BRANDING - Research in Sri Lanka

Contents

Pages

1. Introduction 3
2. History of Branding 3
3. Brands & Branding 4
3.1. Levels of Brand Meaning 4
4. Branding Strategies 6
5. Components of Branding 6
6. Branding Scope 7
6.1. Global Branding 7
6.2. Local Branding 8
7. Brand Identity 8
7.1. Trademark & Service-Marks 9
7.2. Brand Name 9
7.2.1. Types of Brand Names 10
7.2.2. Features of a Good Brand Name 10
7.3. Brand Logo 10
7.3.1. Types of logos 11
8. Different Branding Approaches 12
8.1. Individual Branding 12
8.2. Family Branding 12
8.3. Company Name Branding 13
8.4. No-Name or No-Brand Branding 13
8.5. Derived Branding 13
9. Branding in Sri Lanka 14
10. Summary 15

Bibliography: 15

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 1. Introduction

Today the world is heavily commercialized, so that almost all the goods & services
are value added. Many production companies or organizations produce consumer
products & as there are many production organizations for a certain good or service,
the competition for the consumers us also becoming very high. Everybody tries to
retain their customers while grabbing other customers as well by implementing
various business strategies. Therefore the marketing of business came towards the
business environment & people started doing researches in marketing the business
product better than others, marketing deals with identifying & meeting customer
needs & accessing them profitably. So for marketing their products, they found
various strategies to be competent with others in the market; one such big discovery is
the discovery of branding.

In this report first consider on the history of the branding, & then brands & branding
meanings are discussed. Then branding components & the scope of the branding is
illustrated through the report. Eventually brand naming & identity of brands are
discussed deeply in the middle of the report & the branding approaches are also
discussed. At the latter part Sri Lankan branding approaches are discussed.

2. History of Branding

Although the commencement of the branding has no clear cut bounds, it is very clear
that the concept of branding was started whenever the people start selling goods &
services. Earlier people started branding their cattle in order to identify them &
differentiate with other cattle. Since then people did branding for various purposes. In
60’s the concept of Emotional Selling Proposition or ESP came forward. This means
similar brands perceived as different brands by having different names & logos. The
purpose was to have emotional attachment & Coca-Cola & Pepsi are examples on
that. In early 80’s Organization Selling Purpose or OSP branding came forward & the
concept behind this was the corporation behind the brand becomes the brand itself.
Nike is a good example on that. In 90’s the branding changed to Brand Selling
Proposition or BSP. That means the brand is stronger than the physical dimension of
the product which in turn gave an immense power to the product. In 2000 the Me

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Selling Proposition or MSP came forward which describe the strategy of consumers
taking ownership of the brands. Then onwards the concept of branding moves forward
with Holistic Buying Proposition or HBP. That means building a complete multi-
sensory branding is concerned rather than implementing a part of it.

3. Brands & Branding

The American Marketing Association (AMA) defines the term brand as “a name,
term, sign, symbol, or design, or a combination of these, intended to identify the
goods or services of one seller or group of sellers and to differentiate them from those
of competitors. However, some professionals define the term in a more generic way
such that branding is not only concerning products & services but also companies,
commodities, groups & people. A brand is carefully designed to present the qualities
that will attract the targeted public. It depends on its creator’s belief & is created
focusing on its durability & long term consistency. The branding can have many
meanings. There are six levels of branding meaning are described by Philip Kotler in
his book Marketing Management, Millennium Edition [1].

3.1. Levels of Brand Meaning

1. Attributes

A brand that can bring certain attributes to the consumer’s mind. For example,
when thinking of Maruti, the thoughts people would people may be cheap, small,
high cost effective vehicles. Also Jaguar brings the attributes of sophisticated,
high prestige vehicle.

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 2. Benefits

Attributes are transferred into functional & emotional benefits. The attribute cheap
can be transferred into a benefit for a person with a low income.

3. Values

The brand name explains the values of the producer. For example Microsoft
stands for very user friendly interactive interfaces.

4. Culture

The brand represents & addresses the culture of a certain organization, country,
etc. For example Mercedes represents the German culture.

5. Personality

The brand generates the attributes of a certain personality. For example ODEL is
having a good personality in wears.

6. User

The brand suggests the kind of customer who buys or uses the product. For
example Brylcream is for young men rather than 60 year old people.

Branding, on the other hand, is a complex process that ultimately involves in creating
an aimed brand. Unlike other strategies in marketing for approaching the buyers,
branding process creates intuition in both the buyer and seller. Mark Lacter, the editor
of LA Business Journal has stated, Branding has always been a critical subject, and
has everything to do with instant recognition in a very instantaneous society. The
ability to establish your name quickly and have your customer respond to that quickly
is the name of the game.

