The Final Word on Branding and Marketing
~Nisha Ghanshani
(Taken from an interview with the marketing guru, Ajeet Khurana as he demystifies marketing)
One of the most debated topics of the business world has been determining whether the terms branding and marketing are synonyms or not. The fact however is that branding and marketing though often used synonymously are in fact distinct terms. While one can encounter various definitions of marketing, the one that best describes the phenomenon states that marketing encompasses all functions regarding the offering of products or services. Branding on the other hand can be considered as a valuable tool of marketing.
Let us consider the example of the world's biggest cola makers-Coca-Cola and Pepsi. The makers of almost similar tasting colas have been extremely successful at using branding as a tool. They have in fact managed to brand and thereby market an extremely generic product like cola using the various marketing tools.
Branding and Marketing- the Right Combination:
Branding is not the sole and not always a tool of marketing. In fact for a new product to be introduced in the market, branding is the slowest tool. New entrants often prefer using direct marketing, direct selling, promotion and even tactical advertising to some extent to aid the process of marketing. Branding only commences at this stage and the focus is on using the other tools of marketing.
However, bigger players in the market do not necessarily adopt this approach while launching product extensions. These players begin building brands for any of their product extensions right from the start. This is probably because they understand the importance of branding and also have the dough to invest in the same.
Branding and Marketing- Incidental or Intentional?
While we look at brand creation and brand building as a deliberate exercise, one must concede that most of the biggest brands were created accidentally. The creators of the brands were selling products before they were selling brands. They did not concentrate on the deliberate creation of a logo, image, positioning etc, when they started out. But branding happened and it happened incidentally. Thus, even when you do not brand intentionally, the unique properties of a product often tend to make a brand out of it.
Branding or Marketing- Who's the Boss?
While a lot of discussion has taken place on whether branding and marketing should be separate functions or not, by the very definitions of the terms, it is clear that marketing is the parent function, while branding is the subsidiary one. Thus, branding comes under the purview of marketing and branding strategies and objectives must ultimately fall in line with the marketing strategies and objectives.
[The picture used in this article has been taken from the photo library of stock.xchng.]
Other Articles by Nisha Ghanshani
Building Brand Equity | Branding Strategies | Brand Campaign | Branding Services | Brand Strategy | Branding and Marketing | Branding Agency | Building Strong Brands | Co-Branding | Identity Branding | Logo Branding | What Is Brand Equity? | Brand Equity | Brand Image | Brands