Brand is the sum of business operations

Since modern times, the development of business originated in the West and has continued to advance by leaps and bounds. One of the secrets is "brand". Anyone who has a little knowledge of brand marketing and combs through the history of brand marketing development will find that in the modern marketing era, the highest level of brand marketing is to create a brand in the minds of customers. The author of the following article introduces how to manage a brand. Let's take a look.

1. How were brands invented?

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In the nearly 100 years of development of modern brand marketing, the field of brand marketing has been like the Eight Immortals crossing the sea, each showing its magical power. There have emerged brand image school, brand positioning school, super symbol school, conflict school, brand management school, and brand business innovation school. Among so many factions, which one is the "Nine Yin Scriptures" and "Wu Mu's Testament" of the martial arts world, and who has reached the height of "the Supreme of the Martial Arts World, Commanding the World"?

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Some companies have achieved a peak that is daunting to newcomers by "creating a new generation of products" , such as Ford Motor Company, while others have become a new generation of creators by "creating a sales miracle" by individuals, such as Girard. Coca-Cola and McDonald's have truly pushed brand marketing to the point where no tricks are better than tricks, and have made modern "brand marketing". Therefore, the former president of Coca-Cola dared to make a bold statement: "If Coca-Cola's global factories disappear overnight, I can revive Coca-Cola the next day." McDonald's and Coca-Cola have left a deep impression in people's minds. During the lockdown period in Shanghai, Coca-Cola even became "hard currency".

Anyone who has a little knowledge of brand marketing and combs through the history of brand marketing development will find that in the modern marketing era, the highest level of brand marketing is to create a brand in the minds of customers. And the essence of marketing is also in the brand. Drucker defines marketing as creating customers, and brand is the most effective means to create customers. Kotler, the father of modern marketing who is nearly 100 years old, once said: The true test of marketing genius is not to produce a successful product, but to create a successful brand. Advertising Pope Ogilvy said: Anyone can sell products, but only true geniuses can create global brands. These two views, whether you believe them or not. Anyway, I believe them!!!

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Since modern times, the development of business originated in the West and has continued to advance by leaps and bounds. One of the secrets is "brand". Modern brands originated in the West, and brands are also one of the great inventions of Western business. Brands can be described as a wonder of business civilization and the pride of human culture. In the business world and modern human society, brands are omnipresent, within reach and indispensable. Brands have penetrated into personal life, brands have changed business and society, and brands have influenced the future of mankind. However, we all know that brands are not natural things, but "spirits" invented by humans. Brands were invented by the West. Why did Westerners invent and pursue brands?

If we use one sentence to explain: the secret of brand lies in the Matthew effect of brand. The Westerners (especially the United States) invented brands, which is related to their religious beliefs. In the Christian Bible, New Testament, Matthew, there is such a verse: "To those who have, more will be given, and they will have an abundance; from those who have not, even what they have will be taken away." This "those who have more, and those who do not have less" is the famous "Matthew effect" in sociology.

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In human commercial and economic activities, the Matthew effect is followed. For example, people with more money are more likely to make money than those with less money, and rich people are more likely to borrow money than poor people, etc. Abhijit V. Banerjee and Esther Duflo, two great economists, once wrote a book called "The Nature of Poverty". These two economists also won the Nobel Prize in Economics for the ideas revealed in the book. Similar ideas are also revealed in the book.

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What is the biggest Matthew effect in business and economic activities? The smartest answer from Western entrepreneurs and businesses is that brands have the biggest Matthew effect in business. With brands, companies have more market advantages, are more likely to obtain higher profits, are more likely to achieve market expansion, are more likely to be invincible in market competition, and are more likely to win respect and long-term success. Therefore, for entrepreneurs, although brands are not the only choice in any situation, they are the best choice. Although creating a brand requires long-term investment, is arduous and risky, it is a more long-term and wise choice.

