Brand Strategy – the new business strategy paradigm?

Looking through the prism of market competitiveness the search for the holy grail of brand strategy that creates sustainable growth and long-term impact on consumers’ minds leaving a mark emotionally engraved in their decision drivers appears to be an omnipresent subject of interest not only for brand strategists but also for entrepreneurs spread across global economies.

Oftentimes underscored and heavily underestimated matter of branding as the core phenomenon that impactfully creates value for organizations calls for a special dosage of attention particularly in the 21^stcentury when the overflowing amount of new brands appears on the marketplace battlefield of competitiveness. The beneficial ray of light for businesses that shall outline in a simplified form rooted in market competitiveness, the principle advantage of brand strategy as a business strategy model, is planned to be shared here |

Starting with the attention to the trend of the rising significance of brands that have had a chance to proportionately grow over the decades shall provide a good level of comprehension on the subjects what brand strategy is and why it shall be proposed to be the new business model that successfully merges strategy, aesthetics, branding and commercial competitiveness.

Brand strategy is an axiomatically present vision for a competitive edge that can be adapted by any organization regardless of size, cultural heritage, revenue and profitability levels, or global market penetration. This magnification of market opportunities that can be translated into an easy to analyze through commercial data profits directly associated with branding as a paradigm for competitiveness deserves a level of cognitive consciousness |

Why?

Brand strategy is the essential encapsulation of value, quality, reputation, and identity of organizations embraced by the vision and mission of a firm, a business, a group, or a corporation. A brand is a sophistication that distinguishes one corporate body from others and amplifies the ultimate desire to collaborate, engage or communicate with a particular brand. The aforementioned quality of sophistication in brand strategy can take a twofold form; it can be perceptual or / and functional. In perceptual sophistication, a company’s strategy is directing its vision toward creating engagement and emotional connectivity where “coolness”, “innovation”, “glamour”, “trendiness” are the desired identifiers for a brand’s identity. Perceptual sophistication type of brand strategy approach galvanizes potential clients into becoming ambassadors of the corporate stamp called “brand” |

The counterpart of perceptual sophistication, a functional type, is entirely product or/and an offering driven. Its motif looks at the core advantages of a product signed by a brand’s name and aims to excel its engineering and quality advantages. The auspicious strengths of functional sophistication approach towards branding lay in know-how, professionalism and mastery of a product offering. The brand having in disposal both sophistication ways to gain competitive positioning, it ultimately becomes a playground for collaboration between a brand and target audiences |

As both methodologies bring an evolution of successes from slightly different angles, it is worth mentioning that perceptual branding transforms a brand into a platform for meaningful and interactive touchpoints exchange between a brand and a consumer. It allows a brand to “develop itself and engage with the market in a long run”, points out Abimbola (2010). Brands can be utilized by businesses as models for growth under the condition of having the ability to engage on multisensory levels to create experiences that ignite emotional and memorable connections |

The increasing recognition of brand strategy by, both, practitioners and academics brings the significance of brands as the ultimate resourceful hubs of sustainable competitiveness to the commercial daylight, the success of which is accentuated by the levels of engagement, innovation and ability to collaborate through active involvement of customers into operations and vision of brands |

Why brand strategy matter?

A brand is the tangible and intangible act of personification of corporate value, it is the strategic pin on the map to guide all aspects of planning and execution, it is the sustainable credo that sometimes stretches, readapts of relaunches its essential values to the market |

Brand strategy is the omnipresence of the reputable stability and consistency that penetrates every economic, social, cultural aspect of the life of a company and a consumer. Kapferer (2004) points out the importance of the presence of brands and their multidisciplinary character that can be perceived in the levels of connectivity with sociology, anthropology, philosophy and other areas |

Branding is not a creation of a post-war and modern era, the origins or brands reach the ancient civilization of Mesopotamia and Greece when symbols, names, and marks engraved on rocks or pieces had a special place in trade exchange where those marks would signify particular offerings of wines, pots or accessories. The word “brand” originates from “brandr” meaning “to burn” in the settings of burning an identifying mark on livestock with a heated iron. This example emphasizes the strong link between branding and creativity, protection, intellectual property, and business.

Brands are the end products of the strategic process that includes market segmentation, product differentiation, formulating product category, therefore it is the core prerequisite that a long-term involvement, the appropriate resources,, and skills are required (Kapferer, 2004).

If branding is the strategic direction for a business what are the elements that contribute to the equity associated with a brand?

A brand is a logo, a legal instrument, a company, a shorthand, a risk reducer, an Identity system, an image in a consumer’s mind, a value system, a personality, a relationship, adding value, and an evolving entity (Chernatony and Riley, 1998); this 12 theme framework provides a few ideas on the equity that a brand is associated with meaning that the overall value does not solely rely on one element |

Brand strategy is the platform for presentation, engagement, and innovative collaboration where consumers feel included in the process of creation or improvement. It enables firms to create a persona behind an offering that is launch to attract the attention of potential buyers, therefore it is right to say that brand strategy can be seen as a business model |

Brand Strategy – the new business strategy paradigm? Brand Strategy – the new business strategy paradigm?

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