Marketing Profs

In six years of writing about marketing, I've seen many trends burn brightly only to flame out. I've been kissed by the Internet boom's apex, and weathered the nadir of marketing spending these past two years. One way I've managed to keep my business healthy is by employing branding tactics.

Branding is a beautiful thing—any business, regardless of size, can connect with consumers in an emotional manner to cement a relationship.

In his book, Brand Aid: An Easy Reference Guide To Solving Your Toughest Branding Problems and Strengthening Your Market Position (AMACOM, 2003), Brad VanAuken delves into the many ways small businesses can use branding to decrease price sensitivity and increase market share and customer loyalty.

I asked VanAuken to share his top nontraditional marketing approaches and to explain an often-overlooked aspect of branding—the use of color.

McCall: Many of us throw branding, marketing and advertising into the same bucket. Can you help us sort out the differences?

VanAuken: Marketing is a discipline ultimately designed to generate and increase revenues. It includes a wide variety of sub-disciplines, strategies and tactics. The following can be components of a marketing program:

• Marketing research
• Product
• Packaging
• Pricing
• Branding
• Marketing communication (including advertising)
• Distribution
• Promotion
• Publicity
• Media relations
• Industry analyst relations
• Signage
• Merchandising
• Cause-related marketing
• Event marketing
• Trade shows
• Sales support
• Web sites
• Customer relationship marketing, including database marketing and direct marketing
• Viral marketing
• Guerilla marketing

Advertising is paid marketing communication, and its major benefit is to increase awareness. It also communicates the brand's relevant points of difference. For many consumer product categories, it can actually elicit a sale. For most business-to-business categories, it can only increase awareness and put the brand in the consideration set.

A brand is the personification of an organization or its products and services. Brands are designed to build relationships and emotional connections with customers. Brands are also the source of promises to customers. They should promise relevant differentiated benefits. Branding is the process of creating an identity for an organization or its products and services for the purpose of creating relationships with customers and making promises to customers.

Branding is a sub-discipline of marketing, but given its increasing role at an organizational level (organizational branding versus product-specific branding) and the resulting need to manifest the brand promise at each point of customer contact, branding should influence virtually every activity in the organization. Branding is the source of (1) customer goodwill, and (2) a significant portion of the financial value of a company.

There is increasing evidence and consensus that strong brands deliver the following business benefits:

• Decreased price sensitivity
• Increased consumer loyalty
• Increased bargaining power with retailers (for manufacturers)
• Independence from a particular product category
• Increased flexibility for future growth (through extension)
• Increased ability to hire and retain talented employees
• Increased ability to focus the organization's activities and resources
• Increased market share
• Increased stock price
• Increased shareholder value