Literature review:
Branding; the opportunities and threats of creating a brand for a start-up. 第二部分
Opportunities
For a new company to have some advantages and opportunities working in its favour, a lot of work is required to pick out these characteristics in a market flooded by either competitors offering the exact same goods as the new firm or those offering substitute goods to the same market (Mukherjee, 2014). The opportunities available for any start-up business looking to brand may include;
Early brand management. (McDonald, 2012) notes that knowing the kind of services and products a new business targets to bring to the market, a start-up business has ample time to analyse what already exists in the market and plan accordingly. Having an opportunity to look around enables a business come up with a better brand and better strategies than all that exist while at the same time fitting in some already existing market niches. It gives way to analyse existing brands and know what works and what doesn’t in a certain environment (Mukherjee, 2014).
Consistency of a product, service and a firm in the eyes of consumers and a market as general builds buying-consistency and raises sales for the business. When a brand is kept consistent in a market, it raises the possibilities of a consumer considering making a purchase (Spiller and Bergner, 2011). When not all the consumers will buy it at the start, remaining present in the market makes consumers want to give it a try. This calls for manufacturers to manufacture quality to ensure that a trial by a client gives rise to habitual or returnee buying. The company must therefore remain true to its brands (Spiller and Bergner, 2011).
(Edwards & Day, 2007) notes that a business must know how to create special and lasting connections with their customers. This is a way to keep them around for longer. Start-ups could take advantage of branding to maintain customers through CRM. Customer relationship management (CRM) refers to the strategies, technologies and practices that a business uses to manage how a firm interacts with the customers (Kumar and Reinartz, 2012). This may include things like how a business obtains feedback on their services from the clients or promotions by the business for its customers. This is a branding factor as well. Creating such a relationship with clients ensures they feel part of the business as it grows.
A business focuses on blending and growing along with a dynamic market (Schumann & Sartain, 2009). Branding is one of the mechanisms that a start-up could invest in to ensure that their products are noticed in the market and that consumers can relate with them in a long-term basis. While branding is usually a long-term strategy, a business must intentionally keep in touch with its impact on the targets it was created for (Spiller and Bergner, 2011). In some instances, revising a brand may become important to re-align the strategies of a start-up.
A wide range of pricing strategies available for a start-up encourage growth (Spiller and Bergner, 2011). For a start-up, the prices it offers for its products have to be managed from the start to ensure the products are easily notable in the market and sales pick at profitable rates. In most cases start-ups use market-entry strategies; price skimming, captive pricing, penetration pricing among others to price their services and products then revise them as the business grows (Katz & Green, 2009). This enables a young brand to gain roots in a market in terms of quality and performance. In the case these are done in a proper format, a rise in price may be justified.
Creating a differentiated operating brand ensures that it stands out from the competitors, more popularity, continued loyal customer-base and consistently rising sales volume (Bresciani & Eppler, 2010); (Kavaratzis, 2005). There is an exposure that comes with the differentiated logos, slogans and all that tend to create an identity which customers relate to (Bresciani and Eppler, 2010). For instance, the Adidas Company has its shoes identified through the three diagonal stripes on the sides, the tick on Nike products, the ‘bitten’ apple for the Apple company products and many more brands seen in the current markets. These companies started with their current logos which have seen them rise to giants that a majority in the market identify with. A start-up business should be in a position to utilize early identification through branding.
Threats
Branding and running a brand successfully is one of those corporate activities that require heavy budgets to keep running and attain targets (Dinnie, 2015). A start-up business has little budgets to spare for not-so basic activities. The risk involved in engaging an entire physical branding activity is also high. Among cheaper options available in this Internet era for businesses to make large brand impact include face-book platform, You-tube which is highly friendly due to its video capabilities, twitter, Instagram a perfect platform where a business would require branding via images and pictures among others. Older methodologies to brand start-ups would be the word-of-mouth that would be helpful in the case of small businesses (Bresciani and Eppler, 2010).
A tracked history is known to create business credibility. The time a business has invested in branding will be reflected in the size of market influence it has caused and the approval levels it has gained (Sahin, Zehir, and Kitapçı, 2011). A new business lacks this aspect which ends up acting to its disadvantage to a large extent.
