Is Branding Still Relevant? Strategies for the Digital Age

Introduction to Traditional Branding Principles

Branding is subject to numerous definitions, but author Matthew Healey begins with the definition of "brand" from the Old Norse or Germanic root, which literally means "burn" (Healey, 2008, p. 2). Obviously, branding beef cattle is different from branding Budweiser. In the marketing genre, a brand may be: (a) the name of a product or service (Ivory Soap; BBC News); (b) a trademark for a product such as Panasonic; or (c) the belief a customer holds about a product or service, based perhaps on a slogan like "Please don't squeeze the Charmin!" (Healey, p. 3).

The brand is also a promise from the manufacturer that there will be satisfaction. Healey describes a brand as a "metaphor operating as an unwritten contract" between the company producing the service or product and the consumer. In other words, if you buy this product — one you have seen on television, on the Internet, and in magazines and newspapers — you will be satisfied, and the purpose for which you made the purchase will be realized.

There is a "continuous struggle between producers and customers" to define the exact promise and meaning of branding, Healey explains. People make their own decisions about what to buy, how to live, and who they should be, but they do so "under circumstances shaped by brands' advertising, marketing, and publicity" (Healey, 2008).

In times of economic affluence, brands appear everywhere; when there is an economic downturn, brands "starve," the author explains. The early pioneers of branding go back to the eighteenth century, when breweries like Guinness and Bass were branding their beer products. In the United States, Ivory soap (made by Procter and Gamble) launched the very first national advertising campaign in 1882 (Healey, 2008). What does branding actually do, and what are its components?

Healey lists five components of branding: (a) positioning one's product or service in the market; (b) storytelling; (c) design; (d) price; and (e) the relationship the brand has with the customer. Positioning should be a two-way process rather than just the producer telling the consumer what is good and useful about the product. Storytelling remains compelling because humans have told stories for thousands of years, and a good story still provides a powerful reason for consumers to pay close attention to a message.

Design is the "liquid as well as the label, the nuts and bolts as well as the name, the self as well as the surface" (Healey, 2008). Price is critical to the sale. Healey observes that if two cheeses in a store look the same and one costs more, customers will in most instances buy the more expensive one. However, cutting prices in the short term is done at the company's own peril, because the image of a brand sold cheaply will suffer. Customer Relationship: the branding corporation wants consumers to feel special, and so at the heart of "every branding effort there has to be a kernel of truth" (Healey, 2008). Within that truth there must be a story told — one designed to "make it look good" and to build "a valuable emotional bond between producer and customer."

Beyond making a sale and cultivating loyalty, branding can also: (a) "reinforce a good reputation"; (b) "encourage loyalty"; (c) "assure quality"; (d) convey a "perception of greater worth," allowing the product to be sold at a higher price for more profit; and (e) give the buyer a "sense of affirmation" and an "entry into an imaginary community of shared values" (Healey, 2008). Your brand, the author continues, is what "your customers think it is"; a branded item "makes you feel better" because when you buy "Heinz beans" you step into the shoes of the person in that television commercial with "the ideal kitchen, the ideal family, the ideal lifestyle."

Author Sicco Van Gelder explains that internally, brands have a three-component legacy: (a) the birthright — whoever founded the company developing the brand usually had a "dominating influence" on it (Henry Ford is a classic example); (b) the milestones — events along the way to the brand becoming a household name (Apple, for example, introduced the Apple Lisa in 1983, the first home computer with a graphical user interface, which was a defining milestone); and (c) the role of the brand — how the brand is "perceived" in terms of how the organization benefits from it (Van Gelder, 2005, pp. 25–26).

Destination Branding and City Brand Management

As Heather Skinner writes in the Journal of Marketing Management, there is a great need among marketing professionals to define their terms precisely, particularly when promoting a place for tourists to visit. "Destination branding" — as academics refer to place marketing — is growing rapidly as one approach to promoting tourist destinations (Skinner, 2008). Also called "destination marketing," this process has led to a confusion of terms because the geographic location is considered the destination brand while "location brand" is "aligned to the corporate brand" (Skinner, 2008, p. 917). This illustrates how important it is for marketing professionals to manage precisely the communications their customers receive about a place.

In discussing the importance of communication about a place, Skinner uses the example of how post-communist nations within the European Union have tried to upgrade the attractiveness of their image to bring in more travelers. But when governments — rather than professional marketing talent — lead initiatives to "change a negative place image," they often have "little consideration of the varying levels of importance of those outside who hold that negative image" (Skinner, 2008, p. 919). This returns to the confusion within the marketing industry as to whether to embrace destination branding or place branding. When marketing people are trying to attract tourists to a city, they must understand that "branding a city is not just about slogans and slick commercials" (p. 921). By definition, a city "is a brand." At the conclusion of her article, Skinner insists that place branding is best used in the context of promoting a place's "promotional activities" from an "inside-out approach" (p. 923).

