Branding provides several benefits for companies including helping consumers easily identify products and services, assuring consistent quality, building customer loyalty, and differentiating similar commodities. However, maintaining a prominent brand position requires aggressive promotion and quality control over long periods of time. Companies must also protect their brands from generic usage and counterfeiting to preserve their value. Effective branding strategies consider characteristics like suggesting product benefits, being memorable, distinctive, and adaptable to new products.

1. Reasons for Branding
• It makes it easy to identify goods and services
• Aid shoppers to move quickly through a supermarket, discount outlet or
other retail stores or making purchase decisions.
• Helps assure consumers that they will get consistent quality on repeat
purchase
• It reduces price comparisons. Factor to be considered in comparing
different products
• Reputation of brand influences customer loyalty
• Branding differentiates commodities

2. Reasons for Branding
• Not all brands are widely and favourably recognized by their target
markets
• Amongst those that are, many are unable to maintain a position of
prominence
• In order to retain their leadership position over a long time they have to
resort to aggressive promotion and careful quality control
• Enormous amount of money is spent to acquire companies that have
widely recognized brands

3. Reasons for not Branding
• Two responsibilities come with brand ownership
1. Promoting the brand
2. Maintaining a consistent quality of output
• Not branding is because some firms are unable or unwilling to assume
these responsibilities
• Some items remain unbranded because they cannot be physically
differentiated from other firms’ products
• Essential raw materials and food products for which product
differentiation including branding is generally unknown
• Perishable nature of products such as fresh fruits and vegetables works
against branding

4. Importance of Selecting a Good Brand
• Some brands a so good that they contribute to the success of products
• Other brand names are so poor that hey contribute to the failure of
products
• Some bands are only for a certain section of the target market
• Choosing a brand name for a product may appear trivial but it’s not
• The most important element in a marketing program and the one over
which marketing head can exert the most control – is the “NAMING OF A
PRODOCT”

5. The Challenge
• Selecting a good brand name for a new product is especially challenging
• Reason being firms run out of possibilities
• If 10,000 products are launched annually only 50,000 words comprise
the standard desk size dictionary
• Further many words either already adorn products or are unsuitable as
brand names
• Solution :
- Firms combine numbers with words, numbers with letters etc.
Shell Rimula-40, Quakerol WR-2
- Some use words that are not part of the English language
Lexus Motors, Compaq Computers

6. Desirable Characteristics
• Finding a brand name that rates well on every attribute is difficult
• Still a brand name should have as many of the following five
characteristics as possible
7. Suggest something of the product, particularly its benefits and use
-BATA : Naughty Boy Shoes, Ballerina, Marie Claire
9. Be easy to pronounce, spell and remember
- Tide, Surf
11. Be distinctive
- National, Star, United, Allied
13. Be adaptable to additions to the product line
- Family name such as Kellogg, Lipton, Ford McDonalds
5. Be capable of registration and legal protection

7. Protecting Brand Names
• A firm with a well known brand must actively safeguard it
• This valuable asset can be damaged or even lost-in either of the two
ways
• Law enforcement agencies do not vigorously pursue violators
Product Counterfeiting
• Crime of the 21st century
• Cant be eliminated but Firms can and should battle knockoffs
• Should watch for counterfeit goods carrying one of their brands
• Through their trade association should offer cash rewards for
information
• When imitations are identified legal action should be taken
• Firms cannot afford to ignore this illegal practice

8. Generic Usage
• Over a period of years some brand names become very well accepted
• They become commonly used instead of the Generic names of the
particular product category
Generic Terms That Were Brand Names
Aspirin Escalator Linoleum Thermos
Brassiere Harmonica Nylon Xerox
Cellophane Kerosene Surf Zipper
• Originally these names were trademarks that could be used only by the
owner
• What happened?