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The most valuable thing about a brand is its intangible assets. Coca-Cola, Red Bull, Wang Laoji, McDonald's, Head & Shoulders, and even Haitian Soy Sauce may not have factories, but outstanding companies will choose to build brands as the only way. When multinational companies enter new countries and new consumer markets, they always use their brands to gain a head start. No matter how advertising forms and communication media change, brand is still one of the most "hardcore" assets of a company.

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Why should manufacturing companies pursue brands? If we look back at the history of brand development, we will find that the first brands to appear on a large scale in history were manufacturer brands. The earliest use of brands for products began with Budweiser Beer (1795), more than 200 years ago. At that time, China was still in the 60th year of Emperor Qianlong of the Qing Dynasty. Colgate began in 1806, the year when Francis II, Holy Roman Emperor, was forced to give up his title of Emperor of the Empire and changed his name to Emperor Franz I of Austria. The Holy Roman Empire fell.

After the Battle of Jena, Prussia was divided into three parts, and the Grand Duchy of Warsaw and the Kingdom of Westphalia were newly established on its territory. At the same time, the German states formed the "Rhine Confederation" according to Napoleon's will. Various countries also followed France's liberal reforms and abolished the serfdom system. Levi's, Nestle, Heinz, and General Electric, which we are familiar with now, were all born during this period. One of the reasons why manufacturing companies built brands was that the scale market and packaged goods gave rise to product logos and brands.

Westerners invented brands initially because of the need for market scale. In order to spread goods to large-scale markets, they must be packaged and labeled. Early food, grains and oils were all sold in bulk (in China, in the 1960s, a large number of foods and daily necessities were still sold in bulk). The scale market brought packaged goods. With the emergence of a large number of packaged goods in the 19th century, labels, logos and even specific names on the packaging came into being and began to become popular. Some of them developed into brand packaging. Heinz founded the Heinz brand through production innovation and promotional activities.

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Another motivation for manufacturers to create brands is to prevent counterfeiting and develop labels into trademarks. Labels or marks are likely to be imitated or counterfeited, so they thought they needed to apply for legal protection, which gave birth to trademarks. Companies began to apply for "trademarks" for their products and seek legal protection under the "Trademark Law". Levi's jeans are a classic example of this period.

In the second half of the 19th century, Levis and Jacobs invented highly wear-resistant jeans for use in the Western Gold Rush in the United States. What was valuable was not the invention of the jeans' craftsmanship, but their brand logo: "Unless a patent is used to protect this invention, these pants will be imitated and lose their value. Anyone may copy and produce such pants, and then we will be left with nothing." Jacobs, who had no money to apply for a patent, joined forces with Levis, who paid for the patent. In 1873, the Levis brand trademark was born.

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When Coca-Cola was first introduced, it also used patents to protect its "secret formula". In the early 20th century, after Coca-Cola was accepted by the market, many counterfeit Coca-Cola products appeared. Coca-Cola spent a lot of effort but still couldn't deal with these miscellaneous brands. Coca-Cola's main defensive weapon is to use the legal means of "trademark law". In 1887, Coca-Cola registered a trademark in the United States. In this process, the United States' trademark law was constantly revised and improved. Later, Coca-Cola also made innovations and breakthroughs in packaging identification, and applied for appearance patents, leaving its competitors far behind with a rigorous brand identification system and powerful brand communication.

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The third and most important motivation for manufacturing companies to establish brands is that companies must use brands as leverage to expand their markets. At the end of the 19th century, product brands began to form a trend, which had a lot to do with the formation and development of large cross-regional consumer markets represented by the United States. If brands are used as leverage to move from regional markets to national markets and even global markets, it will be much smoother.

Market expansion relies on brands, which was the choice of some American manufacturing companies more than 100 years ago. As a result, national brands or national product brands of manufacturing companies began to emerge. In the early 20th century, due to breakthroughs in transportation improvements in the United States, the consumer goods market expanded rapidly from a small region to a large area across the country. Manufacturers rely on brands to expand their markets from regional to national markets, and then national brands emerge, which also puts forward further requirements for brand recognition and brand building.

