What is Brand Management?

Brand management is the art of creating a brand and ensuring the brand is sustained throughout your business. In marketing, brand management is a functionality that makes use of special techniques which help to improve the value of a product or a service in the market. In other words, brand management is all about making your product or service attractive in the eyes of your target market. This can be done by creating confidence in their minds and connect with them.

How Brand Management Works

This marketing strategy helps to grow the price of products and to keep building customer loyalty through creating strong awareness of the brand. Brand management also involves the development of strategic plans to understand the brand comprehensively, its target market, and the vision of the company. Brands actually influence the market competition, consumer engagement, and the management of the company. A strong brand will differentiate the company's product from that of its competitors. It will also ensure the affinity of the product or services. Note that any particular brand established in the market has to continue maintaining its image in that particular market. This can be possible through brand management. An effectively managed brand will be able to accommodate any new brand products or services that will be introduced in the market. Also, to maintain a brand, you have to ensure continuous innovations and creativity. Some of the major brands that have been developed and properly managed include:

• McDonalds
• Microsoft
• Google
• Coca-Cola
• Disney
• Starbucks
• Adidas
• Procter & Gamble.

How Brand Management Works [Example]

In order to build and maintain a brand, it does not necessarily mean that you have to be tied to one particular product or service. One brand could have multiple services and products. Take an example of Ford, the car manufactures. It is a major brand that has produced many different car models under the same brand name. Another example is Procter & Gamble which has different products including detergent, tissue paper, dishwashing liquids, and toothpaste under one brand.

The basic principles of brand management

In order to succeed in your business, here are some of the brand management concepts that you can apply:

• Describe your brand

This includes the company's main purpose, vision, position in the market, and the brands value. The managers main focus should be on what they do best and how to consistently improve these strengths, to continually grow the brand. There is no point in developing other brands only to come back later and sell them off, simply because they aren't performing well.

• Build your brand internally

Your teammates in the company can help you improve by sharing their ideas about the brand. The product and marketing team know how consumers interact with the product. The information they provide will help with the development of new strategies to grow the brand. Ensure you gather ideas from all employees as they serve as brand ambassadors for the company.

• Make use of the brand management software

Employees in the company will come and go. The ways of doing things in the company may change, but the brand will still remain. Evolving the brand over time is an important step in growing it. You can have software that stores various logos and color schemes that can be used in your brands transformation. The most commonly used brand management software is Digital Asset Management (DAM). This allows one to store the company's digital assets. Good examples include logos, images, documents, design files, and any other elements of the brand.

• Keep your competitors closer

No matter how likable your product is in the market, you will always find competitors. They keep bringing in new, better, and cheaper products in the market. Knowing what your competitors are bringing to the market should help the manager to develop better marketing strategies. This is done in order to make the product remain relevant.

The roles of a brand manager

• The brand managers task is to manage both the tangible and intangible aspects of a brand. The tangibles include the product, packaging, prices, logos, the format of the letters in the logo, and its accompanying colors.
• The manager is also tasked with analyzing how the customers perceive the brand. Here the intangible aspects like the consumer experience and how they connect with the brand has to be put into consideration. This will eventually help to build brand equity.

Brand equity is defined as the price that consumers are willing to pay above the normal value of the product. This is generated by the consumers perception of the product. It basically means that if the consumer can pay more money to acquire the brands product even if there is another brand with the same functionalities, then the value of the brand equity will increase. But if the consumer would rather pay for the alternative brand, then the brand equity's value will fall.

• The brand manager should keep into account the target market when bringing in a new brand product into the market. This may involve meeting with analysts to make some of the important decisions. This includes the option of merging with other companies.
• The brand manager will also determine whether the brand will succeed or fail. If he/she is an innovative person that always seeks ways to improve the brand, then the quality of the brand will improve. This will help maintain their loyal customers. But if the manager is content with the brand and its name as it is, and does not does little to improve it, then it will fail. This can then lead to the brand being overtaken by competing brands.

Related Topics

• What is Branding?
• Brand Image
• Brand Recognition
• Brand Identity
• Brand Awareness 
• What is Brand Loyalty?
• What is Brand Equity?
• What are Private Brands? 
• What is Brand Management
• What are Brand Advocates?
• What is a Brand Community?
• Brand Potential Index Definition
• Brand Extension