The Importance of Branding in the Constantly Changing Market Environment - Essay Example

Introduction In today’s competitive landscape, it has become critically important for organizations to communicate its message with the target audience along with the variety of stakeholders. To deliver consistent message to a variety of stakeholders, organizations tend to utilize marketing communication. Marketing communication, in simpler words, is the delivering of message in a consistent way to effectively communicate with the target market. With marketing communication at work, organizations tend to accomplish two most predominant objectives. First, creating and sustaining demand for the products offered by the organization. Second, shorten the sales cycle so that the organization can be provided with immediate cash (Smith and Zook, 2011). The objective of this assignment is to evaluate the importance of branding in the constantly changing market environment. The basis of this study is to understand how organizations tend to differentiate themselves even after offering similar products in the market place. The study encompasses the role of branding, a brief overview of the products and services offered by the company, the target audience of the company and the important of branding for the organization. Role of Branding Branding has been playing an important role in organization’s success for over decades. Branding is the process through which an organization differentiates its products and services from the competitors, while changing the perception of customers towards the brand. The ability to create awareness regarding the brand has eventually resulted in significant increase in sales. In earlier years, the offerings of organizations to the customers were merely taken as a product. With the help of branding, organizations have provided meaning and reason for existence to their products through the use of branding. With the passage of time, branding has become more of a promise of quality and reputation. The concept of branding encompasses everything about an organization to help customers in the market to create a positive perception regarding the company as well as the products offered by it (Thackeray, Neiger, and Hanson, 2007). In the today’s constantly changing competitive environment, organizations are at war with one another in terms of attracting customers to purchase their products over others. Organizations have acknowledged the importance of branding to promote recognition of the products and services offered. If an organization focuses entirely on being quality provider, this reflects that the organization encourages repeat business. Quite frankly, customers are quite busy to earn their living due to which they tend to adhere on brands that are known to them i.e. familiarity. This means that if a customer recognizes and remembers a brand used in earlier days or months, he/she will most likely choose the product or service again (Zenker & Martin, 2011). The most important thing about branding is that it helps an organization to stand out from the crowd. This clearly means that branding helps an organization to differentiate the products and services offered by the organization. By thinking outside the box, organizations have witnessed significant opportunity to attract the customers in the market, while ensuring that the customers will never forget the products and services primarily because of the utmost accomplishment of desires and needs. On the other hand, branding has helped organizations to market their businesses more efficiently. Through effective marketing, the opportunity to attract potential customers will significantly increase as they will already know about the brand along with the benefits that products and services can offer to the customers (Kotler, Armstrong, Wong, and Saunders, 2008). This clearly reflects that branding can help an organization to motivate the customers and potential customers to purchase the products and services offered without taking into account other products and services in the market (Kotler and Keller, 2009). Starbucks Starbucks is one of the coffee retail giants operating across the globe in 60 countries. Being founded in the year 1985, Starbucks has ensured successful journey by offering its customers with quality coffee. Being headquartered in Seattle, Washington, Starbucks has been ranked as the 19th most innovative company, while being ranked as 54th most powerful brand in the world (Forbes, 2013). Starbucks offer its customers with an innovative menu card that includes variety of coffees, and fresh bakery and confectionary products. With almost 1 million customers drinking coffee offered by Starbucks across the globe, Starbucks has established a brand that outweighs others in the coffee retail industry (Starbucks, 2013a). Target Customer & Value Proposition Starbucks is amongst the most powerful brands in the world. Being a respectable brand, Starbucks sell quality coffee at premium price across the globe. The primary target audience of Starbucks is men and women between the age group of 25 and 40. Starbucks