Brand and Designing a Branding Strategy - Latigo-S - Essay Example

?Introduction to the company and the brand There are many companies today and even brands that seek to generate substantial response from specific customers or target markets. The companies and brands they produced are trying to achieve competitive advantage in order to generate specific market response. There are new market entrants and even products that strive to obtain specific market share and they are creating strategies in order to make a difference and even substantial response from target and prospective customers. Company XYZ together with its renowned deworming product ‘Latigo-S’ for adult and children is aiming to make a difference in a competitive environment. Latigo-S produced by Company XYZ is a dietary supplement that helps cleanse and detoxify the body from the adverse impact of internal parasites in the human body. Company XYZ does not want to compete with other renowned companies trying to promote dietary supplements even though the product it is promoting belongs to the same category. The reason is that Latigo-S is a product that is labelled dietary supplement, but unlike any other products of the same category, its main function is not to directly boost the immune system but to kill internal parasites of the human body. Company XYZ continuously conducts significant market trials for their product offering as they continue with their research strategy for ensuring a sustainable market for Latigo-S. Currently, the company is busy innovating possibility on how they could create a remarkable market for their products and they are now on the go disseminating the real knowledge concerning human internal parasites. Unlike any other companies that promote dietary supplements and educate people concerning pollutants and human nutrition, Company ZYZ together with its Latigo-S is trying to initiate educational campaign on the truth behind human internal parasites and their probable impacts on the human health. Brief description The following are brief descriptions of the chosen company and its brand. Company Company XYZ started its business in the manufacturing and distribution of dietary supplements, but the company is not the first to explore in this market and industry. So it continuously seeks for a better market opportunity. While contemplating on the most essential factors that could affect the human health, Company XYZ finally embraced the fact that the human health is affected by pollutants and parasites (Spooner, 2012, p.239). It was upon the realization of this point that the company started to produce deworming products, until it came up with its very latest breakthrough, the Latigo-S. Company XYZ seeks to offer optimum health to its target customers by providing dietary supplements that could help enhance the human immune system, as its original approach. However, knowing the fact that there are other various opportunities in the same market and other relevant needs to address, the company eventually is now focusing on mass production of Latigo-S, together with its aggressive promotional strategies. This is a vital form of extending Company XYZ’s brand expertise together with the identification of brand values or position (Keller, 2003). Brand Latigo-S is a deworming product but its general label belongs to dietary supplement. Although various studies were already conducted concerning on the effectiveness of this product, Latigo-S remains to be a product labelled with “no approved therapeutic claims.” Major clients and customers who were convinced about the general therapeutic capacity of this product are continuously bringing in the word of mouth in the market, creating a positive response among other prospective customers and eventually high earning opportunity. Latigo-S is one of a kind in the market and a pioneering brand for deworming products that is labelled non-synthetic, but as a dietary supplement made of natural finest ingredients. Introduction to brand and designing a branding strategy Latigo-S as a dietary supplement is unlike any other product offerings belonging to the same category because it tries to connote something special about its name. It is a product that must fight against internal parasites of human adults and children. The brand originally gets its popularity from Company XYZ’s exposure to dietary supplement market. Without this preliminary exposure, the brand will not gain popularity as it tries to only rely on the prevailing reputation of Company XYZ. This is common to happen in other products belonging to the same brand such as Apple Incorporated and its product portfolios. Apple product offerings are relying on the company name making them as signature products (Gitman and McDaniel, 2008, p.344). For this reason and in the same way, Latigo-S started its popularity by carrying the company’s name. Latigo-S is a strategic brand name that aims to explain everything about its ultimate function within its associated brand name. As “Latigo” insinuates positive label when its real Spanish meaning is obtained, one would therefore undertake to create an idea what the product is all about and its capacity or potential to stand as deworming agent primarily against various forms of human internal parasites. Designing a branding strategy at Company XYZ starts from understanding the prevailing market needs of its manufactured product offering that is carrying its own brand name. Part of the general marketing is indeed to understand the need and wants within the target market (Kotler et al., 1999; Boone and Kurtz, 2006). In the case of Latigo-S, the company does not originally have the idea to pursue on this kind of offering, but with the increase acceptance of information concerning the human health in its industry, the company was able to receive a positive feedback and found people to believe that the fundamental