Gregory Ashworth and Mihalis Kavaratzis take the issue of branding cities and nations further than Skinner. They assert that it is perfectly appropriate for a country to develop a strong "nation brand" — "countries have more stable and enduring brand images" — but cities are more dependent on "trends of the market" and tend to fulfill "more self-expression needs compared to countries" (Ashworth, 2009, p. 525). Would it therefore be smart to create an "umbrella" nation brand, with the nation as the main brand and cities as sub-brands beneath it? The authors argue that this would not be a good strategy; it is better to maintain a "clear distinction between the nation and city brands." That distinction is visible in many nations: New York is a destination and a brand in the United States, as is Seville in Spain and Amsterdam in the Netherlands. Few advertising campaigns promote the Netherlands per se, but Amsterdam is a brand known worldwide for its liberal laws regarding entertainment and social interaction.

As to the similarities between product and corporate branding and city branding, Ashworth (p. 524) identifies many linkages: (a) both "address multiple groups of stakeholders"; (b) both are complex and intangible; (c) both must be accountable to a sense of social responsibility; (d) both have "multiple identities"; and (e) both need "long-term development." An intelligent, well-defined, and integrated brand marketing plan for cities should be structured as a hexagon, Ashworth explains (p. 525). The hexagon framework includes: presence (a city's image in the world); place (physical attractions); potential (economic and educational opportunities); pulse (the excitement of being in the city); people (how warm, inviting, or interesting the locals are); and prerequisites (the cost of visiting and the qualities and amenities that make it worthwhile).

"Brands should be viewed as markers in a global system of symbolic differences" (Cayla, 2008, p. 106). Julien Cayla and Eric J. Arnould assert that scholars in international marketing need to "revise some key premises and foundations" and think more in terms of being "culturally relative" and "contextually sensitive" when approaching global branding (Cayla et al., 2008, p. 86). The Nike and Coca-Cola logos are "brand symbols that trigger myriad responses," and when it comes to protests against globalization, demonstrators use the Nike, McDonald's, and Coca-Cola logos as "symbols of corporate excess" (p. 86). To a demonstrator from Asia, the Nike logo may evoke America and Western culture, and if that person has developed antagonism toward U.S. foreign policy, any culturally identifiable brand logo becomes a target for that resentment.

Cayla suggests that the approach to global branding should take into account "the consumer culture theory" (p. 86). Brands around the world are not evolving uniformly and are not becoming "more like Western brands"; rather, they are emerging as culturally identifiable entities (p. 87). The article urges international marketing scholars to "go beyond a purely managerial perspective on international branding issues" and begin thinking about global branding as a process that accounts for "sociocultural entities" — in other words, embracing the cultural dimension of branding. The principles of building a strong brand are not the same across cultures. A cultural approach to branding recognizes that global branding embraces a "constellation of understandings," including the relationship between individuals and the societies in which they live.

Marketing scholars have not studied branding thoroughly in a global cultural context, Cayla continues; scholars have tended to focus on "managerial problems," which has hindered their understanding of what branding means globally (p. 89). They have also tended to use nations as "the only frame of analysis in international marketing," when in fact there are "local cultural roots and identity systems" within nations that cannot be ignored. There should be interest in developing strategies for branding Catalonia and Eukal Herria (Basque country), for example, rather than simply branding Spain, given the vast regional cultural differences between the Basque north and the Costa del Sol in the south.

Branding in the Global Marketplace

Cayla's article challenges the writings of "branding consultants" who consistently assert that "to develop strong brands, firms must follow the models developed by Western companies — Apple, Harley-Davidson, or Coca-Cola" (p. 93). There is implied arrogance in this approach: marketing practitioners suggest that "Asian brands lack the emotional connection that Western brands have established," and, because of the "supposed inferiority of Asian brands," these consultants believe marketing Western branding models to Asian markets is more effective than Asian brands operating in their own marketplace (p. 94). The conclusion of this piece is that global marketers have approached culture "from the outside," but the time has come to move from the standardization of branding to a view of "branding practices themselves as cultural" (p. 96).

One compelling example of how culture can affect the success of a brand in an international context is "Mecca Cola" — produced by a French-Tunisian businessman — which carries the slogan "Shake your conscience" (p. 101). This brand capitalizes on a wave of anti-American attitudes in the Arab world, and while taking a small bite out of Coca-Cola's market share, it "evokes the most powerful symbol in the Muslim cultural landscape, Mecca." Cayla uses this example to reinforce the idea that culture should be a driver for brands as global marketers move away from the narrow view that only Western branding strategies can be effective (p. 101).

The importance of branding to a company's image and sales success is not limited to major Madison Avenue agencies or fashion industry icons like Gucci, Estée Lauder, or Chanel. Brand communication is also vitally important in "media poor" places like the rural and semi-urban regions of Bangladesh, according to Moslehuddin Khaled writing in the International Management Review. Traditional media — television, radio, the Internet, and print — simply cannot be used in a branding campaign in these areas, and Khaled proposes a different approach (Khaled, 2010, p. 85).

