Brand Value vs Brand Awareness

For fcuk's sake – brands are swearing more than ever

Marketing, branding, image and salience are terms used together. Today, economies are blooming greatly around the world, resulting in an improvement of lifestyle for many urban societies; that has led to an increase of branding and imaging awareness amongst marketing managers and even the consumers themselves. Comparing with the past, consumers are now more able to think about the brands and their inherent meanings; having a separate thought for simply ‘knowing’ the brand, and ‘purchasing’ the brand.  (Romaniuk, 2004)

In the past decades, marketing managers or businesses have been focusing on creating an impact on buyers, be it by creating exciting catch phrases I.e. using suggestive words like FCUK, making loud and colorful advertisements, or even having questionable logos; all these actions are in the name of making people aware of their brand, and perhaps in hopes to buy their products as a form of loyalty or subscription to its cult. Ultimately, their goal was to garner as much sales as possible, with the help of a one dimensional marketing tactic. Undoubtedly the first step of marketing is to gain awareness with potential customers, however managers have sometimes also left out the most important part of marketing – that is, marketing ‘value’. (Chen, 2012)

Value can come in many forms, value for money, valuation of the brand, value of information, value of services – as a modern consumer, I am exposed to a myriad of brands, however even if a brand has a catchy slogan, logo, or advertisement, it does not mean that I will be a loyal customer; in fact, I would rather look at the perceived value the product can give me. I believe that this is a result of a long exposure to the internet and marketing concepts – causing me, and many net users to be immune to simple tactics.

Branding, like any other, should always be conveying a value to people. For instance, an improement in lifestyle, an experience, a status symbol, cutting edge technology, state of the art are all ways that brands coerce people to buy their product today rather than simply using explosive tactics.

References

Romaniuk J., Sharp B. (2004), Conceptualizing and measuring brand salience, University of South Australia. Web. Date accessed: 6^th June 2014.

Link: http://marketingscience.info/assets/documents/62/9419.pdf

Chen H., e.t. al (2012), When More Is Less: The Impact of Base Value Neglect on Consumer Preferences for Bonus Packs over Price Discounts, American Marketing Association: Journal of Marketing. Web. Date accessed: 6^th June 2014.

Link: http://www.carlsonschool.umn.edu/assets/166774.pdf