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 4. Branding Strategies

To acquire the best out of the branding there should be proper way of doing marketing
the product & put the product into the customers. Building a customer friendly
product is not that easy & need many techniques to be followed. In the process of
branding, there are certain strategies to be covered by the organization in order to get
the maximum. There are four events that should be taken place in the branding
process [2].

 Identification

Identification of the brand value of the company is very important to make

relationships with the potential customers. The brand value must be emphasized
throughout the area, throughout the year in all sort of advertising.

 Selection

After the identification of the product among the competitors, then the product is
up to the consumers to select or choose for their usage. Once it is done,
competitors are no longer will be a significant threat.

 Communication

After the selection of the product, the organization can communicate with the
retaining consumers with regard to the product benefits, facilities, improvements,
etc & make them feel more comfortable with the product.

 Differentiation

When the communication becomes stronger, the product brand will be verified,
validated & differentiated by the consumers. Then the product has its own identity
& place in the market.

5. Components of Branding

Whatever the product marketing has the same goal when it comes to branding; that is
to have a personal identity. Among the various components, there are major
components as Advertising, Marketing & Public Relations.

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  Advertising – No matter how fantastic, how efficient is the product, unless the
public is not well aware, the whole effort will be worthless. Therefore
advertising is a major aspect in increasing the consumers of the product.
 Marketing – Marketing the brand itself is an essential component in branding.
Because people should recognize the brand when there is several same type
products are available to select.
 Public Relations – When advertising gets the attention of the public, the
public relations will increase & with the help of that, the organization can get
suggestions, opinions regarding the product.

6. Branding Scope

In the process of branding, the market size or the area is very important factor.
Therefore in the sense of marketing, there are two major branding categories to be
found. Namely, it is global branding & local branding.

6.1. Global Branding

Global branding means the certain product is sold globally & it is known around the
world. Certain products are recognized by the locals by its brand name & when it
comes to global branding, it is very difficult to become a recognized brand among the
competitors around the world. These products are sold in international market & most
of these products are very general consuming so that regardless of the country,
culture, anyone can use the product. Coca-Cola, Unilever, McDonalds, yahoo, etc.

There are several things to be looked at when creating a global brand. The company
should identify the relative attractiveness of each market & conduct attitude & usage
study in each country. Then they should identify the sequence to be entered to the
market & know the category & brand indices in each country. Then they can have a
brand scorecard for each country. These steps are essential to understand the global
market & enter to the market.

As the global branding deals with internationally, there are many variables or factors
affecting to the branding. Most of them are differ from country to country & the
company needs to look at them individually.

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 Product & services
 Product names
 Features
 Corporate slogan

6.2. Local Branding

In contrast to the global branding, local branding targets the local population of a
certain country or area. The market is inside a country or a city & the brand can be
only seen in one country. They are specific for the people who are living in the area &
would not suit for people outside the area & they might even do not heard of such a
brand name. in Sri Lanka, there are many local brand names for our people.
Lankadeepa, Swarnawahini, Micro Cars Ltd, Sirasa, etc can be recognized as Sri
Lankan brandings.

7. Brand Identity

Brand identity is a combination of auditory, visual, & other means of recognition of a

product. Brand identity reflects what the owner wants to tell to the consumer about
the product. By every means of communication, the owner needs to express the
product & its benefits. Not only the brand name & the logo represent the identity, but
also the typestyle, colors, symbols, attitude & personality, brand voice, visual styles,
product design, package design, etc are also plays a major role in brand identity.

The visual of the brand is important in branding & the overall look of the brand image
or the picture represents the product itself. Consumers see & feel the product through

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the visual identity of the brand. So the facts that affect to the visual image of the
product like fonts, colors, styles, logos, etc needs to be in very attractive manner. The
most common & general terms of brand identity are Brand Name & Brand logo.
When the brand name together with the logo needs to be represented uniquely in the
market, then it should be registered under the global standards. It is called
Trademark & it can be used with or without registering.

7.1. Trademark & Service-Marks

Trademarks & service marks are very vital in branding context as to protect the
products from the rivals in the market. Once a product is published every company
make sure to make it a trademark in order to have the ownership with them. A
trademark identifies tangible good or product of a company or individual while a
service-mark identifies the service of a provider. Trademark is an intellectual property
& it includes the name, logo, symbol, design, image, etc of the product. There are
three ways to denote the trademark in the products.

- Trademark used before registration.

- Service mark used before the registration.

- Registered trademark.