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The globalization of enterprises must rely on brands. Not only do products need brands to go from regional to national, but companies also need the power of brands to achieve global expansion. Therefore, brands are more likely to break through regional market barriers. In the 1940s, Coca-Cola in the United States took advantage of the Second World War to go global, which was a manifestation of the global expansion of brands.

McDonald's quickly spread all over the world, also through brand promotion, using brand to "pull" the global market. Globalization is essentially brand globalization, which is also the common strategy of multinational companies. If China wants to go global, it must achieve brand going global. Whether it is the Belt and Road Initiative or other major strategies, it is far from enough to just build infrastructure. The output of the brand affects the local people's food, clothing, housing and transportation. Only then can the initiative and strategy be truly successful.

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We already know the motivations of manufacturing companies to build and invent brands, but what is the purpose of channel dealers pursuing brands? Competition. Channel competition induces private brands. After manufacturing companies have a large market and brand, they have a strong market position and voice. For example, Procter & Gamble is the "God of Wealth" that countless distributors and retailers look forward to cooperating with, because Procter & Gamble can provide them with opportunities to make money. This situation is just like the relationship between China's wine distribution companies and Moutai today.

However, in the West, distributors and retailers have long broken this pattern with a brand revolution, which is called the rise of "private brands". The emergence of private brands indicates that brands are no longer limited to manufacturers. Retailers or distributors begin to create their own brands to counter the brand authority of manufacturers. The purpose of retailers pursuing private brands is to compete for the right to speak. Competition in marketing channels has always been fierce, especially in the vertical game between manufacturing suppliers, middlemen, and retailers. Manufacturers are usually in a strong position, holding the right to speak and controlling middlemen.

The advantage of manufacturers is mainly reflected in their brands, just like China's Moutai. Therefore, some powerful retailers thought, why not build their own brands, and thus the idea of ​​retailers developing their own brands emerged. Walmart is a representative of this model, and later brands such as Uniqlo and ZARA are brand channel integration.

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The motivation for the invention of B2B brands is that they are unwilling to be "unsung heroes behind the scenes." Suppliers in B2B industries, such as raw materials, energy, electricity, and large equipment, usually have much larger sales than the consumer goods market, but suppliers of industrial products, key components, and key raw materials have often been unsung heroes behind the scenes in the past.

Competition in the supply chain has forced B2B suppliers to include brands as an important part of their competitiveness in order to compete for big customers and big orders. From the early Shell, DuPont, IBM, GM, Boeing, to the later Intel, Microsoft, Cisco, Oracle, SAP, Siemens, Tetra Pak, etc., B2B brands have occupied half of the world. When we drink milk today, we all know Tetra Pak packaging, which is the result of Tetra Pak's continuous efforts to build its B2B brand.

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Shell was the first B2B company to establish brand awareness. In 1891, Shell was a kerosene trademark and became the company name in 1897. The Shell brand emerged in the early 20th century. After the merger of Royal Dutch Petroleum and Shell Transport and Trading in 1907, Shell became the abbreviation and logo of the new Royal Dutch Shell Group. Shell launched its first brand icon in 1901: a river clam shell. Over the years, the Shell logo has been continuously modified. It has become one of the most recognized symbols in the world in the past 50 years.

DuPont is also a world-renowned B2B brand. They have focused on brand recognition since the early days. Since the 1990s, DuPont has taken its brand strategy to a new level by promoting its brand through appearances in sports events. DuPont claims: "Brand is a key component of DuPont's knowledge-intensive strategy to achieve sustainable growth." Intel has pushed B2B brands to the highest peak. In 1990, its brand strategy "Intel Inside" brought Intel from behind the scenes to the forefront.

Whenever computer companies advertise, Intel is used as a branding strategy, which makes the Intel brand shine. It has become a standard for good computers. Later, when PC processors transitioned to the era of mobile phone processors, the B2B branding strategy used by Qualcomm and Huawei HiSilicon was exactly the same as Intel's.

