Get Long Term Success in Any Industry with Brand Marketing

Explore the captivating world of brand marketing today! From understanding consumer emotions to ethical considerations, delve into how brands like Nike create lasting impressions by getting on the bandwagon of technology to reach more loyal customers becoming a household name. Uncover insights, learn, and be inspired!

Brand marketing involves creating brand identity, loyalty, and awareness. All these goals are required to tell your brand’s story that remains memorable and relatable. 

Think about Apple, Nike, and Coca-Cola.

These brands are giants in their respective industries, but they have one thing in common. 

All of them have bridged the product and customer gap. 

Whatever products they launch, you instantly relate them to thinking differently (Apple), being inspired to do anything with confidence (Nike), and sharing happiness with everyone (Coca-Cola). 

They leverage brand marketing that combines both branding and marketing approaches.

Let’s explore more about brand marketing today. 

1. What is brand marketing?
2. Brand marketing:Why does it work and how does it differ from product marketing?
3. Popular example of brand marketing
4. Role of ethics in brand marketing today
5. How to create a brand marketing strategy?
6. Key things to consider in a brand marketing strategy

What is Brand Marketing?

Brand marketing refers to promoting the brand instead of promoting individual products or services for a one-time marketing campaign, sales, and lead generation. 

Brand marketing is more of a long-term strategy to consistently build a long-standing reputation so that the brand always appears to the public as genuine and easily recognisable. 

So, to define brand marketing simply, it is a strategic approach to promote products or services based on the brand’s core values and mission.

Related: What is Brand Management?

A critical aspect of brand marketing is that it takes time to build brand equity. 

Brands focus on reinforcing their mission and values through all their marketing efforts. And it does not happen across one channel. 

For brand marketing to work, brands constantly leverage all types of digital marketing to highlight their values in the most relevant way possible.  

Related: What is digital marketing?

Brand Marketing: Why does it work and how does it differ from marketing products?

One of the main reasons why brand marketing works is that consumers’ emotions are necessary for all purchasing decisions. In the book, Descartes’ Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain, Antonio Damasio explains this at length. 

Antonio Damasio, in this book, extensively discusses the relationship between emotions, reasoning, and how the human brain functions. The essence of this assertion is that human decisions, including those related to buying products or services, aren't solely based on logical reasoning or rationality. Instead, emotions hold substantial importance in influencing the choices individuals make when purchasing goods or services.

The implication here is that brand marketing strategies often target and tap into consumers' emotions deliberately because emotions have a significant impact on how people perceive, engage with, and ultimately decide on purchasing a particular brand's products or services. Brands aim to evoke specific emotions, such as joy, trust, or excitement, to create a connection with consumers, making their products more appealing and memorable.

Today, quality products and competitive pricing strategies are necessary, but they are no longer the main drivers of consumers’ buying decisions. 

Related: Digital marketing books

So, how do you think emotions come into play regarding brand marketing?

The answer is simple to understand. 

Brand marketing creates a compelling narrative or backstory of why it creates products or services. Like-minded customers feel much closer to the brand with a perspective to relate with. This perspective transcends the product specifications and creates a long-term relationship with the brand. 

In contrast, product marketing is vital in positioning the brand’s product and tracking metrics. Read more about the role of products in our blog on marketing mix. 

You can say both product marketing and brand marketing are essential from the perspective of a business strategy. 

But brand marketing will permanently set the brand apart in the eyes of the customer. 

In fact, a product marketing strategy is primarily based on brand marketing for a business’s success.  

Popular Example of Brand Marketing 

Let’s look into how Nike leverages brand marketing. 

Wherever you see the logo or hear the slogan, ‘Just Do It’ you are instantly reminded of Nike’s sports and athletic wear.  

But the narrative is much more profound. 

Nike creates motivational marketing ads that show how sportspersons overcome hurdles. This is how their global customers relate to the brand more than others who sell the same.

In the book Who’s Afraid of Niketown?: Nike-urbanism, Branding And the City of Tomorrow by Friedrich Von Borries, the author describes the meaning of the Nike slogan ‘Just Do It’ that first appeared back in 1988 as part of Nike’s ad campaign. 

