A1 Branding as Part of the Marketing Mix
Unit 28: Branding
The marketing mix is the combination of strategies used by marketers to ensure their offerings reach the customer in a profitable manner. It is commonly referred to as the 4 Ps, product, price, promotion and place. With the rising significance in service provision, this has been extended to the 7 Ps, adding people, processes and physical environment.
Product and Branding
The product is the tangible good or intangible service that is provided to the customer in exchange for money. Products should satisfy customer needs and wants by solving a problem or appealing to the emotions and aspirations of the target market.
Products can be adapted to create unique selling points (USPs) to differentiate between different brands on the market. When one brand of the product meets customer needs better than a rival, it is seen as higher quality and brand loyalty can develop.
The product itself can be used to convey the brand message. This may be through unique features, ingredients, colours or packaging.
Price and Branding
Price is the amount of money a business charges a customer to purchase its products. Marketers must carefully consider a range of factors when setting the price including the cost of production, competitor prices, what customers are willing and able to pay and the perception that price may convey about quality.
A key customer objective is to have high-quality products at reasonable prices, it is important that price is aligned with quality to ensure a positive brand perception.
Popular brands with high customer loyalty are able to charge higher prices for their goods.
Promotion and Branding
Promotion refers to the various methods used to communicate a brand and its products to the target audience to communicate the product benefits and encourage them to make a purchase.
Promotion can be used to encourage brand recognition through using consistent methods to communicate the brand values. This can be achieved by using consistent styles such as colours and fonts in promotional materials, including the logo in all promotional materials and packaging and training staff to convey a consistent image in line with brand values.
Strong brands can be used to promote new products through brand extension. This is a strategy where the branding from a product in a well-known market is used to promote a product in a new market. This is a less risky strategy due to existing familiarity and trust with the brand.
Place and Branding
Place in the marketing mix refers to the location where consumers can purchase goods and services. This includes consideration of different distribution channels such as direct to consumers or through intermediaries such as retailers. Place in the marketing mix also considers where products are positioned in-store and online selling.
Branding can support customers in identifying products in retail outlets. Consider a supermarket where there may be over 50 brands of shampoo in a supermarket, branding on the shampoo packaging makes the choice easier.
People and Branding
People are the staff who are engaging with their customers and other stakeholders. Interactions that customers have with staff will positively or negatively affect their experience and influence their perception of the brand.
It is important that staff are able to interact with customers politely, and professionally and meet their needs effectively through good training. Creating a personalised service has a strong impact on customer loyalty so ensuring staff make efforts to use customer names and resolve issues can support a branding strategy.
People may also be used to create a consistent image of the brand. this may be through wearing a uniform, ways of greeting people or how to deal with queries.
Processes and Branding
Processes are the systems in place to provide the service to a customer. These include payment systems, queueing systems, how customers move around while receiving the service or how a website is navigated.
Customers can feel very frustrated when there are long waiting times or difficulties in communication. This can lead to losing customers to rival brands and negative word-of-mouth regardless on whether they are satisfied with the product itself or not.
Brands should gain feedback from customers and check reviews to establish where the frustration points are and take measures to improve the customer buying experiences.
Physical Environment and Branding
Physical environment refers to the tangible elements in the environment where the service is offered. This may be the decoration of the hotel, bank or salon, the furniture used, the lighting and some organisations even consider the scents used to create ambience.
The physical environment can be used to convey the brand message through ambience, layout and decor.