factors affecting human health are pollutants and parasites. Most of the dietary supplements already out in the market carry substantial information concerning the need to eradicate high level of toxicity in the body caused by environmental pollutants. However, Company XYZ realised there is a need to create products in order to address the human problem with parasites, which was originally less unexplored prior to the creation of Latigo-S brand. Branding in relation to consumer psychology Knowing, understanding and defining human needs are among the most important marketing activities and all of these are related to realizing actual consumer psychology. Maslow identified motivational needs of humans arranged in a hierarchy in which satisfying the first level of need will result to the satisfaction of the following motivational need and so on, as shown in Figure 1 (Feldman, 2003, p.255). These motivational needs include physiological needs, safety needs, love and belongingness, esteem and self-actualisation. However, other theories concerning understanding of needs of humans that could be used for motivational purposes also generally highlight these needs, but not arranged in a hierarchy, for these relevant concepts believe that human needs could be a combination of two or more types of needs at a given time (Feldman, 2003). To cite an instance, the theory of drive-reduction approaches believe that when drive for something existed, humans will always have the tendency to satisfy that motivational tension, for either physiological needs, safety needs, a combination of both and so on (Feldman, 2003, p.251). Latigo-S therefore became a formulated brand that is aimed at motivating prospective customers as it directly addresses human concerns on health and the actual need for safety against internal parasites. For this reason branding in relation to consumer psychology is quite evident from Latigo-S brand for it would directly point out the actual need of human to ensure staying in the pink of health, a vital and basic requirement for human survival. This could be manifested through the increasing drive associated with the human basic needs for survival. Figure 1: Maslow’s hierarchy of needs (Communication Professor, 2012) Brand development and justification of brand development decisions Here are the following considerations that could be taken into account in the development and justification of Latigo-S brand. As stated earlier, there is a need to understand needs as integral components associated with consumer psychology. There is also a need to evaluate the actual potential of the brand, prior to pursuing it (Elliott and Percy, 2007, p.88). A need to discover more relevant information is a must because this would form a clear picture on how to create a story and need for a certain brand (Van den Bergh and Behrer, 2011). Understanding existing market trends is also necessary, as this would help evaluate the probable competitive advantage of the brand (Porter, 1998). The level of marketing activities in response to customers’ prevailing needs is also important. Market research is significant because a marketer should be able to know what consumers are trying to believe (Boone and Kurtz, 2006). Then information dissemination is also important, as part of the promotional strategy (Van den Bergh and Behrer, 2011). These are some relevant moves necessary to be taken into consideration prior to the actual brand development and justification of brand development decisions. In consideration of the above ideas, the brand for Latigo-S would finally create a logo shown below in Figure 2. The reason why there is a picture of a worm with a negative expression is to emphasise the effectiveness of this deworming brand, emphasising the appealing information on the part of the customers and their actual need for the said product. This is also to highlight that the internal parasites such as worms are not going to be happy with Latigo-S. It is important to develop this brand and maintain its identity like this because this would eventually ignite the thought linked with the function of this deworming brand to its target consumers. In addition, seeing the picture of this brand would help ensure familiarity from the point of view of customers who are after of getting rid of internal parasites to ensure optimum health experience. Figure 2: Latigo-S brand logo (Photo credit: How to draw funny cartoons, 2012; Dog supplies.com, 2012) The impact of the internet and advertising on the brand development Today, it is easy to spread the word of mouth concerning a certain brand because of the existence of fast-pace internet connection that is bombarded daily with various promotional activities coming from different product or service offerings and across the globe. The internet has become dynamic because there would be many options or ways to promote or develop a brand (Gay et al., 2007, p.336; Van den Bergh and Behrer, 2011). For example, Apple Incorporated is using blogging activities in order to promote its recent product offerings. On these blogs, prospective customers will get the necessary information they want to know about the product to ensure purchase on their part. Social networking on the internet is also a good and remarkable way to develop a brand such as Latigo-S. Publishing articles that are informative would make sense and after each post, Latigo-S will be introduced in order to attempt a trial purchase from the target audience. The best thing about social-networking is its ability to make information grow viral in just a short while. This would guarantee brand development because this could reach customers coming from different parts of the world. For example, mothers in the UK are after of getting rid of internal parasites and keeping their children from the associated harm. In the same way, mothers in other countries like Japan have the