7.2. Brand Name

Brand name is an important factor when it comes to branding. It is the written form of
the product specification which differentiates it from other products. Brand name
includes the pictorial symbols it holds, its meaning, its recognition, etc. when a
product is to ready to enter to the market, it should have a recognition from the users
point of view. That means when the name heard or seen, the consumers should
identify the product uniquely. Only remembering the brand name is not enough &
also need to remember the product which holds the brand name.

7.2.1. Types of Brand Names

Descriptive – the product benefits are described from the

brand name.

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Acronym – Name is made with initials.

Founder’s Name – Use people’s name as Brand name.

Evocative – Name evokes a vivid image of the product.

Geography – Brands named for regions & landmarks.

7.2.2. Features of a Good Brand Name

 Easy to pronounce
 Easy to remember
 Easy to recognize
 Attract attention
 Suggest product benefits
 Suggest the company or product image
 Protected

7.3. Brand Logo

As discussed above, brand logo is the identification that reflects the brand. It is a
graphic design or element of a brand & it needs to be unique to be legible to use in the
market. The uniqueness is very important when it comes to marketing, because the
same logo can be used in different products so that the consumers may be confused
when they are up to buy the products. The more unique the logo, the more reliable &
secure the product. Then even if the product is not registered, it can be used as
trademark. Once the logo is registered, no one can use the same logo or similar logos
for their products. It is an intellectual property as same as the logo name.

Organizations use different types of methods in designing their logos. Colors, fonts,
designs, images, etc are really important in designing the logo as they reflect the
product to the user. When designing a logo, better to use few colors & gradients
should be avoided. The logo needs to be design using vector graphic as then it can be
resized. Before designing the actual design, they should have an eye on existing logos

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for legality. Avoiding culturally relevant data will enhance the product logo reliability
among a large number of people.

7.3.1. Types of Logos

There are three types of logos available in the marketing world.

1. Logotype/ Word Mark/ Letter Mark - Text

In this type, the logo is a text element consisting of one or more letters to express
the brand. The text can be either the brand name or some letters to denote the
brand name. It can be the initials of a brand name, full brand name, short form of
the brand name, a symbolic letter, etc. Google, Coca-Cola, IBM, Adobe, canon,
etc are some of the famous logos which are expressed in textual manner.

2. Icon – Symbol/ Brand Mark

There are brand logos which are holding only a symbol or a brand mark as their
brand logo. Consumers recognize these products by their unique design of the
icon of the logo. Mozilla Firefox, Mercedes, Apple, Volkswagen, msn are some
examples in this category.

3. Combination of Icon & Text

In this category both text & icon are visible as the logo for the brand. The text
implies the product name or the brand name while the image visualizes the
symbol for the product. McDonald’s, AT&T, Pepsi, Audi, Reebok can be given as
some examples.

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 8. Different Banding Approaches

Depending on the situation, branding approaches differ in designing the brands.

8.1. Individual Branding

In this branding approach consider of a company having many brands but each brand
is marketed independently. That means in this approach, the goal is to make an
individual identity in the market rather than marketing by the company name or
brand. Each new product in the company goes as purely new brand to the market, & it
has no clear connection to the existing brands in the so-called company.

The major advantage in this approach is that each brand has its own unique identity in
the market & can survive its own. In individual branding failure of a one brand will
not affect that much to the other brand in the company. Because each brand is
marketed in its own, name not by the company name. For example Damro is launched
Piestra as furniture supplying brand in Sri Lanka, but both are marketed separately &
many people still don’t know that both these brands belongs to one company. The
disadvantage is that each brand has to work hard to have a place in the market &
retain the market place.

8.2. Family Branding

Family branding is the opposite approach to the individual branding. In this approach,
rather than having different brands for each new product, they use existing brand
names for new products. That means new products are categorized under similar type
of existing brands in the company. Therefore customers do not see new brands for
each new product; instead they see new product lines in existing brands. That will
help the company to increase the customer satisfactory such that then the customers
always see some novelty in the brand & regular enhancements. Then they feel very
comfortable with the brand. If the organization is well established & famous among
the people, using this approach is very effective. Then people do not bother about the
product & they instead look at the brand &buy the products. So new products also get
into market & establish quickly.

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There some disadvantages also in family branding. If a certain product failed in the
customer satisfaction, then eventually the total brand will be failed no matter how
good other products are. So the loss is very high if one product failed. Another thing
is that they cannot introduce changes to the brand by having different products then
the regular customers will confuse. For example, changing the price limits of a certain
brand is a challenging process in family branding. Highland products can be denoted
as the best example in Sri Lankan context for family branding.

