Exploring the Marketing Mix - Essay Example

I feel that the consumer perceptions of brands and their attitudes toward strong brands is the core element of this lecture, as it all boils down to figuring out consumer preferences and what consumers actually expect and how they behave (Brassington & Pettitt, 2003). The reason I prefer this part is that it also throws light on the bet practises to win a customer, from a company’s or a manufacturer’s perspective. All the arguments in the lecture lead to the fact that brands affect the buying behaviour of consumers to a great extent.

A classic example of this is the choice between diet coke and diet pepsi. As a consumer, I have always preferred diet coke over diet pepsi. But I was amazed to find that various tests have actually proved that the quality of diet pepsi to be better than diet coke. But still, diet coke leads the market as the most preferred drink in the diet colas segment (De Chernatony & McDonald, 1998). When the drinks were tested with two matched sample of consumers, the first ‘blind’ (brands were concealed) group preferred diet pepsi.

However, when the same test was carried out in an ‘open’ (brand identities were shown) group, they preferred diet coke (De Chernatony & McDonald, 1998). This example indicates that strong brands are important to both companies and consumers. Though product qualities and prices are given great importance, strong brand overrules all these elements, and can influence the decision making process of the consumers to a much greater extent. Hence distinctive brand identity is the most important element in creating a successful and strong brand (Jobber, 2004).

It is evident that a successful brand should win consumer trust and should add value to the companies and positively affect the customer perceptions of the brand. Consumers also gain, as strong brands assure them of the quality of the products and act as a certification. The formula put forth by Doyle (1998) states that a successful brand is a