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The motivation for entertainment and service brands to build brands is to make the intangible tangible. The benchmark companies in the service industry realized early that services are intangible goods, and it is more difficult to ensure the quality of services than tangible products. As a result, the idea that "service brands are more important than product brands" emerged. Brands such as Disney, Ritz-Carlton Hotels, and FedEx began to create brands in the early 20th century, thus achieving long-term industry dominance.

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Founded in 1923, Disney has surpassed many entertainment companies that were once glorious but disappeared, and has become a brand that "creates happiness". It has continuously enriched its connotation through images such as Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck. The rich and colorful brand associations and unforgettable brand experience have made Disney prosperous.

The Ritz-Carlton Hotel has established itself as a benchmark for global hotel services, using its brand to ensure perfect service quality and commitment. It has achieved global chain expansion and brand extension through its brand. Without its brand, Disney and Ritz-Carlton would never have become the dominant players today. Today, Chinese companies such as Hanting Hotel, SF Express, Yuanqi Forest, and Nongfu Spring have also realized the importance of building a brand. When the state provides subsidies, in addition to subsidizing the so-called hardware investment, it should actually also subsidize companies for brand investment.

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Branding methods are constantly being invented and innovated, and the key reason why countless entrepreneurs rush to build brands is that the added value of brands drives companies and brands crazy. The Matthew effect is manifested in economics as additional value and financial benefits, and the paths to achieve it include: brand premium, brand authorization, and brand asset leverage. This is a huge economic motivation for driving branding, and it has been quantitatively proven in various ways.

In modern social and economic activities, people observe, measure and compare the strength of companies. The two most commonly used indicators are: the company's market value and brand value. Looking around the world, the companies with the highest market value are Apple, Google, Microsoft, Tesla, and Amazon. Companies like Coca-Cola, McDonald's, Disney, and Nike have very high brand values ​​and are not very affected by technology cycles.

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Business history has proven that in the higher realms of business civilization and in the minds of great entrepreneurs, the ultimate goal of business is not just to make money, but a spiritual dream or belief. The religious spirit of capitalism pointed out by Weber in his famous "The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism" has always permeated the charitable behavior of Western entrepreneurs.

Drucker, the master of modern management, tells a very inspiring story for entrepreneurs in his book "The Management of Organizations": Three stonemasons asked each other why they worked. The first stonemason said, I want to make a living. The second stonemason said while hammering the hammer, I want to do the best stonemasonry work in the country. The third stonemason looked up, his eyes full of dreams, and said, I want to build a cathedral.

The brand is that cathedral. After the brand was invented and introduced into the business field, the business world has been constantly surprised to discover that respect for the brand is a magnified respect. The brand is the best carrier for realizing spiritual dreams and the brand has magic and charm.

2. Why is brand strategy indispensable?

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People who are engaged in business know that brands are increasingly showing their important status and role in daily business activities. People's lives are full of all kinds of brands. Beverages? Yuanqi Forest, Coca-Cola; ice cream? Magnum, Zhong Xue Gao; liquor? Moutai, Wuliangye; bags? Hermès, LV... Classic brands are timeless, and new brands emerge in an endless stream.

From the perspective of companies and organizations, various products and services are branded. Therefore, brand strategy has also become a classic must-have option for enterprises in modern business activities. Enterprises need to carry out brand management around brand strategy and bring greater and long-term value to consumers, enterprises and society through brand management. In a nutshell, brand is the sum of all business operations of an enterprise, and brand strategy is the commanding height of business logic and practice.

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Brand and branding are the most important inventions in the modern business world. Several centuries ago, brand manufacturers used a means to distinguish their products from those of other manufacturers. In the early 19th century, Western wineries engraved distinctive marks on wooden barrels containing whiskey. As time goes by and the environment changes, the concept of "brand" is like aged wine, with richer connotations and exuding charming charm. In Western countries where modern brand theory was born, more than a hundred years ago, market leverage was firmly controlled by wholesalers, who decided what retailers should sell and how much manufacturers should produce.

