trust me Brand Names

Brand names and trademarks are probably the oldest ways of building confidence in a product. In the pre-industrial age, good craftsmen put their own marking on their silverware and pottery to identify their work. Thus, trademarks -- and later, brand names -- became associated with quality products and reputable established companies.

Any recognizable design, logo, symbol, distinctive packaging shapes, and even colors can also be associated with a product (by long use and constant repetition) so that people recognize it quickly.

Slogans and musical jingles may have a wide variety of content messages, but, another important function of a frequently repeated slogan is simply to make the brand memorable, known, and recognized.

Brand names are important confidence-builders. Corporations and advertisers spend a good deal of time and money to build and protect their reputation. "Brand loyalty" is the goal of every seller: that buyers would know, trust, and prefer their brands.

In business, a well known and trusted name is very valuable. To protect this reputation, companies are concerned not only with their internal operations (quality control, guarantees, customer relations), but also with external factors. Famous brands are often imitated, pirated, and counterfeited by others. Alas, there are even disadvantages in gaining the confidence of the public.

Brand name products seen on national TV cost more than generic "no name" products, so an ad for a brand will often show how it compares with other products offering similiar benefits, that it's better, more convenient, lasts longer, cheaper... in the long run. You'll usually pay more money, but you're paying for the assurance (of quality, performance, maintenance, exchanges, refund). Brands are a very important part of confidence-building: Trust Me!

Brand names are especially important for expensive or complex products (such as cars, electronics) which consumers do not have the expert ability to make good judgments. Certainly, it's better to trust established stores and companies, than risk unknown fly-by-night operations.

However, cheap or simple products (such as candy, cola) and "parity products" (basic sameness: gasoline, detergents, fruits) have less risk involved. If you don't like the taste of one product, you're not risking much, and you don't have to repeat it. Ads here often focus on the intangible claims (tastes great, feels better), pleasant associations, and simple repetition.

"Branding" has become a common (but often vague) buzzword within the advertising world today; for example, see the reviews and commentary about some current books for advertisers, Emotional Branding ; or A New Brand World , or, one specifically targeting "Tweens" (8-14 yrs old): BRANDchild. For an outsider's furious critique, see: Branded: The Buying and Selling of Teen Agers.

Simon Anholt, Brand America extends the branding concept to that of nations: "Nation brand is an important concept in today's world. Globalization means that countries compete with each other for the attention, respect and trust of investors, tourists, consumers, donors, immigrants, the governments of other nations and the media: so a powerful and positive nation brand provides a crucial competitive advantage. It is essential for countries both rich and poor to understand how they are seen by the publics around the world; how their achievements and failures, their assets and liabilities, and their people and products are reflected in their brand image." | For more, see: Earthspeak

A 2005 book (Kellogg on Branding) from the faculty of Northwestern's famous graduate school gathers some of the best current thinking. It defines a brand as " a set of associations linked to a name, mark, or symbol associated with a product or service -- a brand is much like a reputation." One of book's contributors (an anthropologist, John Sherry) describes a brand as "a mental shortcut that discourages rational thought...."
See: Association

"Branding is the central activity of creating differing values for such commonplace objects and services as flour, bottled water, cigarettes, denim jeans, razor blades, domestic beers, batteries, cola drinks, air travel, overnight couriers, and telephone carriers. Giving objects their identity, and thus a perceived value, is advertising's unique power. " - James Twitchell, AdCult USA
People want to buy from those they know, like, and trust.
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In 2005, CNN Money (January 31, 2005) reported:

Apple voted most influential brand
Beats Google for its ability to 'capture the imagination'; fifth-place: Al Jazeera.

LONDON (Reuters) - Despite a much-hyped initial public offering, Apple has ousted Google as the world's most influential brand, according to a poll of branding professionals.

In the survey of almost 2,000 ad executives, brand managers and academics by online magazine Brandchannel, Apple (Research) ousted search engine Google (Research) from last year's top spot, but the surprise to many will be Al Jazeera's entry into the top five.

"With all the news from Iraq and Afghanistan and the 'war on terror', a lot of people are really tuned into the news, and the major news sources have a western bias," Brandchannel Editor Robin Rusch said. "I think people are tuning in to Al Jazeera and looking at its Web site because it does offer another viewpoint. For the global community, it's one of the few points of access we have to news from the region with a different perspective."

The annual survey asks respondents to rate the impact of a particular brand on people's lives, and does not attempt to quantify its financial value.

Coca-Cola (Research), the U.S. soft drinks behemoth that regularly tops polls of brand equity value, is nowhere to be found in this year's global or regional top five lists.

Rusch recognizes the professional nature of the magazine's sample can affect the results of the survey, but nonetheless the Al Jazeera brand now ranks in terms of impact alongside giants such as Nokia (Research) and Starbucks (Research).

Apple, whose iPod has replaced Sony's (Research) Walkman as the personal media player to be seen with, topped both the global and North American rankings in the poll, displacing Google despite the splash caused by the search engine's $1.7 billion auction-style initial public offering last year.

Apple, which launched the iPod three years ago, has sold 10 million of them, but the fact that almost half of these were moved in the final quarter of 2004 suggests an avalanche in demand.

"Apple's just done an extraordinary job with innovation, technology and design. The iPod is what has put Apple in the lead this year," Rusch said.
"Sony has had less luck tying together its products as a lifestyle. From a branding perspective, they haven't caught up with Apple's design and ability to capture the imagination."

Swedish furniture chain Ikea, whose global network now extends to 35 countries, takes third place in the global ranking, while ubiquitous coffee chain Starbucks just shades Al Jazeera in the brand-impact stakes.

Ikea's high ranking reflects its gradual global expansion -- people who have in the past only been able to read about the flat-pack furnisher can now experience the joy of cheap home-assembled wardrobes for themselves.

An interesting entry into the Asia-Pacific regional list is Australian guidebook publisher Lonely Planet, which comes in at number five. But Rusch said it could have a trying time this year as it scrambles to rewrite the Asian regional and country guides on which it built its reputation.   
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