According to Philip Kotler, “A product is anything that can be offered to a market for attention, acquisition, use or consumption that might satisfy a want or a need.” It is just a feeling of satisfaction for customers that a customer buys. People buy satisfaction not the objects. For example, consumers buy entertainment not the television. Products need to solve the problem of consumers. It can be anything like a physical object, a service, a person, a place, an organization, an idea or a social cause. According to American Marketing Association, “Brand is defined as a name, term, sign, symbol or design, or a combination of them intended to identify the goods and services of one seller or a group of sellers and to differentiate them from the competition. But many critics are not happy with this definition. Name, logo, slogan, URL, symbol, domain name, character, jingle, packaging these all are the brand elements not the brand. Brand is a product, a symbol of trust, a symbol of warmth, a symbol of value, a symbol of premium, a symbol of loyalty. It stands for a complete set of emotions and feelings, a mental mosaic that is completely in a consumer’s mind.
Brand= Product + Image or Product + Added Values (Here added values refers to brand associations, brand stories, its promise, its trust and its packaging). When people say Nirma what comes to their mind? A girl? A washing powder, A soap? Or a value for money offerings? Actually people don’t fall in love with the products rather than they fall in love with the brands.
To give knowledge and information about your product to the people and masses, advertising and marketing serves as the two epitomes for this. To prove its several benefits and values, a new and fresh product has to grow through different stages before reaching the market as a brand or we can say that it is an expedition to see how a new product becomes an advantage or benefit. It is just an expedition to see how a visitor turns into a prospective and potential consumer. But before taking any step regarding this, it is necessary to understand how advertising works. Also one needs to know the following aspects such as in which your product is, how you can change your product into some bigger or valuable brand that you are expecting it to be. Below mentioned are different phases by which a product goes to become a valuable brand in a given period of time.
- Introduction To product:- It is the first and foremost step of advertising through which you make people aware about your product. In this phase, you are in a stage where you can introduce your product to the masses assuming that the people don’t know anything about your product. So, try to make them aware and give them all the necessary and relevant knowledge about your product. One can also straightforwardly begin a teaser that people generally see on television, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, several websites, etc. Several brands such as Apple, Samsung, Del, etc. use this first and foremost stage, i.e., product introduction. To launch their new product in the market, this product introduction phase will help them to generate a propaganda regarding their new product. With time, this product introduction phase has proven effective for the product to become a valuable and reputed brand.
- Brand awareness:- Brand awareness is just the scope through which a brand is acknowledged by its prospective customers and is correctly related with a particular product. After you give the introduction of a product to the masses, now the next step is to create an awareness about your brand among various people. It is also known as the trailer step or trailer phase for promoting a product into a brand. Once you gave the introduction of your product to the audience, the next is to build several strategies to promote your product in the market. Try to use various social media platforms to make people know each and everything about your product. It is also one of the most important steps for the promotion of a new product into a brand.
- Brand excitement:- Brand excitement generally refers to those brands that help to develop a feeling of excitement in their potential customers. It is one of the dimensions of brand personality. So, with the help of the above two stages, now people know everything about you and your product such as who you are, what you do, what your product is, what services and facilities your product offers to its customers, etc. Now it’s time to develop a level of excitement among people for your new product. Try to aware people and let them know how your product differentiates themselves from others in the market. How your product is best and unique from other available products in the market. If you want people to buy your product then you have to convince the people and make them realize the importance of your product and how it differs from other products that are available in the market. Try to inform people about the unique selling points of your new product. If anyone wants to sell a mobile phone, then they should market their phone as “ABC”. After that, they should highlight the main and distinctive features of their product that other products don’t have. For example, there is a unique feature of selfie flash light in a new “ABC” phone, then this feature must be highlighted as other mobile phones don’t have this type of feature available in it.
- Try to increase sales and revenue:- If you are strictly following the above mentioned steps, then you worked so hard for your product so that it can become a brand. But now the time has come to earn some money. With the help of all the above stages or phases, now people not only know about your product rather than they also know why your product is better in comparison to several other products available in the market. To get orders from the people for your products, try to provide them the order link, buy, now, order now, various discounts and offers, and contact number links so that people can easily order your product for their use.
- Brand Recall:- Brand recall is just the top of mind collection of a particular brand when a consumer is simply questioned about the category of a product they’re using. It is fairly a stronger concept or link that leads to final purchase of a product. Once you and your product have made a place in the heart of customers, then they will recommend your products and services to others also. This will help you to turn your product into a brand as soon as possible. Work doesn’t seem to end at this stage. There are more that one can have to do to make their brand a reputed and valuable one. Several companies like CocaCola, Pepsi, Samsung, etc. sell their products to customers using their brand name but then also they still use these advertising strategies or campaigns. This is just because these companies want to serve the most important ingredient of the food, i.e. people. If the company or brand will forget their audience, then the audience will also forget them and they will not buy their product. Your product must constantly stay in the heart of the customers. Try to give them a recall about your brand so that your customer stays within you and by this you will get the ease of repeat purchases by your customers.
For a product to become a valuable brand, people must build some strategies for their product and they should relate and distinguish their product with a few reputed brands. These strategies must help a product in becoming a valuable brand.
- Products can be copied from other products but a brand must be unique, it can’t be copied from other brands.
- Brands are known for something so try to develop your product in a brand with a unique identity of its own.
- Try to constantly engage existing customers and also attract new customers with some new innovations in the product.
- When promises are constantly delivered, brands gain reputation among customers so try to design your product in such a way so that it can easily turn into a brand.
- Try to focus more on product packaging.
