'Brand is the "name, term, design, symbol, or any other feature that identifies one seller's product distinct from those of other sellers."' [1]
Brands are particularly important in the world of advertising, marketing and sales- the main purpose is to make its product or service relevant for its target market and to set it apart from rivals. A brand is synonymous with identity, and having a solid, well thought out brand can be hugely beneficial to a buisness. Brands often come in the form of logos, and usually coupled with handy taglines, specific memorable colours and names and graphic shapes. Of course, one of the most important brand identifiers is the name. A name is what people will remember most, and is one of the biggest contributing factors in brand recognition and awareness.
Brand awareness is when a consumers can recognise a particular brand under different situations and can link the name, logo etc to certain parts of their memory. Most large companies aim for "Top-of-Mind" awareness which means when asked to name a general type of product that brand springs to mind- for example, someone could ask for a name of a coffee shop and they might say 'Starbucks' as the first thing that popped into their head. Strategic awareness happens when a brand is top-of-mind but also has qualities the consumer perceives as being 'better' than other brands. This distincts that brand from its competitors and can also be known as a 'unique selling point. Usually a 'conceptual brand' is one that isn't directly related to the product or service it aims to promote- a classic example of this is the pink ribbon logo for Breast Cancer research, support and more.
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| Breast Cancer ribbon- credit to http://oakfield.ca/breast-cancer-ribbon.aspx |
As you can see there is no blatantly obvious reason for matching a ribbon with cancer. Of course pink is a traditionally feminine colour which is probably why it was chosen but otherwise, you could pin any meaning down onto it.
However, a 'conceptual brand' should not be confused with 'the concept behind a brand'. A concept behind a brand is just what it sounds like- the idea, the story and essentially the heart and soul of a brand. This usually is what the logo, tagline, advertising and marketing campain will be based on and so it's vitally important to think up a likeable, believeable concept for your brand. It helps to give the brand a 'personality' so to speak and a real persona its' market can identify with.
A fantastic example of a brand with a good concept is the well known Apple logo, which is currently rated #1 on the Forbes magazine 'The World's Most Valuable Brands' list with a value of $104.3bil[2]. Possibly one of the greatest designed logos of all time, it didn't always look like this: the first 'prototype' of the logo was an image of Sir Isaac Newton sitting under an apple tree.
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| Apple's first logo, 1st April 1976, Ron Wayne [3] |
This logo was quickly replaced by the logo almost as we know it now- designed by Rob Janoff, it was a streamlined apple with a bite out of it and coloured with rainbow stripes to symbolise the fact the Apple II could generate colour graphics. According to Steve Jobs, the company was named while he was on his way home from an apple farm while following a 'fruitarian' diet and thought it was "fun, spirited and not intimidating"[4]. That was also why the first official logo was multicoloured- again, it would make you think the company was warm and inviting because of the colours and this helped give the brand a 'friendly' personality, encouraging targets to use their product.
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| Apple logo,May 17 1976, Rob Janoff [5] |
From there the logo developed into the sleek and sophisticated monochrome apple we know today. The change in direction for the logo also encouraged a new marketing perspective, by trying to show users that Macs are professional and creative with their tv advertisements and using specific campaigns for their different products- i.e. Mac and iPod.
1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brand , 08/10/2014
2. http://www.forbes.com/powerful-brands/, 21/10/2014
3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Apple_first_logo.png , 21/10/2014
4. CBC News. October 20, 2011, accessed 21/10/2014
5.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Apple_Computer_Logo_rainbow.svg
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