Building Brand Equity-Being Pound Wise
~Nisha Ghanshani
When it comes to building brand equity, marketers often find themselves in a catch-22 situation. After all, there is no escape from the universal problem of scarce resources. By resources here I mean an organization's marketing budget which though adequate on the face of it, often proves insufficient if the marketer tries to pursue the objectives of tactical and brand communication simultaneously.
Tactical communication is the communication of sales promotion offers and is directly aimed at encouraging sales. Brand communication however, aims at establishing contact which is deeper than sales and is aimed at building brand equity. Tactical communication is often employed to increase sales in the short run while brand communication aims at building long term relationships with the consumers.
It comes as no surprise then that the sales team always insists on tactical communication in order to promote sales while the brand strategy team persists in its demand for more brand communication. It is the marketer who is then burdened with the difficult decision of dividing the marketing budget between two departments that seem to moving in opposite directions.
The classic dilemma of short term gains over long term investment grips the marketer. Ergo, more often than not, marketers give into the lure of short-term tactical communication and give up on the more conscious act of building brand equity. These marketers believe that enhancing sales is the primary objective and building brand equity is incidental. Perhaps it is this shortsightedness that causes many a marketer to give up on building brand equity. What they fail to see is that building brand equity is in fact the primary objective, focusing on which will invariably result in sales.
Moreover, though prima facie, building brand equity seems to be in contention with the objective of enhancing sales, both are in fact part of the larger objective, which is to deliver value to consumers while earning reasonable profit for the organization. Nonetheless, the constant struggle for resources between the two objectives makes it inevitable for the marketer to prioritize and chose one as primary. However, as stated earlier, building brand equity should be given priority over short-term sales encouragement.
The reason is simply that once you have converted you product into a brand, there are a lot more factors that come into play during the buying process. Archetypical laws of demand and supply no longer effect sales. Emotional bonding with the brand as well as brand image, brand identity and brand equity all influence the consumers' buying decisions. Once the aim of building brand equity is being pursued, consumers will have a favorable image of the brand. As they view your brand through rose-tinted glasses, everything about the brand will seem positive. The consumers will become brand loyalists and increase in the price, increase in supply and other factors that would have otherwise cause fluctuations in demand, will no longer affect your market share. That's not all. Brand loyalists are also the channels of word of mouth publicity and can act as walking bill-boards for your brand, thereby increasing sales in the long run.
In this way by fulfilling the objective building brand equity, not only does a brand get assured sales from its existing consumers but also stand to gain from the incremental sales caused due to referrals by existing consumers.
[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