In working with Bangladeshi retailers in remote villages, Khaled, along with a distributor sales representative (DSR) from Gray Advertising, found that retailers were slow to determine which brands they wanted to stock. Customers were similarly uncertain and often arrived without a list of their needs. One solution to this slow-moving chain of retail events is to print a card with color photographs of all available brands and give it to the customer upon entering the store. "Many of the retailers are not that literate," and even those who are literate are not always competent in knowing what to order from the DSR (Khaled, p. 86).

Khaled offers a number of suggestions to improve the branding and marketing process for DSRs and retailers in rural Bangladesh: (a) building trust with retailers, who often complain that product availability changes too quickly, and increasing credibility through the DSR; (b) providing free shopping bags for customers, many of whom arrive without bags, making the shopping bag itself a brand promotion; (c) using better strategies to help retailers position brands on shelves more visibly; and (d) convincing companies to provide dedicated shelves for their brands, as Nestlé and Unilever already do (Khaled, pp. 87–88).

Don E. Schultz and Philip J. Kitchen take the not-surprising position that a "strong, consistent and cohesive corporate brand and communication program" is necessary to increase cash flow and "increase shareholder value" (Schultz, 2004, p. 347). But how can corporations strengthen their brand's status in the eyes of consumers if there is a "lack of established and implemented internal communication processes and systems"? (Schultz, p. 348). There is "substantial and growing evidence" that managers within organizations are "miscommunicating with the very people and firms who hold the key to their corporate future" (p. 348).

Using the metaphor of the "corporate umbrella," Schultz argues that companies can improve their "brand communication" and drive both sales and brand image. Traditional corporate communication is fading away, "sinking into the sedimentary strata of economic and social history" (p. 348). Because of the "emerging, interactive and networked marketplace," there must be a "raising of the corporate umbrella." That corporate umbrella should be used not only to "protect and nurture all the individual brands" but also to confirm to all stakeholders that the organization itself "stands for something other than an anonymous, faceless, profit-taking corporate entity" (Schultz, p. 349). The brand's mission must be communicated internally — throughout management layers, business partners, employees, channels, and affiliates — so that when the company announces its values, vision, and commitment, those communications will put "flesh on the bones of the corporation" (Schultz, p. 350).

Empty platitudes and predictable corporate branding programs will no longer succeed in the new global marketplace, Schultz strongly insists. The company must pursue "reality and realism," utilizing a corporate umbrella that: (a) nurtures, protects, and provides the "resource-fertile environment" to grow the entire entity, including brands and stakeholder relationships; and (b) becomes a fully integrated, "process-driven corporate communication program" whose activities act like the "ribs of an umbrella" — when one rib is lost (crisis management, corporate advertising, or environmental issues), the entire communication process "becomes unstable" (Schultz, p. 352).

Conclusion

When thinking of the planning stages that go into today's branding exercises, there can be no valid argument that social media has failed to change the landscape. Social media today — including Twitter, StumbleUpon, Digg, Buzz, Fark, Reddit, Facebook, MySpace, and others — is the domain of the young and technologically empowered. Young, educated, and open-minded emerging marketing professionals do not necessarily visit high-profile marketing agencies' websites to see how products are being branded, nor do they read white papers from iconic agencies on Madison Avenue in New York City.

If they are smart, they will link with friends, colleagues, or more experienced peers and delve into social media first. Fifty percent of active Facebook users log on "in any given day." Users spend "over 700 billion minutes per month on Facebook," and there are "over 900 million objects that people interact with (pages, groups, events and community pages)"; more than 30 billion pieces of content — including news stories, blogs, photo albums, notes, and web links — are shared between users each month. More than 150 million people "engage with Facebook on external websites every month," and "two-thirds of comScore's U.S. Top 100 websites and half of comScore's Global Top 100 websites have integrated with Facebook" (Facebook, 2010).

The commitment that marketers and branding professionals seek from consumers is very similar to the commitment a marketing student makes to getting the most out of study and interaction. As Sung and Campbell explain, brand commitment is an "emotional or psychological attachment" to a brand within a product class — a "long-term behavioral and attitudinal disposition towards a relational brand" (Sung, 2009, p. 99). It is this depth of connection — between consumer and brand, between student and discipline — that determines whether a relationship endures or dissolves the moment a better offer comes along.

The overarching lesson is clear: branding is not dead, but the old models of branding are losing their grip. Companies and marketing students alike must embrace agility, cultural sensitivity, social media fluency, and genuine consumer engagement. The new landscape demands not a broadcaster of messages but a choreographer of conversations. Whether traditional branding ever fully cedes its role to consumer-driven co-creation remains to be seen — but the trajectory is unmistakable, and those who do not adapt will be left behind.