A brand is the

“Personification of a product ,
service or even the
entire company”
• A brand has a physical body
• A Name
• A personality
• Character
• A reputation
• You can respect
• You love a brand
• You can consider the brand as your
personal friend
• View as dependable or undependable
• Like a person , a brand must Mature &
change its product over time , But its
character & core beliefs shouldn’t
change
• Branding is a process
By which a Manufacturer,
Producer or a retailer develops
&Communicates brand attributes
To persuade customers about products
quality prior to purchase
• An identification Mark
• A Symbol
• Name
• Design
• Combination of all these
• Is the verbal part of branding strategy
because of which customers recall &
remember a product .
• Company uses this in all promotional
events & communications
• A logo is a recognizable word , graphic
element or a symbol that represents a
company
• It is a typical way to create uniqueness
• Is any distinctive sign, word ,picture
used by retail to uniquely identify the
source of provider
• Is important in maintaining brand
identification
• Manufactures Brand
• Licensed Brand
• Private label Brand
• Descriptive brand names
• Associative brand names
• Finally, Freestanding brand names
• in early days, goods were unbranded.
[Products such as matchbox and paper
pins still fall under such category.]
• with the emergence of mass production,
customer had a choice. This forced
companies to differentiate their offerings to
customers. At this stage of branding,
differentiation became the driving force,
which was primarily achieved through
changing physical product attributes.
• with the passage of time, it became
extremely essential for companies to
differentiate brands on rational or
functional attributes, as many products
started making the same claim. Therefore,
to differentiate their product from
competitors, marketers started
personifying their brands. ‘Beauty soap for
film star’ – Lux is the classic example of
brand as a personality.
 Stage IV: Brand as an Icon
• Nike stands for winning; and Rolls Royce
as an epitome of luxury. All these brands
are deeply rooted in consumers’ mind –
they are brand icons. In this stage it
appeared as if consumer owned the
brands and they used it to create self-
identity.
• personifying company as a brand is an
ongoing change that also marks the post-
modern marketing. Post-modern
marketing is about consumers being
proactively involved in the brand creation
process. Brand as a company is a stage
where a company considers strengthening
the total access of information about
product and services with a customer-
enhancing relationship.
• ‘The United Colors of Benetton’ ad campaign
creates an ethical unity, Body Shop and brings
to light social issues like environment and
treatment of third world people. Such are the
examples of brands in the stage of ‘brand as a
policy’. Today, only a few companies have
entered this stage, wherein their brands are
closely identified with ethical, social and political
issues that are the constituent elements of the
brand as a policy.
• Cost
• Focus
• Differentiation
• Retail branding does not necessarily focus
only on the creation of private label.
• In the case of multi-brand retailers, the
task becomes more difficult as the retailer
needs to create a store identity which is
different from that of brands that he sells
within the store,
• World over, retailers like shoppers stop
and Spencer, wall mart, pantaloon
Selfridges, and others have strived to
create a distinct brand image.
• Primarily, in a complex and mature
marketplace, a strong retail brand
emerges as the key differentiator.
1. Can the brand be identified with the
lifestyles of its target customers?
2. Is there a perceptible difference
between the brand and the products
offered by the retailer and other retailers?
3. Can a story be woven around the
brand?
• Michael Porter
• inbound logistics,
• operations,
• outbound logistics,
• marketing
• sales,
• service,
• procurement,
• technology development
• human resource management.
• 1. Product.
2. Place.
3. Value.
4. People.
5. Communications.
 Triangle player
• 1. Systems.
2. Logistics.
3. Suppliers.