The most "legal" definition of a brand belongs to the American Marketing Associations (AMAs): "A name, term, mark, symbol or design, or a combination of these, designed to identify the goods or services of one seller or a group of sellers, or to distinguish the goods or services from those of competitors. A careful reading makes it clear that this definition is hopelessly inaccurate because it has no place in the most important component of the brand - the person whose head it is created. After all, it is quite clear that if tomorrow, God forbid, the war and no one stays alive, the brands will also die. Goods will remain, but there will be no brands: they live only in the imagination of the consumer.
Below are five definitions of the word "brand", which belong to different authors. Before you get acquainted with them, try right here, in the book, to set out your vision of this definition!
Please write your definition of the word "brand".
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"A set of perceptions in the consumer's imagination" is probably the best definition of a brand, which can lead to a dead-end for any marketing specialist or director of a company of any size. On the one hand, no one knows what a "set of perceptions" is. On the other hand, no one can say exactly what a "consumer's imagination" is. But the definition is good: indeed, the brand as such is not stored in our heads, but there are all sorts of associations associated with it on the shelves.
Note that almost all authors try to describe the fact that the brand is in the imagination of consumers in the form of a sum of sensations: "A brand is best defined as the sum of all of a person's experience, their perception of a thing, a product, a company or an organization," "...when they acquire a lot of tangible, intangible and psychological factors," "everything a person thinks about a product, when they see its logo or hear its name. Such vagueness is a consequence of the fact that we do not know the real mechanisms of memory functioning. We have to guess what is going on in a person's head. And if, when naming a product, he or she remembers a lot of different, sometimes difficult to connect without the help of a brand, facts, words, emotions, places, events, etc., we call it a set of associations and try to systematize them.
Specialists have almost agreed (and this is such a rarity in marketing!) that the associations stored in the head can be united into specific networks. These networks are created from the connections that exist between the name (logo and/or color of the package, and/or advertising song, etc.). - All the simplest brand descriptors) that act as reference signals, reference addresses, storage units and other knowledge hubs stored in memory. For example, when the word "Xerox" is used, there may be associations: office, copying, paper, ozone, report, large... These associations may be different for everyone. Even if some associations coincide, the image of the office will be different and will be remembered quite differently ("what interesting employees" or "I hate going there"). The same thing can happen when you look at the company logo, even though it will involve a visual rather than an auditory channel to the brain.
The "associative network" as a step to brand understanding
An associative brand network is all the links that exist between a brand and other information stored in memory. For example, children's memories associated with the fairy tale "Moidodor" can be stored in the child's mind. As the consumer's perception of the brand changes, so does the structure of the connection with the information associated with it. Specialists distinguish between two types of brand associations: primary and secondary. As it follows from the term, the primary are directly related to the brand: packaging, product color, price and everything that the consumer can perceive quickly and without additional efforts on his part and on the part of the company. Secondary ones arise independently as derivatives of primary or directed actions of the company to create them. Celebrities involved in promotion, special distribution channels, place of production, etc. - Typical examples of such associations.
There are many works devoted to the identification of all possible links between the product and other images in the minds of consumers.
The task of the researchers is to understand how information is encoded and stored in a person's memory in order to appeal to it accurately and in a targeted way, encouraging the person to perform the actions desired by the seller (in particular, to make purchases).
This is not easy to do, as every consumer can remember the information about the brand, which for obvious reasons was important to him, so often the networks of associations are very different from one consumer to another. And if the primary associations with the help of advertising, retail control, promotion campaigns can still be somehow managed, the secondary ones are formed almost uncontrollably. And it would be okay if they were not "turned" into primary too often... That's why the control over the creation of associative networks, especially the level of primary associations, is so important when creating a brand.
Michael Corchia, having analyzed dozens of associative networks developed by experts, in his paper "A new typology of brand image" offers his version of the associative network to describe the brand, consisting of 6 general or 15 specific elements.
1. Company: this category refers to knowing the facts about the company - the country where it is located, its strategy, history, etc. This category also includes statements related to brand awareness because the brand itself is part of the company.
2. Other organizations: this includes statements related to competitors and comparing them with the brand in question; government organizations, charitable foundations, etc.
3. Summoned population/brand personnel, lifestyle: human characteristics that are associated with the brand.
4. Summoned population/replacement or events: when advertising creates an association between a brand and the celebrity advertising it, these associations may later be associated with the brand. In other words, his/her experience, attractiveness, etc., can be transferred to the brand. The same can happen with events.
5. Caller population/user images: associations of a brand with a typical user or other users.
6. Call population/Use pattern: Associations with a typical use situation - location, personal experience or information retrieval.
7. Non-product attributes/Product category: Associations with the product category to which some of the brand products belong. The level of abstraction may vary from the most specific Kenzo produces jackets to the abstract - Kenzo produces finished clothing.
8. Non-product attributes/price: consumers often have a strong association of price and brand quality.
9. Non-product attributes/Communication: all associations, mainly with advertising, promotion campaigns, etc.
10. Non-product attributes/Distribution: associations with distribution networks, store designs, vendors.
11. Product-related attributes are the ingredients necessary to perform the function of the product the consumer is looking for.
12. Functional advantages: refers mainly to physiological and security needs, as well as to the desire to get rid of the problem or avoid it.
13. empirical advantages refers to the sensations that arise when using products. They are related to pleasure in influencing the senses, diversity and cognitive stimulation.
14. Symbolic benefits: refers to the underlying needs for social acceptance or self-expression and outwardly directed self-esteem.
15. Attitude: An indicator of the extent to which a person likes or dislikes a subject in which a "subject" is generally used to indicate any aspect of the human world.
The complete Korcia network consists of 65 "cells". And if the above 15 are universal for most brands, the remaining 50 should be based on the specifics of a particular product category.