has acknowledged the importance of keeping the target customers satisfied as they account for almost 49 percent of the business. On the other hand, Starbucks also caters the needs and wants of young adults aged 18 to 24. This particular age group accounts for 40 percent of the overall business of Starbucks. The business of coffee retailing revolves around quality and experience. This is the particular reason Starbucks invests heavily on the store-environment along with the training of the staff to provide the customers with enlivening experience. The well-defined target audience has significantly helped Starbucks in becoming the most renowned brand in the world of coffee. Overview of Products/Services Being located in the upscale locations, Starbucks focuses highly on providing the customers with superior quality and unrivaled services within the stores. The core product offering of Starbucks is the coffee that is made from fine coffee beans imported from all around the world. Being a specialty coffee retailer, Starbucks also focuses on providing the customers with variety of coffee and tea products. The handcrafted coffee, tea and other beverages offered by Starbucks is included in the product offering. On the other hand, Starbucks invests heavily in creating a third-place for the customers. The in-store environment of Starbucks has played an essential role in providing the customers with enlivening experience. In addition, the other services offered by Starbucks include free Wi-Fi along with comfortable sofas and an ambiance that motivates the customers to spend quality time at Starbucks. Starbucks and Branding Branding is considered crucial at Starbucks. Starbucks has acknowledged that the relation among the company and its customers is held by trust. To significantly enhance the trust of the consumers, Starbucks constantly focuses upon branding. Meanwhile, Starbucks ensures that it holds a unique position in the market place as well as in the minds of the consumers. In order to gain the attention of the customers in the local and international markets, Starbucks has brought significant change in its Logo. Every time the customer touches and feels the products and services offered by Starbucks, the company feels that it is communicating the brand. The branding of Starbucks starts from the answering of telephone to the execution of promotion. The insight regarding the branding of Starbucks can be clearly witnessed through the special packaging approach taken into consideration by the company. With the passage of time, Starbucks reinvented its logo. As the products and services provided by Starbucks has become an integral part of every one’s lives, Starbucks has introduced unlabeled logo in the year 2011. This clearly indicates that the company is constantly innovating to attract the most of the customers in the market. Additionally, Starbucks aims to inform the customers regarding the importance of eco-friendly products in today’s environment. The introduction of eco-friendly coffee covers has protected almost 10,000 trees (Vong, 2012). On the other hand, the in-store environment also reflects the unique branding of Starbucks. To Starbucks, satisfaction of the customers matter the most. To satisfy the customers, Starbucks provides the customers with an enlivening experience through the initiation of third-place concept. Similarly, the ambiance of the coffeehouses motivates the customers to spend quality time without any tension of outside world. This clearly reflects that the branding of Starbucks has helped in the enhancement of customer loyalty along with customer satisfaction. Integrated Marking Communications Integrated Marketing Communication can be defined as the process through which an organization is provided with an ability to communicate consistent message to the customers. The primary goal of integrated marketing communication is to create an understanding between the customer and the organization (Mulhem, 2009). According to Kotler (2003), integrated marketing communication is the integration of communication tools to deliver consistent message to the customers, while maximizing the impact on consumers. The overall benefit is reaped by the organization as minimal cost is spent on the delivery of message and the outcome is significantly greater than the cost incurred by the organization. With the passage of time, organizations have relied upon the use of IMC to communicate with the customers to create strong relationship. This is done by integrating tools such as advertisement, sales promotion, social media and telemarketing along with other variety of tools available within the market (Piercy, 2009). For instance, Mont Blanc consistently uses a variety of communication tools that delivers similar message to the customers. The marketing mix elements taken into account by Mont Blanc include price, product, design, brand name and distribution strategy to deliver the upscale image of the pen introduced by the company (Fill, 2009). IMC of Starbucks Being a premium-priced coffee retailer, Starbucks focuses significantly on the utilization of