Branding Strategies
Deliver what your customer wants.
The increased interest in strong brands has accelerated pace of globalization resulting in an ever-tougher competitive marketplace. Product Superiority is in itself no longer sufficient to guarantee success. The fast pace of technological development and the increased speed with which imitations turn up on the market have dramatically shortened product lifecycles.
The consequence is that product-related competitive advantages soon risk being transformed into competitive prerequisites. Companies looking for competitive tools justly turn towards their brands.
Strategies & Techniques
Good Branding and Product Naming Qualities:
- strategically distinguish
- conveys unique positioning
- appeals to the target audience
- imply the brand´s benefit
- legal protection.
- creates loyalty
- offers a symbolic association, "Brand Community"
- motivates the customers to buy the product.
Product naming faux pas
Many companies have stumbled across the importance of considering language differences in marketing new products.
- Mitsubishi Pajero is called Montero in Spanish speaking countries because Pajero means wanker
- Reebok named a women’s sneaker Incubus. In medieval folklore, an incubus was a demon who ravished women in their sleep.
- The Honda Fitta was, according to a popular urban legend, renamed Jazz after discovering that fitta is Norwegian and Swedish slang for the female genitals.
- A drink in Japan called Calpis, when pronounced, sounds exactly like cow piss. The product is marketed in North America under the Calpico brand.
- Bimbo is a Mexican baking conglomerate; in English the term describes a woman who is physically attractive but is perceived to have a low intelligence or poor education.