9. How A Brand Name Becomes Generic
• There is no simple generic name available so people use the brand name
as generic name: Nylon, Escalator
• Sometimes a firm is too effective in promoting a brand name. Although
not yet legally generic, names such as Levi’s, Band-Aid, Scotch,
Cellotape, Kleenex are on the border line
• These brand names have been promoted so heavily and successfully
that many people use them generically
• Which terms do you use in conversation?
• Adhesive bandage or Band Aid, Adhesive tape or Cellotape, A Facial
Tissue or Kleenex
• Of course it is the latter. Isn't it ?

10. How to Prevent the Generic Use of Brand name
• Right after he brand name place a ® symbol (if he brand is a
registered trade mark for a product
• TM : If it is not registered but applied for
•
• SM : For a service
• Best is to use a brand name together with the generic name
- Raymond wool, Chandrani pearls, Dracon brand Polyester
• Call attention to and challenge improper use of your brand name

11. Banding Strategies
Both producers and middlemen face strategic decisions regarding the
branding of their goods and services
Producers’ Strategies
6. Most producers market their entire output under producer’s brands
• Such producer companies are very large and they rely on their own
brands
• Some producers use a strategy of branding fabricating materials and
parts (manufactured goods that become a part of another product
following subsequent manufacturing)
• With this strategy the seller seeks to develop a market preference for its
branded parts or materials
• Some manufacturers sell part of their output or their entire output to
middlemen for branding by these customers

12. Banding Strategies
3. Most producers market their entire output under middlemen’s brands
• This approach allows manufacturers to “hedge its bets”
• Companies employing these strategies hopes its own brands will appeal
to some loyal customers whereas middlemen’s brands are of interest to
others
• For some manufacturers the output produced for middlemen’s brands
ordinarily represents additional sales
• This allows the manufacturers to fully utilize plant capacity
• Drawback : - Manufacturer may lose some customers for it’s own brands
- Producer’s revenues depend on the middleman’s marketing
strength

13. Middlemen’s Strategies
1. Most middlemen carry only producer’s brands
• Retailers and wholesalers follow this policy
• Do not have the finances or other resources to promote a brand and
maintain its quality
8. Some retailers carry both producers’ and middlemen’s brand
• They stock popular producers’ brands and also have their own labels
• They find it advantageous as it increases their control over their target
market
• A retailers brand can differentiate its products : called stores brands

14. Strategies Common to Producers and Middlemen
At least three different strategies are used by firms that sell more than
one product
• A separate name for each product : Applied by Lever Brothers, P & G.
Citigroup emphasizes some of its individual brands (Travelers & Diners
Club) while also using “Citi” part in its Corporate identity
• The Company name combined with product name
• The Company name alone : Today few companies rely exclusively on
this policy. General Electric, Seimens etc.

15. Using the Company name for branding purpose (Family Branding)
• This strategy makes it simpler and less expensive to introduce new,
related products to the line
• The prestige of a brand can also be spread more easily if it appears on
several products
• Branding with the Company name places a greater burden on the firm to
maintain consistent quality
• One bad item reflects badly on the image of the company and its other
products
• Many companies thus let individual products succeed or fail on its own
• Hence separate name for each product

16. Branding for Market Saturation
• With increasing frequency firms are employing a “Multiple- Brand
Strategy” to increase their total sales in the market
• They have more than one brand essentially of the same product aimed
either at the same target market or at distinct target market
• A company that has built one type of sales appeal around a given brand
may use other appeals with other brands to reach other segments
• Two P & G detergents, Tide and Dreft illustrate this point
• Some feel that Tide is strong enough to clean soiled work clothes it
should not be used on lingerie or delicate clothing. Dreft is the answer
• Sometimes multiple brands are necessary to penetrate separate target
markets

17. Co Branding or Dual Branding
• Two separate Companies or two divisions within the same company
agree to place both of their respective brands on a particular product
• This is increasingly evident in food products and also in franchising
• Boxes of Duncan Hines Brownie Mix proclaim that the product contains
M&M’s
• Health Bars, Sunkist Lemons and Ocean Fresh Cranberries are all
frequently promoted ingredients of other products such as Betty
Crocker’s Sunkist Lemon bars mix