Running head: CONCEPT OF BRANDING 1

Concept of Branding

Alexander Rodgers

OMM 615 Strategies: Marketing/Advertising/Public Relations

Robert DeYoung

07/16/2018
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Concept of Branding

Assess how branding has increased in the last few decades. Think of a brand; analyze how the
organization developed its brand equity. Assess the influence of branding on an organization’s
IMC.

Branding is a marketing practice in which designs, tags, or signs are created for catego-
rization and differentiation of one product from another. This means that by implementing an ef-
fective branding strategy, an organization or company gets a significant advantage over the com-
petitors and also attracts more customers as compared to other vendors (Redford, 2001). There-
fore, branding helps the customers in recognizing the products of a particular company. Cus-
tomers’ views are directly influenced by the branding strategies and the ability of the companies
to brand their products. According to Ogden & Ogden (2014), a company image is formed in the
consumers mind once they have the brand awareness and that image directly impacts the success
of the companies. Therefore, it is necessary for the companies to make every effort to describe
the value given to the customers through branding. This essay will assess the way has increased
along with describing how the Nike, Inc. company has developed its brand equity and how
branding influences integrated marketing communication of a company.

This paper will examine the way branding is evolving, how the Nike, Inc. company developed its

brand equity, and how branding can influence a firm’s integrated marketing communications

(IMC).

Increase in Branding Over Time

Recognizing that a brand holds a tremendous amount of value for an organization, mar-

keters are changing how they dedicate a company’s resources to creating developing one (Merz,

Yi, and Vargo, 2009). In its infancy, big businesses had a limited audience and branding their

products involved targeting the customers they could reach. There is not a need for companies to

dedicate massive resources to creating the brand when the return on investment is minimal.

However, the last few decades have resulted in a wider audience being reachable. The introduc-

tion of television and, more recently, the Internet allows firms to reach potential customers that

previously were nearly unreachable (Wang, 2011). This phenomenon has to have an impact on
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businesses because ignoring it can create a resounding advantage to competitors. However,

these platforms require monetary investments. For example, commercials in prime spots will re-

quire more funds than those with traditionally low viewership numbers.

Development of Nike’s Brand Equity

While branding is the system by which a company builds the reputation of the firm’s

name, brand equity is what the organization is trying to build. Brand equity, as defined by Og-

den and Ogden (2014), is “The overall value of a brand” (section 10..2). The ability of Nike, Inc.

to effectively brand the company’s name has it positioned at number 18 on Interbrand’s Global

Brand’s 2016 Rankings (Interbrand, 2016). Moreover, the result is a substantial amount of brand

equity. As of the year 2000, Nike had 45% of the market share on athletic shoes (Maritnson,

2000). It is hard to turn anywhere without seeing the famous Nike swoosh. One of the things

that Nike has done well to build its brand is its use of well-known and positioned athletes (Mar-

tinson, 2000) in their marketing efforts. Using superstars from their respective sports to endorse

the company’s products gave Nike instant credibility amongst the sports fans.

However, Nike has had challenges to its image also. Nike, Inc. faced intense scrutiny in

the past because some of its manufacturers exploited child labor in the production of some of its

products (Boje and Khan, 2009). Nike had to perform some brand repair to return its brand to

the esteemed position it once held. In response to the incident, Nike has since launched an ag-

gressive campaign against the use of child labor (Boje and Khan, 2009). Furthermore, the com-

pany maintains a website dedicated for this purpose. Through this site, Nike, Inc. (2016) pro-

claims, “The Nike Manufacturing Map discloses the names, locations and demographic informa-

tion about the workforce at the factories we contract to make our product, and holds us account-
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able for our chosen source base” (Nike’s Commitment to Transparency). Marketing these efforts

has helped the company recapture some of the brand equity lost through the child labor incident.

Influence of Branding on an Organization’s IMC

Another aspect of branding that Nike seems to understand is the concept of brand iden-

tity. Ogden and Ogden (2014) suggested that brand identity is the perception that firms want to

create for their organization’s products amongst consumers. This makes branding an integral

component of a company’s IMC. If IMC is important in creating consistent messages to stake-

holders (Ogden and Ogden, 2014), then it begins by developing the image that the company

wants to portray and stand for. Once determined, this message needs to resound through em-

ployees, distributors, and the products themselves. Nike excels at projecting a leading sports-

wear image through the aforementioned use of sports figures and aggressive marketing of inno-

vative sportswear technology.

Conclusion

In conclusion, branding is about building consumer trust in an organization’s products. Global-

ization and communication mediums are making a wider target audience possible. As a result,

companies are investing heavily into marketing campaigns that can boost the value of their

brand. Companies like Nike, Inc. understand the impact the brand value has on their sales and

profits. They also understand the need for stakeholders to believe in a brand. Hence, they spare

no expense when recruiting the athletes that will help project the desired image.
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Reference

Ogden, J. R., & Ogden, D. T. (2014). Integrated marketing communications: Advertising, public

relations, and more [Electronic version]. Retrieved from https://content.ashford.edu/