integrated marketing communication (IMC) to enhance customer loyalty and customer engagement. Following are the tools that are continually utilized by Starbucks to deliver consistent message to the customers are; Word-of-Mouth Advertisement Unlike other coffeehouse across the globe, Starbucks focuses entirely on the unconventional advertisement method i.e. word-of-mouth. Rather than spending heavy amount of money on the advertisement of offered products and services, Starbucks focuses on providing its customers with an enlivening experience by providing them with quality coffee along with superior customer service. In addition, the creation of third-place has significantly enhanced the satisfaction of customers. This eventually results in the preference of Starbucks over local and international coffeehouse across the globe. The success of Starbucks lies within the word-of-mouth strategy. Rather than speaking about the quality of the products and services, Starbucks focuses on letting the high quality products and services speak for themselves (SOS eMarketing, 2011). This has eventually helped in attaining new customers ranging in terms of demographics. Loyalty Programs The introduction of reward system has allowed Starbucks to enhance the loyal customers significantly in earlier years. The loyalty program of Starbucks revolves around the rewarding system through which the Starbucks let its loyal customers take advantage of the perks in the store along with variety of discounts through email notification. By collecting a total of 12 stars within a month, the loyal customers step up to Gold level. At this level, the customers are provided with free drink, personalized gold card and special offers depending upon the loyalty of the customer. Not only the loyal customers are rewarded through the loyalty programs, the customers are also entertained with variety of special offers at the entrance of coffeehouses (Starbucks, 2013b). Social Media Along with other means of communication, Social media has played an integral role in the success of Starbucks. Starbucks continually updates information regarding the newly introduced flavors along with other products and services that can entertain the customers for a long-time period. Through the usage of social media, Starbucks continually receives feedback from the loyal customers. On the other hand, Starbucks utilizes social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to share information and photos (Disleidy, 2012). Conclusion The art of delivering consistent message across all the channels has become critically important for organizations in today’s business environment. Starbucks is one of the organizations that have continually focused upon the branding of its products and services offered to the customers. With significant importance to branding, Starbucks has ensured its success in earlier years and is still planning to assure success in the forthcoming years as well. Word-of-mouth advertisement, usage of social media and the loyalty reward system of Starbucks are some of the few methods through which the company has remained ahead of others in the coffee industry. References Disleidy. (2012). Integrated marketing communications. http://starbucksmktg5.blogspot.com/2012/12/ch-16-integrated-marketing.html Fill, C. (2009). Marketing Communications: Interactivity, Communities and Content (5th Ed.) London: FT Prentice Hall Forbes. (2013). Starbucks. Retrieved October 31, 2013, from http://www.forbes.com/companies/starbucks/ Kotler P., Armstrong, G.,Wong, V. and Saunders, J. (2008). Principles of Marketing (5th European Ed.) London: FT Prentice Hall Kotler, P. (2003). Marketing Management. Upper Saddle River NJ: Prentice Hall. Kotler, P., and Keller, K. (2009). A Framework for Marketing Management. New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall. Mulhem, F. (2009). ‘Integrated marketing communications: From media channels to digital connectivity.’ Journal of Marketing Communications, vol. 15, no. 2-3, pp. 85-101. Piercy, N. F. (2009). Market-Led Strategic Change: Transforming the Process of Going to Market  (4th Ed). Butterworth Heinemann Smith, P., and Zook, Z. (2011). Marketing Communications: integrating offline and online with social media. London, UK: Kogan Page. SOS eMarketing. (2011). Starbucks success is its word of mouth/ social media/ viral marketing strategy. http://www.sosemarketing.com/2011/03/29/starbuck%E2%80%99s-success-is-its-word-of-mouthsocial-mediaviral-marketing-strategy/ Starbucks. (2013a). Our company. http://www.starbucks.com/about-us/company-information Starbucks. (2013b). Keep your gold benefits. http://www.starbucks.com/card/rewards/gold Thackeray, R., Neiger, B., and Hanson, C. (2007). ‘Developing a Promotional Strategy:  important questions for social marketing.’ Health Promotion Practice, 8(4), 332-336. Vong, K. (2012). Starbucks EarthSleeves will save 10,000 trees. http://www.trendhunter.com/slideshow/starbucks-branding-techniques#10 Zenker, S. & Martin, N. (2011). ‘Measuring success in place marketing and branding,’ PlaceBranding and Public Diplomacy, 7: 32-41. Read More