At that time, there were no brands, and there was not much difference between commodities, which were highly substitutable. Wholesalers often forced manufacturers to lower prices. In order to change their passive position in trade, some smart manufacturers decided to differentiate their products through competition. They improved their products to give them their own characteristics, and used patents to protect the exclusivity of their products. These exclusive products were given names, and thus the prototype of brands and branding was born.

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When talking about brand strategy, we must first clarify what a brand is. There are many definitions of a brand. Different definitions actually reflect different aspects of the understanding of the brand concept and the evolution of the importance and nature of the brand. The advertising godfather defines a brand as: a brand is an intricate symbol, which is an intangible combination of the brand's attributes, name, packaging, price, history, reputation and advertising style. A brand is also defined by consumers' impressions of its use and their own experience.

The definition given by the American Marketing Association in 1960 is: the name, term, symbol, mark or design and its combination used to identify one or a group of products or services to distinguish them from the products or services of other competitors. Marketing godfather Kotler believes that brand contains many aspects, at least the following six aspects: attributes, benefits, values, culture, personality and users. Brand authority expert Acker defines brand as: a group of brand assets and liabilities connected to a brand name and symbol, which can increase or deduct the value brought to the enterprise or its customers by a product or service.

In summary, a brand is the sum of all the intangible assets of a company. The higher the intangible assets of a company, the stronger its risk resistance. Just like the former president of Coca-Cola said: If all Coca-Cola factories around the world were burned down overnight, he would be able to rebuild Coca-Cola the next day. And what does it rely on? It relies on Coca-Cola's huge intangible assets. Powerful unlimited assets give Coca-Cola a risk resistance that surpasses other brands. Buffett holds a large position in Coca-Cola's stock and also values ​​Coca-Cola's unlimited assets. During the epidemic in April and May, Coca-Cola became hard currency. This situation did not occur in Yuanqi Forest and Pepsi.

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Brand is a combination of subtle feelings in addition to product quality. Products are everything that can be provided to satisfy a desire or need, including tangible items, services, experiences, events, people, places, property, organizations, information and ideas, etc. Through branding, products have added value beyond products, such as emotional value.

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Products are the foundation of a brand, but a brand goes beyond products. It adds consumers' overall perception of the product's characteristics, functions, reputation, and related companies, giving it net asset value beyond the product itself. A brand must contain at least one product, but a product may not necessarily become a brand.

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With the deepening of brand awareness and research, enterprises and the business community have gradually formed a consensus on brand strategy, namely, brand is not only a symbol for consumers to identify the source of goods or services, but also a concentrated reflection of the market reputation, market share and market competition of goods or services. The level of brand development is even an important indicator to measure the economic and technological level of a region or a country.

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Brands can construct self-identity. The self can be seen as a symbolic design, that is, individuals need to actively construct themselves using feasible symbolic materials. Self-identity is the most critical determinant of postmodern consumption. In postmodern society, the self is something that individuals actively create, especially through consumption. Consumers use their free will to build the ideal image they want.

When brands are associated with certain people, they can reflect different values ​​or traits. Consumption of branded products is a means for consumers to communicate with others, and even with themselves, what kind of people they are and what kind of people they really want to be.

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Brands can reduce social transaction costs. Consumers like brands because the meaning of brands provides an easier way to choose, without the need for consumers to think, search and judge. Corresponding to the external attributes of products (brand name, packaging, price), the intrinsic attributes of commodities can be divided into perceived search attributes and imperceptible experience attributes.

The premise refers to the characteristics of the product that consumers can evaluate before purchasing the product; the latter refers to those characteristics of the product that cannot be evaluated before purchasing. When the intrinsic attributes are not easy to perceive, the role of the brand is more prominent. A well-known brand is a symbol of comprehensive advantages such as excellent products, high service quality, high corporate reputation, high visibility and high market share, which can make consumers feel at ease when buying and greatly save transaction costs.