For the record, there are cases where companies have come up with brand names or slogans that are already in existence unknown to them. Though databases have made it easier to find out what creations are in existence, some cases go unnoticed. These may result in legal complications and costs that a business did not expect.
Subsequently, an increasing gulf between brand offer and brand capability acts as a brand threat. At times, what is promised and what is delivered may be two different things. Research indicates that some businesses focus more on sales than the impression they leave with their customers (Keller and Lehmann, 2006). Example, the British airways – ‘we can be anything you want us to be’. Moving into new markets, they could not accommodate the comparatively shallow desires of its new global consumers without sacrificing something of what made it special to others such as loyalists.
In the recent organizational platforms and management, mistrust levels have been continually reported resulting in a fall of confidence by customers on some major brands. For a start-up this would result into a complete fail in a brand when still tender. A business must fight to keep internal wrangles unnoticed by its customers and keep brand promises (Sahin, Zehir & Kitapçı, 2011).
Consumers are becoming very marketing savvy. With the amount of public information targeting to increase awareness levels in consumers, they now more than ever before understand the motivations behind marketing (Muzzini, 2005). Businesses have therefore to strive to deliver on their promises.
Conclusions and Recommendations
From the analysis above, there are equally many opportunities as threats in creating a brand for a start-up. It is however a task of management to pick the characteristics that most favour the growth and brand establishment for their business. By carefully analysing the industry and the market targeted, brand establishment could turn out to be the key success of a business in the long-term.
References:
Bishop, P., 2012. Knowledge, diversity and entrepreneurship: a spatial analysis of new firm formation in Great Britain. Entrepreneurship & Regional Development, 24(7-8), pp.641-660.
Bresciani, S. and Eppler, M.J., 2010. Brand new ventures? Insights on start-ups’ branding practices. Journal of Product & Brand Management, 19(5), pp.356-366.
Cooper, L.G. and Nakanishi, M., 1989. Market-share analysis: Evaluating competitive marketing effectiveness (Vol. 1). Springer Science & Business Media.
Dinnie, K., 2015. Nation branding: concepts, issues, practice. Routledge.
Duffy, N. and Hooper, J., 2004. Passion branding: Harnessing the power of emotion to build strong brands. John Wiley & Sons.
Edwards, H. and Day, D., 2007. Creating passion brands: How to build emotional brand connection with customers. Kogan Page Publishers.
Eliaz, K. and Spiegler, R., 2011. Consideration sets and competitive marketing. The Review of Economic Studies, 78(1), pp.235-262.
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Kapferer, J.N., 2012. The new strategic brand management: Advanced insights and strategic thinking. Kogan page publishers.
Kavaratzis, M., 2005. Place branding: A review of trends and conceptual models. The marketing review, 5(4), pp.329-342.
Keller, K.L. and Lehmann, D.R., 2006. Brands and branding: Research findings and future priorities. Marketing science, 25(6), pp.740-759.
Leekha Chhabra, N. and Sharma, S., 2014. Employer branding: strategy for improving employer attractiveness. International Journal of Organizational Analysis, 22(1), pp.48-60.
McDonald, M., 2012. Creating powerful brands. Routledge.
Mukherjee, S., 2014. A study on brand building of small and medium sized enterprises–a conceptual model. International Journal of Marketing and Technology, 4(9), pp.74-88.
Muzzini, E., 2005. Consumer Participation in Infrastructure Regulation: Evidence from East Asia and Pacific Region. World Bank Publication.
Sahin, A., Zehir, C. and Kitapçı, H., 2011. The effects of brand experiences, trust and satisfaction on building brand loyalty; an empirical research on global brands. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 24, pp.1288-1301.
Schumann, M. and Sartain, L., 2009. Brand for talent: eight essentials to make your talent as famous as your brand. John Wiley & Sons.
Spiller, L.D. and Bergner, J., 2011. Branding the candidate: Marketing strategies to win your vote. ABC-CLIO.
The Wall Street Journal. 2005. P&G Agrees to Buy Gillette In a $54 Billion Stock Deal. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB110693197048439468. [Accessed 14 September 2016].
Theng So, J., Grant Parsons, A. and Yap, S.F., 2013. Corporate branding, emotional attachment and brand loyalty: the case of luxury fashion branding.Journal of Fashion Marketing and Management: An International Journal,17(4), pp.403-423.
