Essay --

In today’s ever competitive global market, marketers are finding themselves having to grapple with an increasingly difficult issue about branding and their brands. Many marketing managers have to deal with questions of what are the most effective and efficient means to building a strong brand and sustaining it. Pick up any marketing textbook and most will define brands as a name, design, terms, symbol, or any combinative feature that identifies and differentiates one seller’s good or service from those of other sellers. (American Marketing Association) In other words, it is everything that a consumer can retain in their mind about the product or service produced by a particular organization. Brands are often evoked or symbolized using a variety of features belonging to the brand. These features represent all the past experience and expectation a consumer has received about that brand. When we think about brands in the likes of Apple, Bmw, Victoria Secret, and Disney, we not only read into them our experiences with the brand but their features triggers a mental model in our minds. It creates a certain perception of quality, expectations and position in our minds. They connect the products attributes and brand association between the corporations and users. (Biel, 1991) With that said, branding that could create a lasting impression into the minds of its consumers plays an important part for any successful business. It can be used to enhance business performance as brand themselves are used as an implied tool that can positively influence people’s buying behaviors and work as a driving force to convey the business’ message and stay in the customer’s mind. Consequently, studies have been made and the results showed that consumer’s ... ...uality. It was often times like those where it was difficult to measure how good a product is from an unfamiliar brand, hence loyalty was a way of reducing risk. (Simonson & Rosen, 2014). Consumers today are far better informed and likely to investigate the value of products than just to rely on intrinsic values of brands before purchase. Consumers are empowered to do their own research about whatever they want to buy. This trend started with Consumer Reports, which produced reports on objective studies about products and further enhanced with the rise of the internet, which has given ordinary consumers access to expert reviews, user feedback, and details about product data, in an assortment of product categories. A study conducted showed that in 2012, seventy-two per cent of consumers in the U.S look at online reviews before making major purchases (Coopers, 2012).