Marketing goods or services under two or more trademarks of different companies is a popular way to broaden an existing or new brand’s exposure in the marketplace and can be used in many ways.
Although co-branding is not a new concept, it remains crucial to consider the strategic objectives of the project and to address all the possible risks before it is launched.
When the New Yorker reporter Jeffrey Goldberg asked Sen. John Kerry whether the Democrats had a credibility problem on defense controversies, the party’s titular leader replied without equivocation, “Look, the answer is, we have to do an unbranding.” As Kerry saw it, the political problem had to do with salesmanship: “We have to brand more effectively. It’s marketing.” An editor on the linguistic qui vive titled Goldberg’s article about the Democrats’ need to shuck off the appearance of weakness “The Unbranding.”
The hot word in the field of sales — indeed, pervading the world of perfect pitching — is brand.
In a world where the words new and fresh are relentlessly repeated on every product label, the name of the sales technique is getting old and stale. Where is the ad-Ubermensch, the creative Ogilvy, who will put forward a new moniker for the name of the atmospheric marketing game? The time has come, as John Kerry puts it, to unbrand the word brand.
Via Houston Cronicle
MediaPost and Deutsche Bank surveyed advertising executives regarding their online budgets. The results of the survey are published on MediaPost Web site. 35% of budgets dedicated to online branding went to niche sites such as iVillage and Marketwatch. 21% went to the three largest portals, with [tag]Yahoo![/tag] capturing 11%, as much as MSN and America Online combined (MSN had 6% and America Online had 5%). 13% went to Web sites of local media, while 11% went to ad networks. The remaining 20% went to various other sites, including Web sites of local media.
69% of respondents also reported spending more to buy sponsored listings on search engines. 35% of executives said cost-per-click had increased between 1 and 10%, while 25% reported a price increase of 11 to 20%; 9% of respondents said paid search was now at least 21% more expensive than in Q4 2004. Google accounting for 53% of search budgets and Overture accounting for 28%. 4% of search dollars went to Findwhat and 4% went to MSN.
Companies spend billions searching for memorable slogans, but the payoff is elusive and other key aspects of business may be neglected. Today, however, memorable slogans are the exception, not the rule. Slogans aren’t magic, and in most cases consumers don’t pay that much attention to them anyway. Companies that focus too much on slogans end up neglecting the truly important aspects of their businesses.
In today’s e-commerce age, where everyone is forced to type and to remember names with absolutely correct spellings, companies with big branding campaigns only hurt themselves with their old-fashioned, painted, colorful advice.
The use of color as a name or to identify a corporation is far too stretched. The customer, at large, is somewhat color blind to these branding tactics. Customers are already recovering from the awkward, dumb and, at times, obscene names from the wild branding era of the last dot.com bubble: PurpleFrog, PurpleCow, PurpleDog, PurpleRhino, all the way to BlueFrog, BlueCow, BlueDog, BlueRhino, etc. These poor animals were subjected to much verbal abuse and named in just about every color of the rainbow, almost creating possible strikes at the local zoo.
Brands are not a passing phenomenon, nor are they something to be left to amateurs, or those who have newly jumped on the ‘brandwagon’. These 10 Insights and Opportunities are what are occupying the minds of captains of industry, branders and marketers around the world
1: Clarity
In an over-communicated world, lack of clarity will substantially reduce effectiveness and efficiency; and complex brand and sub-brand structures without a real audience rationale will reduce this still further.
Opportunity
Torture test your brand positioning
Starting from P&G and Gilette merger, and their wide experience in branding, Business Magazine presents five lessons from classic companies and upstarts alike. All are thriving by managing brands differently than companies did in the heyday of the mass market.
Innovate. Innovate. Innovate.
Innovation isn’t always built from scratch. It can be done by transferring technologies from one brand to another.
Branding is an area so often totally misunderstood as having something to do with a [tag]logo[/tag]. But, in reality it is one that has a major impact on the long-term success of all companies, a fact that is now being recognised to the extent of seeing it increasingly creeping into company profit and loss statements.
One new book, Brand Sense : Build Powerful Brands through Touch, Taste, Smell, Sight, and Sound, takes a unique approach to one of most important business issues today: branding.
Based on more than 18 months of research covering a dozen countries, the book explains how the most effective companies build their brands around the five senses — touch, taste, smell, sight and sound — with startling and measurable results.
Drawing on examples of both product creation and retail experience, he details how to establish a marketing approach that appeals to all the senses, not just the usual sight and sound.
This book is a must-read for anyone needing to get to grips with a major business issue, offering great practical advice in a very accessible style.
How clear is your image in the minds of your potential customers? How can you bring that image into focus? Defining, developing and maintaining a brand identity is the key.
A brand image is the picture that appears in a member of your target market’s mind when they see, hear or think about you, your company and your service. So how can a business with limited resources, develop an effective brand image? Here is a step by step guide to steer you through the process.
Full article: Branding: It’s more than a logo
When we speak of branding most of the time people try to relate it to big business house, however, the fact is that every business needs to establish their brand in order to survive the competition.
Most of us, including you, would prefer to consider the stability of a company before making a purchase decision. Once you have established your brand with a professionally designed logo, business card and other marketing efforts it becomes much easier for you to build your credibility among the customers.
So, if you think you are tired of being a “small business” and its time to grow up, take the first step; establish your brand!