due to some reason brand gets a
bad name or reputation than it is very difficult, if not impossible to regain the original
position or status of the brand.
4. Pigeonhole trap: Sometimes establishing a strong brand identity can backfire when a
company needs to pivot in response to changing market conditions. A bakery known
for sweet cakes may find it hard to rebrand as a purveyor of gluten-free goods when
its name calls to mind images of pastries, frosting and sprinkles.

Types of Brands

1. Individual product branding: New products are assigned new names without any
connection to existing brands offered by the company.
a. Here, the marketing organization must work hard to establish the brand in the market
since it cannot ride the advantages of previously introduced brands.
b. The main advantage of this approach is that it allows brands to stand on their own,
thus lessening threats that may occur to other brands marketed by the company.
c. Under an individual branding approach, each brand builds its own separate equity
which allows the company, if they choose, to sell off individual brands without
impacting other brands owned by the company.
d. The most famous marketing organization to follow this strategy is Procter & Gamble,
which has historically introduced new brands without any link to other brands or even
to the company name.

2. Family branding: New products are placed under the umbrella of an existing brand.
 a. The principal advantage of this approach is that it enables the organization to rapidly
build market awareness and acceptance, since the brand is already established and
known to the market.
b. With family branding any negative publicity that may occur for one product within a
brand could spread to all other products that share the same name.

3. Cobranding: With cobranding a marketer seeks to partner with another firm, which has
an established brand, in a hope that synergy of two brands on a product is even more
powerful than a single brand.
a. The partnership often has both firms sharing costs but also sharing the gains.
b. Taps the awareness of multiple brands
c. Appeal to a larger target market, especially if there is no overlapping target markets
d. Cobranding allows both firms to tap into market segments where they did not
previously have a strong position.

4. Private or store branding:

Some suppliers are in the business of producing products for other companies including
placing another company’s brand name on the product.
a. This is most often seen in the retail industry
b. The supplier not only produce product for the retailer’s brand but also markets their
own brand so that store shelves contain both brands.

5. No name or generic branding:

Certain suppliers supply products that are intentionally ‘brand less’. These products are
mostly basic commodity type products that consumers or business customers purchase as
low-price alternatives to branded products. Basic household products such as paper
products over-the-counter medicines such as ibuprofen, and even dog food are available in
a generic form.

6. Brand licensing:
Under brand licensing, a contractual arrangement is created in which a company owning a
brand name allows other companies to produce and supply products carrying their brand
name.

7. Names of founders:
The company may also introduce the products with the names of founders or inventors
(e.g., Colgate).

8. Corporate name combined with individual product names:

Certain companies may combine the corporate name and the individual product name to
give distinct brand name identity to their brands (e.g., Cadbury’s Five Star and Cadbury’s
Bourn vita).

E-Brands
E-brands exist only in the virtual world. Many e-brands, such as Amazon.com, have a central
focus on providing an online front end for delivering physical products or services. Others
provide information and intangible services to benefit consumers. Typically, a common
denominator among e-brands is the focus on delivering a valued service or experience in the
virtual environment.