8.3. Company Name Branding

In this approach a company chooses to brand all its products using the company’s
trade name itself. This approach is often used by the companies with a very
sustainability established companies. Mercedes-Benz, Cadbury, and Calvin Klein can
be noted as good examples for this type of branding. Calvin Klein Inc. uses the
company name as the brand name for all its products as Calvin Klein Collection, ck
Calvin Klein, Calvin Klein Sport, Calvin Klein Jeans, etc.

8.4. No-Name or No-Brand Branding

No-Name brand Products can also be seen in day-to-day market where suppliers do
not afford for maintaining a particular brand. These products are mostly the basic
commodity-type products that consumer or business customers purchase as low price
alternatives to branded products. For example, products like sausages, and sugar, dhal
etc, can be seen in Sri Lankan market as alternatives for the branded products with the
same usage. People do not consider the brand when buying these goods.

8.5. Derived Branding

Brand derivation comes with a supplier of a key component of a particular product

tends guarantee his own position by requesting to brand the product on behalf of that
key component. Thus, the key supplier’s brand is pronounced solely or along with the
end-product’s genuine brand. Intel, which secures its position in the PC market with
the slogan "Intel Inside", is a good example.

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 9. Branding in Sri Lanka

In today’s context, Sri Lanka is in a rapid development process in many sectors

including marketing sector. As a third world country, Sri Lankan economy grows
increasingly from the last few years. The open economy employed in Sri Lanka so the
market is not only for local product owners but also for international products.
Therefore the competition among the similar products is very high among locals &
internationals. While they are trying on various strategies to be ahead in the market,
they also keen on developing a good branding image in the market. The branding
concepts & marketing are somewhat new to Sri Lankan economy but now almost all
the organizations make sure to keep the brand name in a high standard.

In the consuming products market, the best & the number one brand name is Unilever.
It is a multi brand organization which established in over 170 countries with a strong
market place. Unilever provides three kinds of products namely, Foods, Personal care
& Home care. Each of these products has many brands & for similar type of products
also sometimes they produce multiple products under their logo. For example, in food
category Astra & Boole Bond Ceylonta, Flora & Knorr, Laojee & Lipton are products
which are in same kind but as in different brand names as different products. So
whether people buy each of them does not mater ultimately they are under same hood.

In the Personal care brand category they have Dove & Fair & Lovely, Lifebuoy &
LUX, AXE & CLEAR & many more as different types of brands in same category. In
the Home Care brands they have Sunlight & Surf Excel, Vim, Rin as their products. It
is true that most of Sri Lankan people are using Unilever products for their day today
usage as Unilever covers more aspects of the Sri Lankan consumer needs. Hemas
Mareting is the best competitor for the Unilever.

In some products the consumer is asking the brand name instead of the product itself.
That means the consumer buy the brand. The reason for that is the product is so
familiar to the consumer by that name such that people only remember the brand
name not the product name. That happens because the name suddenly comes to the
mind of the consumer. For example think of toothpaste. What name comes out first?
It’s almost Signal. People do not ask for toothpaste instead they ask for a Signal.
Think of a soap which used to wash the clothes. In a flash people find the name
Sunlight as the soap suitable for that purpose. That is the identity for Sunlight has in

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Sri Lankan market. People only ask for Sunlight not for a soap to wash clothes. Thus
it shows how the brand name attracted the community. There are many other products
which are same like this including Exide battery, Nokia phone, Siddhalepa, etc.

In Sri Lankan market branding was employed without knowingly for long period of
time. But with the development the companies started working on marketing their
products using branding. Today there are many brands & brand categories are
established in local market.

10. Summary

Branding is a key marketing strategy used by marketers all over the world when
transferring products and services to the customers. A brand is a name, term, sign,
symbol, or design, or a combination of these, that is to identify differentiate the goods
or services including the experiences and associations connected with them. Branding
is the process by which an expected brand is developed. Brand name of a brand is its
written or spoken linguistic element that is used to represent it in front of legal face
and denote its owner as the commercial supplier of its related goods. Brand identity,
on the other hand discusses the image that a particular brand has in buyers’ mind.
Branding is crucial concept in the contemporary market where resource scarcity is in
a huge battle with needs and wants of the customers. Thus, delivering them the proper
message of what sort of product that they are buying is a key for a better market.

Bibliography

[1] Philip Kotler, Marketing Management, Millennium Edition

[2] Brand Strategy — Judd Associates Limited, Crowborough, East Sussex, retrieved
from. http://www.juddassoc.com/brand-strategy

Farsha, Prodcut Branding, Alibaba.com, retrieved from,

http://resources.alibaba.com/topic/35015/Product_Branding.htm

Derrick Daye, Brad VanAuken, Branding Strategy Insider, the branding blog, retrieved from

http://www.brandingstrategyinsider.com/

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