THE MARKETING MIX

The Marketing Mix: Products and Brands

The Marketing Mix: Products and Brands

Introduction

In a rapidly changing environment and an increased competitive market, brands are facing new challenges to cater their target market, and even to survive in the marketplace. As markets are becoming more global, brands are struggling vigorously to create differentiated value for customers and eventually for their stakeholders. If they are not capable of doing so, then the penalty will be immediate, and they will not only lose their customers, but their market share will also fall (Mittal 2001).

In this paper, the concept of a few marketing terminologies is discussed. Also, the argument has been made on what Susan has researched about the concept of relationship of a customer with the brand. Moreover, it is elaborated that whether people have an association with all brands or only few of them. As a result, we identified that there is not a strong link or relationship between the brand and its customers; however, all customers require that the brand fulfills their needs and wants. In this context, two industries are selected, and their brands are discussed to make it clearer that do industries have any impact on the relationship of the customer, and the brand.

Discussion

Brand

A brand is a perception that exists in the mind of customers when they have any good or bad association with a brand. A brand can be a trademark, name, logo or any symbol of the product or service. It is nothing without a customer because if the brand is popular, then it is surely adopted by a large number of people. Similarly, if the brand is not so popular, then customers are not adopting the brand and/or they are not familiar with the brand (McAlexander 2002).

Positioning

A positioning is defined as an act of designing the company's offering and image to occupy a distinctive place in the minds of the target market. The aim of the company is to locate the brand in the minds of the customers to maximize the profit of the firm. For instance, the brand Domino's Pizza has positioned itself in the minds of its customers as a brand the promise to deliver pizza within 30 minutes, which plays a key differentiating role for the brand (Lam 2010).

Relationship

A relationship is any bond or connection between two persons. Similarly, when an emotional connection exists between a customer and a brand that is deliberately fostered, by the way, brand has positioned itself is known as a relationship between the customer and a brand.

Fournier's argument as to "what is a relationship?"

Fournier states that it is important to have mastery of meanings that the relationship provides to understand a relationship. The three important sources of meaning as identified by Fournier are psychological, socio-cultural and the relational factors that affect the meanings of every word that relationship provides. In the research conducted by Fournier, relationships were seen to cohere at a portfolio level where brands were marshaled across category boundaries for their ...