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Brands can reduce cognitive dissonance. Before or after a major purchase, consumers may ask themselves: "Did I buy the right thing or the wrong thing?" This worry often creates a sense of dissonance. But if you buy a trustworthy product, people can not only use the brand to eliminate their doubts when buying, but also feel a very glorious self-satisfaction.

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What is the relationship between brands and enterprises? Why do enterprises have to build brands? In summary, there are six types of relationships between brands and enterprises, namely, creating market share; forming a competitive defense line; providing leverage for cooperation; influencing cash flow; obtaining higher marginal returns; and better coping with environmental changes.

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Brand identity makes brand meaning blossom and bear fruit through product entities, bringing value to customers. Therefore, if an enterprise wants to carry out branding, it must have a clear market choice. In the early stage of brand birth, it is necessary to target specific market segments. Every company is always looking for better ways to meet the expectations of a specific customer group. Brands provide comprehensive value that is different from competitors' strategic goals and provide the market with a set of benefits of idealized attributes, including functional and symbolic, visible and cocoa.

Branding starts with market segmentation, but needs to go beyond market segmentation and become a unique symbol of value. It is a huge misunderstanding to equate brand positioning with a specific target market. The value of a brand goes beyond the specific needs of the market segment.

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If a brand is to avoid being eliminated by the changing times, changing consumers and innovative technology, it cannot remain unchanged. In order to keep up with the times, a brand must gradually improve production, enhance quality, and make continuous progress in products and services. Today, it is a very superficial cognition to regard brand as a means to distinguish products in a homogeneous market, because it ignores the trend of time factors and competition driving innovation. Branding work should be based on long-term operations and persistently create differences through innovation. However, brand innovation is different from product innovation and technological innovation. Brand innovation should be based on the brand and reflect the brand's continuity and inheritance in the time dimension.

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When a company launches branding, it needs to firmly grasp four steps. The first step is to define the brand identity. When launching a product, it is necessary to clarify some basic issues, including the target market, product positioning, and the promises and benefits expected by consumers. Creating a brand is to speak for the product; the second step is to determine the brand name; the third step is to determine the source of the brand image and the representative products; the fourth step is to choose the basic brand communication strategy.

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In the process of implementing brand strategy, we must keep in mind the concept of strategic brand management, which has three essential requirements: commitment, creation and competition.

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Commitment, the brand's commitment establishes a contractual relationship between the brand and the consumer. Commitment allows the brand to enter the minds of consumers and be preferred and cherished. To achieve this, the brand must be warm, smart and caring. Only in this way can the brand maintain a sustainable relationship with consumers. For example, Disney's brand promise is to create happiness. After determining the brand promise of happiness, Disney's movies, theme parks, and peripheral products are all to fulfill this promise to consumers.

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Creation, Drucker, the father of management, believes that enterprises have only two basic functions, marketing and innovation. Marketing and innovation produce economic results, and everything else is cost. Strategic brand management should be based on creativity, constantly inject innovative wisdom into the brand, and support brand development with corporate innovation. Apple in the Jobs era embodied marketing and innovation to the extreme. After Cook took over Apple, he has been eating the legacy left by Jobs.

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Competition. Without competition, there is no need for brands. Brands are tools for competition, and brand strategies must always adhere to competition orientation. For brands to create value, they must have more advantages than competitors, and these advantages must be able to be maintained for a long time. To adhere to the value orientation of competition, brands must have the superiority of uniqueness. Uniqueness is a resource that competitors cannot imitate, which can reduce competitive threats and make profits more sustainable and continuous. Otherwise, success can only be temporary. Superiority is derived from the comparison between brands and competitors.

