What is Branding??

Moving ahead, the next question which needs to be answered is “What is branding?” Also known as Brand Management, it was started as a discipline at Procter & Gamble PLC as a result of a famous memo by Neil H. McElroy. Branding (or Brand Mangement) is the process of making products and companies into brands. Branding is the consistent and disciplined way we communicate a brand’s essence to the public—employees, shareholders, vendors, customers. An adjunct is “brand development,” the process of identifying and establishing the brand’s essence and identity (well too many suffixes there...we will deal with these as we go ahead). Now let us understand what few learned men have to say about it.

• To start with...Wikipedia :)
  
  Brand management is the application of marketing techniques to a specific product, product line, or brand.
  Well this definition is more or less the same as explained above, but misses on a very crucial point which is that the application of marketing techniques to the brand should be consistent and is further explained as below.
• “There is a difference between branding and brand development....Branding consists of the tactics used to deliver a brand’s distinction, and brand development is the discovery process used to find that distinction. Remember, the definition of a brand is ‘a claim of distinction.’ Branding tactics are the consistent use of colour, graphics and spokespeople used to communicate a brand’s distinction. But please don’t think that colours, graphics or spokespeople are the distinction. Those could change with the next campaign.”
   —Jim Hughes, branding expert and president of The Idea House
  
  Branding and Brand development can be seen as the process of moving the organization up the hierarchy as shown above. Building on mission and business strategy, the brand architecture is defined. On brand architecture are built brand strategy and brand expressions—how the company’s products, services and communications demonstrate and articulate the essence of the brand (well again, I will try and discuss these as we move ahead). That in short is what I had to say about branding.

Well to end it....I will like to quote these words of Mark di Soma, Audacity Group (they somewhat justify what I had said in my previous entries)

"Brand is the 'f' word of marketing. People swear by it, no one quite understands its significance and everybody would like to think they do it more often than they do"