same intuition as they would always look forward to their children’s welfare. With the aid of internet and advertising on this medium, the development of Latigo-S as a brand is not going to be hard because almost everyone could relate with this product, as everybody would potentially find a need for this brand because of the associated needs. Co branding, brand damage and brand confusion in relation to selected company/brand Co branding, brand damage and brand confusion are susceptible to happen during brand development because of the external competition and diversification of product offerings of almost the same categories (Porter, 1998). Co branding is necessary in order to increase brand awareness (Prideaux et al., 2006, p.73). Brand damage is possible when a certain product offering would create a remarkable bad impression from target customers by which the bad word of mouth might even aggravate the situation (Boone and Kurtz, 2006). Brand confusion may also be a possible result of co branding strategy as the marketer could also create multiple brands for a single product. In the case of Latigo-S, a co branding strategy using the name of Company XYZ might be appropriate because as stated earlier, Company XYZ is already known with a remarkable reputation in its industry. Thus, penetrating the market with Latigo-S through Company XYZ would be straightforward decision. Co branding and its impact upon the selected brand/company As stated, co branding Company XYZ and its brand Latigo-S would make a good combination because the company’s name was initially known in the market. At this point, Latigo-S would be best remembered through Company XYZ. Upon hearing Company XYZ, a deworming product would come to mind as it is already integrated with the company as its primary product offering. The case of co-branding Company XYZ and its offering Latigo-S is a strategic way of ensuring the latter’s recognition in the actual market would increase. At this point, it is important to consider the associated cooperation between Company XYZ as a company brand and Latigo-S as a product brand. It is important to initiate this kind of strategy because this would increase the chance to create both a strong corporate and product brand. Internationalisation of branding and justification of the selected company Expansion of business activity on international market is a way towards internationalisation of branding. Company XYZ when it would expand will help increase the chance for Latigo-S to be well-known in the international market. This is due to the reason that Company XYZ’s capability to be well known is higher as it has already established its name in the local market. It has created a name which it could potentially use outside of the local market and bring it in the international setting. There could be four essential models for internationalisation and these include standard international branding, simulated international branding, standard local branding, and system-decided international branding (Kee et al., 2008, p.357). These models try to consider brand image, brand positioning, culture, international strategy and more. Company XYZ could substantially address at most all of these because it has already established its single brand in the local market. Now the challenge on its part is on how to introduce its created brand in the international context considering the fact that it should face other culture, and international strategy. To address these concerns, Company XYZ must consider its approach to be local and extend it in the international context. A strong level of assessment and control must therefore be necessary in order to ensure consistency and eventually success. Company XYZ must be able to conduct all these because at present, it substantially initiates market research activities. Conclusion Creating a brand and initiating branding strategy require significant explorations of the actual market, understanding human behaviour and investigating the level of customers’ needs. These are just some of the essential information included in this essay and the proponent would want to emphasise that brand management is a critical consideration in the development and market penetration of a certain product offering. Brand management requires understanding of the complex things within the marketing arena and the entire business context. For this reason, branding should require meaningful application of the management functions. Planning activity is a crucial concern in brand management prior to any other relevant or significant moves. Summary This paper tries to discuss in detail the associated branding strategy for Company XYZ and together with its deworming brand Latigo-S. As shown, there is going to be a positive outcome for the development of Latigo-S as a brand due to some important factors already stated, in which the bottom line of them all is the creation of needs and strengthening brand awareness and acceptability both in the local and international marketing context. References Boone, L. E., and Kurtz, D. L. (2006) Contemporary Marketing. 12th ed. Mason, OH: Thomson/South-Western. Communication Professor (2012). Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Retrieved from: http://www.comprofessor.com/2010/04/maslows-hierarchy-of-needs.html [Accessed 27 November 2012]. Dog supplies.com (2012). Black Latigo Leather Premium Dog Lead. Retrieved from: http://www.dogsupplies.com/products/Black-Latigo-Leather-Premium-Dog-Lead.html [Accessed 27 November 2012]. Feldman, R. S. (2003) Essentials of understanding psychology. 5th ed. New York, NY: McGraw Hill. Gay, R., Charlesworth, A., and Esen, R. (2007) Online marketing: A customer-led approach. 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Van den Bergh, J., and Behrer, M. (2011) How cool brands stay hot: Branding to generation Y. London: Kogan Page Publishers. Read More