BRAND BUILDING
Building Your Brand For
Enduring Value
By Dr. Catherine Ngahu
Brand Building
Brand management is viewed as one of the
most significant capabilities in marketing.
Building a brand is a fundamental aspect
in the product or service marketing
strategy. The main objective of brand
building is to inspire a positive image
in the customer’s minds in order to
enhance long term profitability. Some
brand oriented companies choose to focus
purely on brand building and subcontract
everything else.
Value of visual brand
symbols
Most brands are identified not just by
the name, but also by a visual symbol or
logo. Visuals play an important role in
enhancing brand recognition and recall.
Distinctive visual imagery adds value by
increasing memorability.
Brand image is the perception of the
brand held in consumer’s minds. It relates
to the mental associations, beliefs and
attitudes that consumers have about the
brand. It encompasses the memories,
myths, emotions and feelings associated
with the brand. A logo is an important visual brand
element that plays a crucial role in
consolidation of brand image. Many times
the logo is all one needs to see. Think
of the Facebook and Twitter logos. The
Mercedes-Benz emblem and Toyota logo
are other good examples - you do not
need to see the brand name. In imagery
research, we frequently use these logos
as mind triggers because of their high
recognition rating.
A brand may be characterized as the
name, trademark, or logo used to identify
and differentiate the products and services
of a particular company. Distinctiveness
is of great importance in branding as it
helps a brand stand out in the marketplace
allowing it to hold sway in the minds of
consumers. One
of
the
most
memorable
advertisements for me is a Mercedes Benz
print ad that was run in the dailies and
magazines several years ago. It was a full
page ad that showed the Mercedes Benz
emblem in the center of the page while the
statement below it pronounced ‘Enough
said’. Further down, the advertiser
The main objective of brand building is
to inspire a positive image in the custom-
er’s minds in order to enhance long term
profitability. Some brand oriented com-
panies choose to focus purely on brand
building and subcontract everything else.
44 MAL34/20 ISSUE
outlined in very small print all the things
you could say about Mercedes-Benz
vehicles. It then concluded that: “further
talk is unnecessary, because it’s your car
that will do the talking!” And it does.
Apart from the abstract symbols
highlighted above, logos come in
numerous and varied forms including
corporate names that are written in
distinct forms such as Google, Coca-
Cola, Gillette and Britam; or combination
of name and symbol such as Co-op
Bank, EABL, AAR, Safaricom, Equity
and Brand Kenya; or name and pictorial
representations like the University of
Nairobi, KCB, Kenya Revenue Authority,
Kenya National Highways Authority,
Pilsner and Tusker.
Logos are important because they tend to
attain intrinsic meanings and associations
that can stick in the target consumer’s
mind over time and support brand loyalty.
Brand as a promise
As a whole a brand represents the
company’s promise to the customers
that it will consistently meet specific
standards in terms of features, benefits,
and services. It would be extremely hard
to build customer loyalty without a clear
and distinct brand identity.
For example the Mercedes brand promises
to consistently deliver ‘the best or
nothing’. This is conveyed through high
quality, style, reliability, safety, exceptional
engineering and supreme after sales
service. Those who buy it are willing to
pay a premium price for what it represents