Brand positioning and focus - Research Paper Example

This research is intended to develop the sound understanding of the impact of the branding on the lives of individuals, especially their buying decisions. Moreover, we also aim to identify the best practices of branding in contemporary era. In past era, branding was considered to be what it is considered now. Few years back, brand used to be defined as "the name,associated with one or more items in the product line, that is used to identify the source of character of the item(s)" (Kotler 2000, p. 396) Another definition that was given by Keller (2003) depicts the same thought.

He defines brands as "technically speaking, the n, whenever a marketer creates a new name, logo, or symbol for a new product, he or she has created a brand" (p. 3)" However, over the period of time, it was realized that branding has far wider scope than this. Realizing this, people started to explore more avenues into it. "For a long time, the brand has been treated in an off-hand fashion as a part of the product" (Urde 1999, p. 119). With the changing time, the needs and demands of the businesses were changing too.

"The challenge today is to create a strong and distinctive image" (Kohli and Thakor 1997, p. 208). This definition shows that the scope of branding has been broadened and besides providing identity to the product, it is also responsible for conveying to customers that brand message associated to that brand through the process of branding. The modern concept of branding is associated to a number of other related concepts. In order to make the brand successful and the high impact brand, one of the most essential part is its positioning.

It is well known phrase in the marketing circles that those brands which are top in terms of customer recall are really the leaders. Thus, brand positioning means that a brand should be presented as a response to some customer need, in order to make it successful. For example, if a company sells the cars. The brand manager of that particular car should see that what particular needs that car is going to fulfill for the customers and present the product as simply not the product, rather, the solution to that need of the consumer.

Keeping in view the customer needs is simply one factor, others may include competitor's move, emerging trends and so on and so forth. Besides, other factors of success include, targeted marketing, efficient segmenting and focused advertising and public relations. Targeting marketing and focus advertising are essential because, we can't market our product to everyone. There is a cost to it. Every second that runs an ad on any channels, it costs a handsome some of money to the producer and this price is ultimately shifted to the customer.

If lesser people Brand purchase that product, higher contribution from each purchaser is required. In today's world where there is cutting edge competition, one