3. How to brand a company?

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Commercial enterprises all hope that their products and services can become "brands" . They hope that when people mention products and services in a certain field, they will immediately think of their own brand. For example, when we mention cola, Coca-Cola has become a synonym for the category, when we mention herbal tea, Wanglaoji has become a synonym, when we mention amusement parks, Disney has become a synonym, when we mention mobile phones, Apple and Huawei have become synonyms. When we mention electric cars, Tesla has become a synonym. Brand means widespread recognition and sales, brand means scale, and brand means long-term success.

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Marketing godfather Kotler defines brand as: a brand is a name, term, symbol, mark, design, or a combination of them, the purpose of which is to identify a product or service and distinguish it from competitors. But in reality, the value of a brand is not just a distinction. The brand carries richer connotations. The brand means six aspects of value, namely: attributes, value, culture, personality, and users.

In summary, brand means the image of product and quality commitment; it means an effective way to spread the benefits of products or services; it also means a kind of essence, concept and emotion; brand means the overall perception of consumers, various existing experiences, associations and future expectations of products or services, and brand also means the concentration of unique attributes, benefits and values. Let consumers simplify and simplify decision-making.

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The series of work done by branding is to simplify the process of purchasing for consumers and simplify the decision-making. In a word, in one sentence: "Buy me", leave the complex work to yourself and leave the simplified decision to consumers. If there is no brand and branded industry, decision-making is a very complicated process, requiring consumers to search for information and read the evaluation of use and experience. However, in the branded industry, it becomes simple. If you have money and like to drink Maotai liquor, it is right. If you like to drink cola, it is right.

When buying a mobile phone, just choose Apple or Huawei. The decision is very simple. In the early days of the mobile phone industry, there were many mobile phone review agencies like Wang Ziru. However, after the brands in the smartphone industry matured, it became very simple for consumers to choose mobile phones, and such reviews were basically no longer needed.

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Many experts are talking about branding your company. What is branding? Branding is far more than just giving a product a name, a symbol, or a brand motto. Branding is a process of transformation for customers and a promise to achieve a certain effect.

In other words, branding is everything that must be done to fulfill the promise of the customer. When we make a promise and take correct and continuous actions around the promise, branding is successful. From this dimension, the value of the brand can be explained in one sentence: the brand is not just a name or symbol, but a key element in the relationship between the company and the consumer, reflecting the consumer's cognition, feelings and meaning of the product or service in their minds.

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We already understand that branding is to simplify the purchasing process for consumers and simplify decision-making. The concept is very clear. So how to brand? Combining the practices of the Fortune 500 and hundreds of branding cases of Nianzhi in the past 10 years, we have summarized the four key development nodes of branding development: centered on brand identification; centered on brand communication; centered on brand relationships and value innovation; and centered on co-creation and sharing.

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Branding centered on brand identification: In the early stages of branding, i.e. differentiation, it is natural and logical to set the goal of branding as brand identification, which can be simply described as branding = naming + design mark + image building. In the early days, when companies created brands, they all centered on brand naming and design mark, and this continued for a very long time.

After the innovative concept of "brand image" emerged in the mid-1950s, brand creation was attributed to image design and the influence of brand image advertising. Branding was equivalent to image design and was once popular. Some design companies and advertising companies have repeatedly promoted the following view: branding is nothing but image creation. Among the combination of price, quality and image, image contributes the most to the brand. Their arguments have convinced and won a large number of corporate customers. Therefore, CI or CIS was popular for a while. The backbone of branding is design companies and advertising companies.

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Branding centered on communication: In the mid-20th century, the era of mass media began. The focus of branding shifted from identification to communication, and advertising became the top priority of branding implementation. This major change trend and the new strategy of relying on advertising to build brands began before the 1980s and continued for several decades. Branding centered on communication includes two main links: advertising creativity and media placement. It can be simply expressed as branding = brand creativity + vigorous communication. The contribution of creativity is to make the brand a focus or shining point of market attention.

