FIAT LUX ACADEME

Cavite
PRINCIPLES OF MARKETING
Suhay No. 11: Branding
Jan 11-15, 2020
Name: __________________________________ Section: ____________________________

LEARNING OBJECTIVES
By the end of this module, you are able to:
 understand the nature of the brand
 know the steps involved in developing a brand
 be able to construct viable brand concepts

E S S E N T I A L  Q U E S T I O N S
1. What is branding?
2. How to develop a brand?
A C T I V I T Y  L O G
Essential Question/s
Input
Starter
Focused Discussion
Essential Understanding
Learning Log
Self-Evaluation
Point of Clarification

INPUT
Starter

Give an example of a local brand that has managed to impress you. Give your reasons why.

a) Brand:
________________________________________________________

b) Reasons:
________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________

Focused Discussion

What is in a brand?

You may say that modern marketing is pretty much obsessed about the brand. Brands
are developed, nurtured, grown, expanded, and generally managed in order to
maximize their value both to the business and to their consumers at large. Well-
managed brands reward their owners with generous business valuations and popular
brands can even become cultural movers and shakers.

A brand is a mark of distinction that can be sensed usually in the form of names or
terms, signs or symbols, design elements, or even a combination of these, and is
utilized for the purpose of identifying and distinguishing the goods or services of one
provider from another.

The following are the functions of a brand:

It identifies the product or service, enabling consumers to accept, reject, or
communicate their opinions about it to others.
It communicates messages to the markets and to the public at large, whether the
messages are intentionally or unintentionally generated.
It functions as a legal property, allowing its owners to invest in building up the value
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 of the brand.

Elements of the Brand

A brand is not just a name. Today’s brands are composites of various elements
including:
Trade name The trademarked name by which the product is to be known as, such as
Coca-cola, Google, and Jollibee. Trade names are registered though
Intellectual Property Office.
Generic The category in which the brand would fall under, such as beverage,
category search engine, or quick service restaurant. The Intellectual Property
Office requires that brands explicitly specify the categories that they
would fall under.
Logo The visual symbol or image that will identify the product, such as
the distinctive partially bitten apple image for Apple, the stylized script
letters of Coca-Cola, or the three-point star of Mercedes-Benz. Logos
are also registered alongside the trade name.
Tagline an optional catchphrase, such as BDO's "We find ways."
Visual cues aside from the actual logo, brands can also be represented with
distinctive visual identifiers, such as the red and green bands that
wrap around the outside of a Seven-Eleven store.
Shapes the actual shape or form of the product or packaging, such as
the pinched contour of a bottle of Yakult.
Colors a Yellow Cab store is quickly distinguishable from afar thanks to its bold
yellow signs with black letterings
Sounds such as advertising jingles, or even very short intro sounds such as
those heard upon starting up a computer.
Scents establishments such as Rustan's and the Shangri-La Hotel have
signature fragrances made that help to create distinctive atmospherics
in their premises.
Tastes this includes special recipes or secret ingredients, such as Max's
distinctive fried chicken formulation.

Elements of Logo Design

Graphic design guide Logo Design Love gives important tips on what makes
for a great brand logo (Airey 2010):

Keep it simple. Simplicity gives the logo design versatility, allowing it to be used in a
wide range of media from business cards to billboards. Make it relevant. The design
should be appropriate to the business it is identifying -to the industry, to the market, and
to the audience it is addressing.
Incorporate tradition. Logos should not strive to be trendy but rather contain the
symbolic elements that are timeless as far as the nature of the business is concerned.
Aim for distinction. The logo should easily stand out versus the competition. Prioritize
shape and form over color. A tip is to work first in just black and white so that distinct
form is emphasized over anything else.
Commit to memory. Great logos should be memorable even after just one quick
glance. This is useful given the rapidly moving nature of the world that we live in-with
people flipping through magazines, clicking through web pages, and driving past
billboards at high speed.
Think small. Logos may look great on a billboard but they should also be recognizable
in small executions, which will be useful when placing the logo on small items such as
zippers and coffee stirrers. A tip is that the design should still be easily recognizable
even at a minimum size of just one inch, which means that simplicity is key.
Focus on one thing. The most iconic logos have just one feature that helps them to
stand out. Incorporating more than one key element will only clutter the mark and make
it less memorable.

