Brand, Why are famous brand products attractive people - Essay Example

“Brands are not simply products or services. Brands are the sum totals of all the images that people have in their heads about a particular company and a particular mark. Brands absorb everything around them like Imelda Marcos in the shoe department at Nordstrom” (Scott Bedbury, CEO of Brandstream, a Seattle-based marketing consultancy, quoted in Kalin, 2001). Indeed the term has come to refer to not only the images a company produces in order to call their product or services to mind, but also the products sold, the services rendered, the building in which the company is headquartered or even the country in which it originated as well as the methods used to project these ideas and images to the broader public.

To remain competitive in the world today, just about anything can be identified with a brand if it is so chosen – companies, museums, hospitals, even individual people (look at Martha Stewart for a prime example). When services are excellent, products exceed expectations, lines are in high demand and the public knows your name, branding can provide a significant assist in boosting international sales. This is the positive side of branding that allows a company to walk into a new country or territory with an already hungry consumer base.

According to Aaker (1996), strong brands work for the company to help them establish their proper placement within the international and local marketplace as well as assisting in the development of a strong consumer base through broad recognition of the brand. This recognition then further works for the company by serving as a weapon to counter growing competition in a shrinking market (Barwise & Robertson, 1992). Corporations can then further use this position to help launch new extensions, such as a line of athletic clothes for Nike or a new flavor for Toblerone (Aaker & Keller, 1990).

The use of celebrities in this regard has been generally considered