Environment and Market

The Benefits of Having a Good Brand

The brand name is the single most important element for a product and plays an
influential role in determining whether new brands succeed. It works with advertising
and other product features to communicate and position the brand’s image.

The brand name identifies the product and differentiates it from others on the market. A
good brand name can evoke feelings of trust, confidence, security, strength, durability,
speed, status, and many other desirable associations.

A brand name should satisfy several fundamental requirements: it should describe the
product’s benefits, be compatible with the product’s image, and be memorable and easy
to pronounce.

According Chiaravelle and Schenck (2014), great brands create consumer trust and
emotional attachments. As a result, they foster relationships between consumers and
products that lead to the following valuable benefits:

● Premium pricing: Consumers pay more for branded items that they believe have
higher value and lower risk than lesser-known alternatives.
● Lower cost of sales: Consumers of valued brands make repeat and frequent
purchases. As a result, customer-acquisition costs are amortized over a long-
term client relationship.
● Amortize – to pay money that is owed for something by making regular payments
over a long period of time.
- Lower cost of promotion: Consumers of valued brands become
ambassadors who spread positive word-of-mouth at no cost to the brand.
- Higher market share: Valued brands acquire loyal customers who recruit
more customers to the brand, increasing the brand’s share of market while
reducing customer-development costs and building immunity to
competitive attacks.
● Customer Development – it is a process for discovering and validating market
demand for an idea and determining the right product features to meet customer
needs through interviews and structured experiments. Customer development is
used to help build products that customers want and avoid spending time and
money on products customers don’t want. It can be used to identify problems and
new startup ideas, to test ideas, and to optimize ideas and existing products.
 Customer development helps us learn about our potential customers so we can
build products they will actually use.
● Lower employee turnover: Great brands attract passionate employees who pass
their enthusiasm to satisfied consumers, who in turn make employees’ jobs more
enjoyable, reducing employee turnover as a result.
● Higher stature: Valued brands enjoy a high level of awareness and esteem in the
minds of consumers, industry leaders, community leaders, news editors, and
financial analysts and investors, which leads to yet higher brand preference and
marketplace prominence.

Recognizable Brands in the Town/Province

One of the basic but most important aspects of establishing a business is forming a
brand. Branding is a scheme that will give a business a certain competitive advantage
against the existing players in the market. A brand can be considered as the name of a
business including the products and service that they provide, or it can be considered
as a statement that tells the consumers what to expect from your business.

In order to create a brand of your own, an aspiring entrepreneur must be able to identify
and recognize the brands of the competitors in nearby areas. Competitors are those
business establishments in the same area that deals the same products or services that
your business offers. In order to edge those competitors, their branding must be well
identified, recognized, and studied.

The following are the criteria that must be observed when checking out the brands of
the competitors:

● Uniqueness – means that it has nothing equal or equivalent. An aspiring

entrepreneur must determine how the brands of the competitors employ
distinctiveness among others. Based on this, a unique brand must be thought of
in order to stand out from what the competitors are employing into their brand.
● Target Consumers – this pertains to the possible customers of the product or
service. One must know how the brands of the competitors aim at specific
customers. Knowing this will provide an insight on how to create a brand that will
be a sure hit among the target consumers.
● Message Delivery – this relates to the meaning of the brand. Most brands have a
certain slogan that pertains to the quality of the products or service that they
 offer. Studying how the competitors use such slogans will help in creating your
own. In most cases, slogans are created to counteract whatever statement the
competitors says.
● Steadiness – refers to the unfailing capacity of the brand to deliver. The
competitors may be highly recognizable because their brand continues to stand
out. Knowing how to consistently uphold the promised principles of a product or a
service will make your brand recognizable as well.

The business environment where a potential business venture belongs must be well
observed and studied. One of the most basic things to know is the recognizable brands
of the competitors. Failure to do this may result to bankruptcy because improper or
inadequate research on the existing brands will not result in deriving your own brand
that has competitive advantage against them.

Criteria for Developing a Brand

According to Shimp and Andrews (2013), choosing a proper brand name is an important
decision, primarily because that choice can affect early trial of a new brand and have an
effect on future sales volume. A product’s brand name plays an important part in
shaping its immediate achievement upon introduction and its persistent success as it
matures.

When considering criteria for developing a brand name, some of the guidelines include:

● Distinctiveness – A brand name should have a quality or characteristic that

differs from others.
● Brevity – A brand name should be short enough to be used and remembered
easily. Consumers have limited mental capacity and find it easier to remember
short words in memory.
● Appropriateness – A brand name should be appropriate with the business
purpose of the product or service.
● Easy spelling and pronunciation – A brand name should be easy to spell and
pronounce. Avoid unique spellings or pronunciations that consumers won’t
remember.
● Likability – A brand name should be aesthetically appealing or likeable. Names
that are intellectually interesting or give a good “mouth feel” have more
advantage than others.
 ● Extendability – A brand name suggests a visual interpretation and lends itself to
graphic displays and other creative executions.
● Protectability – A brand name should be available to trademark. A trademark is
something that identifies a specific brand and cannot be used by another
business without permission. Strongly defend trademarks from infringement by
competitors.
● Meaningfulness – A brand name should be reflective of product benefits. Names
that convey consumer benefits help consumers’ interpretation of brands.
● Flexibility – Develop brand names that allow flexibility. The brand name should
allow the brand to adapt to changing market needs. For example, Apple™ was
able to expand from computers into MP3 devices and mobile phone handsets,
while retaining the image of the brand.