Levels of Meaning
A brand is just a signifier. But as a signifier, it can manage to have several layers of
meanings. The following are six levels of meanings that a brand can have:

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Attributes. Characteristics of the product itself, such as softness, engine power,
physical size, friendliness (for services), locations, design, and colors.
Benefits. What consumers stand to gain from patronizing the brand, such as shinier
hair, peace of mind, comfort, time savings, and happiness.
Values. The core values that the brand is identified with, such as family ties,
independence, creativity, innovation, and risk-taking.
Culture. The culture or sub-culture that a brand is identified with. Culture and values
have a lot of interdependencies but culture can refer to regional identities, such as
Bacolod Chicken Inasal being expressly associated with its titular province.
Personality. If the brand was a person, it could have a personality such as being
adventurous, youthful, energetic, formal and proper, brutally candid, or fun.
User. The specific target market or aspirational group that the brand becomes
associated with, such as romantic youth for Close-Up toothpastes or concerned
mothers for Safeguard soaps.

Brand Valuation
Brand asset valuation can be a number of metrics that are deemed to be important for
gauging how much consumers appreciate a brand, such as the number of times a
customer patronizes the product per annum, how customers rate the brand versus
competitors on key attributes, and how much customers say they “like” the brand on a
scale of 1 to 10.

Brand asset valuation can also be helped along by knowing the progressive levels of
brand equity.

Brand awareness “I am familiar with this brand.”

Brand acceptability “I like this brand.”
Brand preference “I prefer this brand.”
Brand loyalty “I will die if I do not get this brand.”

DEVELOPING THE BRAND

A well-designed brand strategy can help to enhance a product’s changes of being
accepted by the market and of surviving for the long term. But you cannot just plug in
the first words that come to mind and scribble an ad hoc logo to go with it. The following
is a recommended process for building up a new brand.

Step 1. Develop the Brand Strategy

Before you even contemplate on what the brand name should be, you must first have a
good understanding of the business and of the business model that the brand will be
representing.

Product information. What are the products or services that the brand shall be
representing? A detailed discussion of the proposed product lineup, even future
products, is in order.
Market information. Who are the target markets that the brand will be catering to?
Knowing this will help in the formulation of brand communications along with the
building of the brand personality.
Trademark criteria. Should the name be short or should it be expository? Questions
that address the nature of the potential trademark itself before the trade name has even
been settled.
Brand name objectives. What should the brand name accomplish in the minds of
consumers? Knowing what must be accomplished in the minds of the markets will help
in the development of the brand’s creative aspects.

Step 2. Develop the Creative Theme

While the first step was all about laying the groundwork, this step is all about building up
the look and feel of the brand. Take note: the actual brand itself has yet to be decided
upon but this step is necessary in order to build up the "house" of standards in which
the eventual brand will reside in.

Brand personality. If the brand was a person, what would be its personality? Again,
this takes off from the information that has been gathered about the target market.
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Inferences and connotations. What imagery, words, and meanings should the brand
connote or refer to? These can be best addressed by asking the right questions: "If this
product is a car, what brand will it be?” If this product is a celebrity, who will it be? "What
kind of scenery should the brand connote?" Executed properly, these inferences would
be part and parcel of the brand identity.

Color palette and style sheets. For this part of the process, you will need the services
of a trained graphic designer. A graphic artist can help in selecting the proper color
palettes that can best represent the brand's personality, inferences, objectives, market,
and product lineup. You may try doing brand designs yourself, but it is not advisable as
today's markets have become increasingly sophisticated and expect a certain level of
polish from brand presentations.

Font. Fonts are the letters to be used for your brand name. You can use existing
publicly available fonts, such as those available on word processors or design programs
(such as Arial or Comnic Sans), or you could buy commercial fonts. Those with even
bigger budgets can actually commission the creation of custom fonts. This will ensure
that your brand would look really distinctive. Today, as more and more people rely on
mobile devices for commercial transactions, it pays to choose a font that shows well and
clearly even on small screens.

Visual cues. Symbols, icons, shapes, and other images that you want to associate with
the brand, such as the swirling red and white bands that are associated with Coca-Cola
for instance. This helps in generating brand recall across different media and materials.

Acceptable uses and materials. Each medium and material has its own particular
characteristic and can have an effect on the overall response to branding efforts. This is
why you will not, for instance, see McDonald's and Jollibee signs on wooden
signboards. When producing stationery, for instance, this includes the types of paper to
use.

