BRANDING

Nike's Branding Provides Competitive Advantages to the Company

[Name of the Institute]

Table of Contents

1.0 INTRODUCTION3

1.1 Background of the study3

1.2 Research Objectives5

1.3 Research Questions6

1.4 Significance of the study6

2.0 LITERATURE REVIEW8

2.1 History and Origin of Product Branding8

2.2 The Way the Branding Game Is Played10

2.3 The Basics of Branding Strategy11

2.4 The Four Components of Brand Value13

Reputation Value: Brand Cultures Shape Perceived Product Quality14

Relationship Value: Brand Cultures Shape Relationship Perceptions14

Experiential Value: Brand Cultures Frame Consumer Experiences15

Symbolic Value: Brand Cultures Express Values and Identities16

2.5 Competitive Advantage of Nike17

Creating Mind Share through Marketing Strategies17

Differentiation18

2.6 Branding and sustainable competitive Advantage18

2.7 Brand Positioning20

2.8 Brand Communications22

References26

1.0 INTRODUCTION

Brands represent sets of association that hold meaning for targeted brand buyers and users. These can be good associations or bad ones depending upon user experiences or perceptions of the brand. Positive distinctive association naturally tends to boost a brand's value in the market's eyes while negative ones destroy its equity. The brand's market standing (share) reflects its strength or weakness in customer rated associations versus competing brands. It is crucial to understand the breadth of this brand definition since a brand involves a whole set of design elements (logo, shape, name, color, slogan, signature use, symbols) as well as linked support elements. So McDonald's as a brand includes its obvious name, as well as linked elements such as Ronald McDonald, The Golden Arches symbol and the contextual support component surrounding McDonald's brand such a fast service, children, fun, hamburgers clean facilities and so forth. Heavily advertised brands, of course, are often strongly linked to ad imagery, music, themed, story lines spokespersons and promises. Nike's "JUST DO IT" slogan oft repeated in everything from billboards to print ads is almost as well remembered as its flowing logo and name. An executive friend in the brewing industry once remarked that people don't drink beer brands, they drink beer commercials. The point being that the potential beer drinker drinks that brand of beer whose commercials resonate most strongly in his/her psyche and with which the consumer most readily identitifies.

1.1 Background of the study

Branding has become one of the most important aspects of business strategy. Yet it is also one of the most misunderstood. Branding is sometimes considered merely an advertising function. In addition, many managers and business writers hold the view that branding is about the management of product image, a supplementary task that can be isolated from the main business of product management. This note provides an alternative perspective, arguing that:

Branding is a strategic point of view, not a select set of activities.

Branding is central to creating customer value, not just images.

Branding is a key tool for creating and maintaining competitive advantage.

Brands are cultures that circulate in society as conventional stories.

Effective brand strategies must address the four distinct components of brand value.

Brand strategies must be “engineered” into the marketing mix.

Branding is a potent means to establish competitive advantage. The brand culture concept helps us see why this is so. Brand cultures are “sticky.” Once they have accepted them as conventional wisdom, people are usually reluctant to ...