Generate a Clear Appealing Product Brand

If you are prepared to brand yourself or your business, you should have a clear insight
of what developing a brand essentially entails. In this lesson, you will be guided on how
you can generate a clear appealing product brand.

How to Develop a Brand

● Make a decision of what you are intending to brand. What do you want to brand:
an individual, a product, a company, or a service?
● Undertake research. First, know your market. Second, know about your product
or service.
● Emplace your product or service. Discover and gain a place for your contribution
in the market and in consumers’ minds by giving only one of its kind solutions to
the problems or necessities that aren’t being concentrated on by competing
products.
● Compose your brand definition. A brand definition explains what to proffer, why
you proffer it, how your proffering is distinctive and better, the advantages and
guarantees that your customers can be assured of.
● Create your name, logo, and tagline. A name is the key that opens the lock on
the image of your brand in the mind of your customers. A logo is the brand
symbol that appears on your product. A tagline is a remarkable phrase that gives
 customers a brief indication of your manufactured goods, brand, and market
position.
● Introduce your brand to the public. Your brand becomes known to the public
when you reveal the name, logo, and slogan, and when you start to inform your
market the story of how your brand suggests what you stand for.
● Administer, leverage, and secure your brand. This is the “care and feeding” part
in the process of branding; it’s the stage that results to a strong, healthy, and
resilient brand. Akin to smart parenting, proper management of brand can be
summarized in one word – CONSISTENCY.
● Organize your brand in a different way or realign it to keep it up-to-date. From
time to time, you can (and should) modify how your brand is offered. You also
need to keep your brand presentation up-to-date to keep it appropriate to the
marketplace.

3 Rules of Branding

As you introduce and administer your branding program, keep in mind these three
branding rules:

Your brand is a guarantee that must be strengthened every time people come to get in
touch with any feature of your organization.

Your brand must exactly manifest the core values of your organization, your
management or leadership, and all who bring your brand experience to customers.

Consistency develops brands, so every time you come across with your brand –
whether with your employees, manufactured goods, websites, advertising
communications, news reporting, social media, or any other type of brand experience –
must reliably express the promise of your brand and contribute to your preferred brand
identity.
Canva is a popular graphic design platform that offers a wide range of features to help
users create various visual content, from social media graphics to presentations. Here
are some key features of Canva along with brief explanations:

● Templates:
Canva provides a vast collection of professionally designed templates for
different purposes, such as social media posts, presentations, posters, and more.
Users can choose a template and customize it according to their needs.
● Drag-and-Drop Interface:
One of Canva's user-friendly features is its drag-and-drop interface. Users can
easily add elements like text, images, and illustrations to their designs by
dragging and dropping them onto the canvas.
● Text Tools:
Canva offers a variety of text tools, including different fonts, styles, and
formatting options. Users can easily add, edit, and customize text to suit the
design.
● Images and Illustrations:
Canva provides a vast library of stock photos, illustrations, icons, and other visual
elements. Users can search for and insert these images into their designs or
upload their own.
● Backgrounds and Colors:
Users can choose from a range of backgrounds or customize the color of the
canvas. Canva makes it easy to create visually appealing designs with cohesive
color schemes.
● Shapes and Icons:
Canva offers a variety of shapes and icons that users can add to their designs.
These elements can be customized in terms of color, size, and position.
● Collaboration Tools:
Canva allows users to collaborate on designs in real-time. Multiple users can
work on the same project simultaneously, making it a useful feature for team
collaboration.
● Presentation Mode:
Users can turn their designs into interactive presentations using Canva's
presentation mode. This feature is useful for creating slideshows with a
professional look.
● Charts and Graphs:
Canva includes tools for creating charts and graphs, which can be helpful for
visualizing data in presentations or reports.
● Export and Share Options:
Canva provides various export options, allowing users to download their designs
in different formats, such as PDF, JPEG, or PNG. Users can also share their
designs directly from the platform.
● Brand Kit:
Canva's Brand Kit feature allows users to store and apply their brand colors,
logos, and fonts consistently across all designs, ensuring brand coherence.
● Animations:
Canva has animation features that enable users to add motion to their designs,
making them more engaging and dynamic.

These features collectively make Canva a versatile and user-friendly platform for
creating visually appealing and professional designs without the need for
advanced graphic design skills.