According to Nike 

“The Just Do It ad – it became both universal and personal. It spoke of sports. It invited dreams. It was a call to action, a refusal to listen to excuses and a license to be eccentric, courageous and exceptional.”

Friedrich Von Borries elaborated on this statement, mentioning how sportspersons like Michael Jordan are not only able to push physical limitations but also athletes such as Cathy Freeman who could transcend social barriers back in the day. 

Nike consistently uses this ‘universal and personal’ marketing communications approach. On the 30th anniversary of the Just Do It campaign, former NFL quarterback, Colin Kaepernick, represented Nike with “Believe in something. Even if it means sacrificing everything.”

While many influential people in the media scorned this ad, Nike sales rose to 31% after the ad’s premiere, according to The Guardian. What this shows is that Nike values everyone who is willing to overcome challenges that are present today. This is the so-called ‘universal appeal’ of Nike. 

But while we talk about the brand's history of marketing success, what do you think of its current state?

Role of Ethics in Brand Marketing Today

Ethics play a very important role in brand marketing today. Consumers have higher expectations of transparency and social responsibility from the brands they choose to support, and it's better that this aspect falls within the gamut of brand storytelling in the current scenario. 

Some of the key aspects of the role of ethics are mentioned below. 

• Building trust with consumers - Practicing ethical marketing helps build trust and loyalty with consumers. They want to feel confident that the brands they engage with have strong ethical values.
• Meeting consumer demands - More and more consumers, especially younger generations, consider a brand's ethics and values when making purchasing decisions. They want to buy from companies who are honest, transparent and care about social/environmental issues.
• Long term brand reputation and growth - Upholding high ethical standards in all marketing activities protects a brand's reputation and allows them to grow sustainably over the long run by gaining the trust of customers.
• Avoiding legal/financial risks - Unethical marketing can result in lawsuits, fines, loss of customers and damage to brand image. It's important for brands to follow all advertising laws and regulations.
  Employee motivation. Having a strong ethical culture and purpose improves employee motivation and loyalty to the brand they represent. It also helps attract and retain top talent.

How to Create a Brand Marketing Strategy?

A brand marketing strategy should focus on the long term. As a brand, you should invest in resources that help in creating a lasting positive impression. Some marketing efforts to consider are SEO, social media and others. 

Search Engine Optimization

You can begin with focusing on SEO to attract those at the beginning of the marketing funnel and solve their pain points. You can create an inbound marketing strategy for customers who always be comfortable while they make apt decisions across the marketing funnel. 

Explore SEO courses

Social Media Marketing

Then you have to leverage other channels such as social media marketing and create a social media strategy. Just look at Zomato digital marketing strategy and find out how consistent it is with its social media communications. 

Explore social media marketing courses

Other Digital Marketing Channels

As brand marketing is more holistic, there is email marketing, paid digital advertising and others to consider as well.

Explore free email marketing courses

Key Things to Consider in a Brand Marketing Strategy

No matter which channels you are using, the crux of your brand marketing strategy should let you know whom to target, what you are offering, and why anyone should consider your brand. 

Let’s elaborate on these three points further.

• Knowing your target audience is probably the first step to creating a brand marketing strategy. Check out our blog on customer segmentation to know how. 
• Analysing your campaigns is essential to know which messages appeal to your target audience. 
• Before going ahead with your brand initiatives, consider your current perception of your brand. Questions such as whether your goals for the brand are correctly defined, the metrics that will define your brand equity, etc. are essential to answer.
• Focusing on both short- and long-term marketing initiatives for consistency in messaging.
• Making your target audience believe in your mission through regular audience engagement and interaction.
• Following a recognisable pattern of naming your products or services.
• Utilise honesty and high values in brand communication through your messages.
• Building a growing network of influencers to provide social proof and brand validity. Check out our blog on influencer marketing.

Also, there are plenty of brand management courses to get you started with creating a brand marketing strategy. 

Parting Thoughts

Hope you got a realistic insight into how brand marketing works and how you can create a strategy for your brand to be memorable. But do keep in mind that whatever your brand promises in terms of vision should be represented in the products or services it offers. 

To enhance your knowledge on the same, check out some free digital marketing courses too!