3 Reasons Strong Brands Win
You can see it now, the bright candy red can, the cursive font, you may even taste it. Coca-Cola. Coca-Cola’s branding is so iconic it has its own actual color, Coco-Cola Red, as well a font named after it, Coca Cola ii. In 2014, Coca-Cola (KO) spent $3.499 Billion on advertising, and that figure has only grown since then. Why does Coca-Cola spend so much on advertising? It’s simple. Strong brands win. Commit it to memory, Strong Brands Win. Why is this? Because everyone knows them. When you think of insurance, you think Allstate. When you think of candy bars, you think Hershey. You think of these brands first because they are strong brands. Strong brands are the first brand a customer thinks of when they think of a product. While it is not cheap to get to the point, the benefits a strong brand has for your business pay exponentially.
Here are 4 reasons why a strong brand is important to your company.
1.Branding improves recognition
The image below shows some of the world’s strongest brands. These brands are instantly recognizable to consumers by their names, and in most cases, even just by their logos. This is just one of the laundry list of benefits having a strong brand gives your company.
Brand recognition is one of, if not the most important, the most important attribute of any brand. Brand recognition is the reason Apple can sell their iPhones for a thousand dollars, while LG can sell their similar flagship phone for only half that price.
A key component of a strong brand is a professional logo. A professional logo is simple enough to be memorable, but powerful enough to demonstrate the brands purpose. Amazon’s logo is simple but manages to convey the brands purpose in a memorable way.
The smile in Amazon’s logo goes from the A to the Z in Amazon. The message conveyed by this is any product you buy from Amazon, A to Z, will leave you happy and satisfied.
2. Branding Promotes Cognition
Consumers trust strong brands. The reason for this is rooted in consumer behavior. Cognition. Cognition is the action of a consumer forming a belief about a product. This belief can be formed even before a consumer uses a product themselves. Consumers see the brand in advertisements, they see in the hands of family members, celebrities, and members of their community. When consumers see brands in their daily life enjoyed by people they know, they form favorable beliefs about the brand. It is essential for a company to have a consumer to have consumers form favorable cognition about their brand, or they can be dead to the consumer before they even use the product.
3. Branding Helps Form Customer Bonds
Your branding is the first touch point your company will have with prospective customers. In most cases, whether it be traditional print, or a form of digital, the first impression a consumer will have of your company will come from an advertisement. A strong brand creates strong feelings with consumers. Heinz, while being a low-involvement product, has created a strong bond with consumers across the United States as well as the world. Heinz has created such a strong bond with consumers in Pennsylvania that they are the only ketchup that most Pennsylvanians will ever purchase. Heinz, through creating a strong bond, has practically created a monopoly on ketchup in Pennsylvania. While, it is next to impossible to do this for an entire market, Heinz has such a strong bond with consumers that they hardly have to advertise in this geographic market.