However, it is obviously more important to become famous. The powerful power of mass media in the 20th century has shifted the focus of branding practice to mass media communication. With the help of powerful media, it is possible to gain high visibility and breakthrough sales performance. For example, Coca-Cola, Procter & Gamble, McDonald's, etc. have created enviable market performance through this path. Therefore, the idea that creating a brand is to sell advertising and to spread powerfully seems to be taken for granted. Even to the extreme, selling advertising is the only means to build a brand. This is of course the result of the brand view that brand = famous brand, and that branding is to pursue fame.

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In the 1980s, China had just begun to recognize brands. The media and society showed great enthusiasm. The term "famous brand" was everywhere, and people were looking for fame and high popularity. At that time, the general perception was that brand = famous brand. The top bidders at that time were born in this context, including Kongfuyan Wine, Qinchi Wine, Aido VCD, BBK, and Wahaha. Most of these famous brands are no longer well known to today's consumers, and only a few companies that adjusted their branding strategies in time have survived.

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Branding centered on consultant relationships: Can we build a brand without advertising? In the era dominated by communication, this question is extremely challenging, but the conclusion came earlier than expected. Starbucks, an American brand that rose in the 1990s, gave a positive and charming answer to this question with facts that speak louder than words. Starbucks successfully built a strong brand without any advertising, thus becoming a benchmark classic brand case. Starbucks' success has also pushed the branding strategy to a new level: branding centered on customer experience and relationships. Simply put, branding = strengthening customer relationships + customer experience.

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In the eyes of Schultz, the founder of Starbucks, brand is the bond of customer relationship, and brand experience is the new killer of branding. Starbucks established customer relationship by starting from customer experience, created significant brand value and became a model. Later, Chinese companies like Haidilao, Xibei, Heytea and Nayuki also succeeded by focusing on consumers' brand experience and brand relationship. From the branding of high-end cosmetics and luxury brands such as Estee Lauder, they also abandoned the path of mass advertising and focused on developing the relationship between the brand and target customers.

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However, we need to recognize that the products and services provided by many companies and industries are not as simple as coffee. The core of customer relationships is customer value. Brand experience is very important, but it is only one way to innovate customer value. Complex and highly technological companies actually have another branding killer: give their products better ability to solve customer problems, or to put it another way: innovate the customer value of products or services, and then amplify the innovative customer value through customer experience to stand out.

This model can be simply expressed as branding = innovative customer value. The branding path of innovative customer value represented by Microsoft and Apple has enabled Apple and Microsoft to surpass IBM and become the two companies with the highest market value in the world. Apple is far ahead of similar brands with value innovation + super user experience. Apple can even become the first company in human history to have a market value of more than 3 trillion US dollars.

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Branding centered on co-creation and sharing: After 2010, digitalization has greatly changed the way of creating brands. Connection-interaction-participation-immersion has shown super power. This powerful new force has changed or innovated the rules of branding. For example, Google, Apple and Amazon have become super giants in the business world by taking advantage of the trend. Alibaba, Tencent, Xiaomi and Airless Forest have also seized this new trend of branding and taken off.

The fundamental change during this period is that the subject of brand creation is no longer "I", but "we". This "we" includes customers and stakeholders who jointly create and share brand value, and the premise is that everyone agrees on a certain "brand vision". Branding means building a "brand ecosystem" and establishing a shared vision or ideal. Simply put, branding = co-creation and sharing.

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Six key points in the process of enterprise branding:

1. Pull branding towards sensibility, because emotions are a common behavior pattern of human beings;
2. Strengthen the corporate perspective on top of the branded customer perspective;
3. Identify the three dimensions of branding: brand credibility, brand love, and brand supremacy;
4. Attach importance to the importance of organizational innovation and cultural variables in brand management, and have a global vision for brand creation;
5. In the process of branding, we will continue to deepen and improve brand identity;
6. Create brand equity through brand marketing.

Author: Liu Yichun

Source: WeChat public account "Liu Yichun's Brand Business Innovation (ID: shangyeyiguohui)"