Retail placement. If you are producing a consumer good, where do you plan to have it
sold? Specify locations and ideal shelf placement at retail areas (via a "plan-o-gram" or
diagram of shelf location vis-à-vis other products). This will help in properly
communicating key points about or the branding of the product.

Step 3. Create the Name

Finally, after all the groundwork has been laid, it is now time to create theactual brand
name. Note how the name comes much later in the process. The factis that for as long
as the selected name fits all the parameters as laid out in the first two steps, it should be
acceptable.

Keep it short. Notice how the most memorable brand names are only up to three
syllables long-even Coca-Cola became just Coke. This is no accident. It turns out that
the human mind can most easily remember up to three syllables. Beyond that, it gets
harder to recall a brand name.
Make it easy to pronounce and remember. It will not pay to have a brand name that
is hard to spell, remember, or pronounce as this will only dilute its potential for
transmission particularly when promoted through media such as the radio. The only
exception to this rule is if you are trying to preselect your target market on purpose-for
instance, by having a difficult-to-pronounce French phrase as a fine dining
establishment's name which will effectively intimidate people who do not know how to
pronounce it.
lt should translate well in target markets. Especially if you plan on selling your
product to the international market, your brand name should not connote anything
negative in those territories. You will have to get some research done then. The worst
thing that can happen is that your brand turns out to have offensive meanings in
countries that you plan to sell in.

Brand names can be:

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Eponyms or names of people such as the founders or even historical people.
McDonald's, for instance, refers to the name of the original brothers who put up the first
McDonald's diners.

Descriptive, connoting something about the product itself or its benefits, such as Head
& Shoulders for an anti-dandruff shampoo or Chowking for Chinese quick service food.
Abbreviations or portmanteaus, the latter referring to the combination of words to
make a new word, such as the Papemelroti brand which is a portmanteau of the names
of the founding family members, or Adidas which stands for founder Adolf "Adi" Dassler.
Abbreviations, Such as CNN (Cable News Network) or IBM (International Business
Machines), are no longer advisable as these are difficult to recall and have no inherent
personality on their own.
Symbolic or image-driven, such as Hidden Springs brand of mineral water which
connotes images of nature, or Apple with its highly recognizable stylized bitten apple
logo.
Synthetic, which means that the brand name is not a dictionary word but is instead an
invented one, such as Lexus (there is no such word- at least for now) or Neutrogena
which again is an invented word. Note that even when you invent your own brand, it
helps to be aware of the connotations that you would want it to reference to. Lexus, for
instance, was selected primarily because even if it is a made-up word, it still somehow
manages to connote luxury.

Step 4. Test the Name

Our very first step involves the listing of brand objectives So this step is all about testing
your selected brand name and its impact and signifiers to your target market.

Step 5. Screen for Trademark Availability

Finally, if your proposed brand passes the test marketing, you will need to make sure
that it is actually available at the Intellectual Property Office. If it is, then congratulations!
If not, then you will have to try a different name.

Task 1
Answer the following questions.

1. What makes a service different from physical good?

______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________

2. Is it possible to create a brand that has no name and instead relies primarily on its
logo? What are the possible advantages and disadvantages of this scheme?
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________

Indicators Points Score

Content 3  
Accuracy 2  
Total 5  

*** TAKE A BREAK BEFORE PROCEEDING TO THE NEXT PART ***

LEARNING LOG
Do you know the elements of a brand? What are the important roles of branding in marketing?

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____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________________________

ESSENTIAL UNDERSTANDING
• Branding, by definition, is a marketing practice in which a company creates a name,
symbol or design that is easily identifiable as belonging to the company. This helps to
identify a product and distinguish it from other products and services.
• The marketing practice of creating a name, symbol or design that identifies and
differentiates a product from other products. An effective brand strategy gives you a
major edge in increasingly competitive markets.
SELF-EVALUATION
Rate yourself from 1 to 5 (1 being the lowest while 5 being the highest) on the level of
understanding that you are able to attain for this module:
1 2 3 4 5

POINT OF CLARIFICATION

Please write any questions or points of clarification about the content of this module:

REFERENCES
Ac-ac, Maria Victoria M. (2014). Principles of Marketing, Revised Ed., Pasig: Anvil Publishing,
Inc.

Armstrong, Gary (2013). Marketing: An introduction 11th, Global ed. Harlow, England: Pearson

Go, Josiah (2017). Contemporary Marketing Strategy in the Philippine Setting, Manila: National
Bookstore

Ilano, AB. (2016). Principles of Marketing. Manila: Rex Publishing

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