The Power of Branding - How Brand Equity Rules the World - Article Example

As a brand equity has the power to affect society through marketing campaigns that a culture can identify with, it also has the power to effect positive change as it influences those who identify with the product.  As in the example of Nike that promotes a healthful lifestyle and the personal power to accomplish positive goals, a brand that has developed a potent equity can promote positive change as well.  Of course, it doesn’t hurt that the products Nike sell benefits from these positive changes.

The way in which a brand is developed is based on a series of decisions that will create an identity for a name of a product or company that will become associated with attributes with which the consumer population will want to form a relationship.  The brand identity will make a statement in regard to the product that may assign attributes that have nothing to do with the product, but with the desires of the consuming public.  In the process of building a brand identity, equity will be gained as assets that will provide credibility, corporate responsibility, quality, and other consigned attributes that are more associated with perception than reality.

  This equity will provide the brand with a foundation that can be transferred to newly designed products, to deeper sales, and to higher levels of cultural importance. When a brand becomes iconic in the cultural landscape, it has a connection to the undercurrent of the social identity that is deeper than the impact that the product without the branding could ever accomplish.  Perception of what attributes the product will assign to the consumer can have an impact that could never be registered without the creation of the brand.

  For instance, when Coke decided to promote itself as a drink that ‘adds life to everything that makes your living right”, the association with a good life became more powerful than drinking a caffeinated sugary drink could actually provide.  Coke has used the concept of bringing the world together, teaching the world to sing, and I’d like to buy the world a Coke as ways to associate with a higher power.