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Comparative study of
brand identities
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FabIndia & Global Desi”

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Shailza dhaundiyal
Mfm 2nd semShailza
Brand
A brand is a product, service, or concept that is publicly distinguished from other products,
services, or concepts so that it can be easily communicated and usually marketed. A brand
name is the name of the distinctive product, service, or concept. Branding is the process of
creating and disseminating the brand name. Branding can be applied to the entire corporate
identity as well as to individual product and service names.

Brands are usually protected from use by others by securing a trademark or service mark
from an authorized agency, usually a government agency. Before applying for a trademark
or service mark, you need to establish that someone else hasn't already obtained one for
your name. Although you can do the searching yourself, it is common to hire a law firm that
specializes in doing trademark searches and managing the application process, which, in the
United States, takes about a year. Once you've learned that no one else is using it, you can
begin to use your brand name as a trademark simply by stating it is a trademark (using the
" TM " where it first appears in a publication or Web site). After you receive the trademark,
you can use the registered (?) symbol after your trademark.

Brands are often expressed in the form of logos , graphic representations of the brand. In
computers, a recent example of widespread brand application was the "Intel Inside" label
provided to manufacturers that use Intel's microchips.

A company's brands and the public's awareness of them is often used as a factor in
evaluating a company. Corporations sometimes hire market research firms to study public
recognition of brand names as well as attitudes toward the brands.

Here is the famous advertising copywriter and ad agency founder David Ogilvy's definition of
a brand:

The intangible sum of a product's attributes: its name, packaging, and price, its history, its
reputation, and the way it's advertised

Brand identity
Brand Identity can be represented by a hexagonal prism with each
side representing a specific character of the brand. These specific
characters help to understand the perceptions of the brand in the
consumer minds and at the market place. Thus these help to build a
better brand image and position the products at a better level.

CHOOSING BRAND ELEMENTS TO BUILD BRAND EQUITY

Brand elements, sometimes called brand identities, are those
trademarkable devices that serve
to identify and differentiate the brand. The main brand elements are
brand names, URLs,
logos, symbols, characters, spokespeople, slogans, jingles, packages,
and signage. Independent
o f the decisions made about the product and how it is marketed,
brand elements can be
chosen in a manner to build as much brand equity as possible. That
is, according to the
customer-based brand equity model, brand elements can be chosen
to enhance brand
awareness; facilitate the formation of strong, favorable, and unique
brand associations; or elicit
positive brand judgments and feelings. The test of the brand-building
ability of brand elements
is what consumers would think or feel about the product if they only
knew about its brand
name, associated logo, and other characteristics. A brand element
that provides a positive
contribution to brand equity, for example, would be one for which
consumers assumed or
inferred certain valued associations or responses.
CRITERIA FOR CHOOSING BRAND ELEMENTS
In general, there are six criteria in choosing brand elements (as well
as more specific choice
considerations in each case):
1. Memorability
2. Meaningfulness
3. Likability
4. Transferability
5. Adaptability
The first three criteria ㅡ memorability, meaningfulness, and
likeability ㅡ can be characterized as
“brand building” in nature and concern how brand equity can be
built through the judicious
choice of a brand element. The latter three, however, are more
“defensive” in nature and are
concerned with how the brand equity contained in a brand element
can be leveraged and
preserved in the face of different opportunities and constraints. The
following sections briefly
consider each of these general criteria.
Memorability
A necessary condition for building brand equity is achieving a high
level of brand awareness
toward that goal, brand elements can be chosen that are inherently
memorable and therefore
facilitate recall or recognition in purchase or consumption settings.
In other words, the intrinsic nature of certain names, symbol, logos
and the like ㅡ their
semantic content, visual properties, and so on ㅡ may make them
more attention getting and
easy to remember and therefore contribute to brand equity. For
example, naming a brand of
propane gas cylinders "Blue Rhino" and reinforcing it with a powder-
blue mascot with a
distinctive yellow flame is likely to stick in the minds of consumer.
Meaningfulness
Besides choosing brand elements to build awareness, brand
elements can also be chosen
whose inherent meaning enhances the formation of brand
associations. Brand elements may
take on all kinds of meaning, varying in descriptive, as well as
persuasive, content. For example
brand names could be based on people, places, animals or birds, or
other things or objects.
Two particularly important dimensions or aspects of the meaning of
a brand element are the
extent to which it conveys the following:
- General information about the nature of the product category. In
terms of descriptive meaning,
to what extent does the brand element suggest something about the
product category?
How likely would it be that a consumer could correctly identify the
corresponding product
category or categories for the brand based on any one particular
brand element? In a
related question, does the brand element seem credible in the
product category? In other
words, is the content of a brand element consistent with what
consumers would expect to see
from a brand in that product category?
- Specific information about particular attributes and benefits of the
brand. In terms of
persuasive meaning, to what extent does the brand element suggest
something about the
particular kind of product that the brand would likely be, for
example, in terms of key
attributes or benefits? Does it suggest something about a product
ingredient or the type of
person who might use the brand?
Likability
The associations suggested by a brand element may not always be
related to the product.
Thus, brand elements can be chosen that are rich in visual and verbal
imagery and inherently
fun and interesting. Independent of its memorability and
meaningfulness, how aesthetically
appealing do consumers find the brand element? Is it inherently
likable, both
visually, verbally, and in other ways? In other words, in dependent of
the particular product or
service, how much would consumers like the brand element?
In terms of these first three criteria, a memorable, meaningful, and
likable set of brand
elements offers many advantages. Because consumers often do not
examine much information
in making product decisions, it is often desirable that brand elements
be easily recognized and
recalled and inherently descriptive and persuasive. Moreover,
memorable or meaningful brand
names, logos, symbols, and so on reduce the burden on marketing
communications to build
awareness and link brand associations.
The different associations that arise from the likability and appeal of
the brand elements
also may play a critical role in the equity of a brand, especially when
few other product-related
associations exist. Often, the less concrete the possible product
benefits are, the more
important is the creative potential of the brand name and other
brand elements to capture
intangible characteristics of a brand.
Transferability
The fourth general criterion concerns the transferability of the brand
element-in both a product
category and geographic sense. First to what extent can the brand
element add to the brand
equity of new products sharing the brand elements introduced either
within the product class
or across product classes? In other words, how useful is the brand
element for line or category
extensions? In general, the less specific the name, the more easily it
can be transferred across
categories. For example, Amazon connotes a massive South
American river and therefore as a
brand can be appropriate for a variety of different types of products,
whereas Toys”R”Us
obviously does not permit the same flexibility.
Second, to what extent does the brand element add to brand equity
across geographic
boundaries and market segments? To a large extent this depends on
the cultural content and
linguistic qualities of the brand element. For example, one of the
main advantages of non
meaningful names (e.g., Exxon) is that they translate well into other
language since they have no
inherent meaning. The mistakes that even top companies have made
in translating their brand
names, slogans, and packages into other languages and cultures over
the years have become
legendary. Companies must review all their brand elements for
cultural meaning before
introducing the brand into a new market.
Adaptability
The fifth consideration concerns the adaptability of the brand
element over time. Because of
changes in consumer values and opinions, or simply because of a
need to remain
contemporary, brand elements often must be updated over time.
The more adaptable and
flexible the brand element, the easier it is to update it. For example,
logos and characters can
be given a new look or a new design to make them appear more
modern and relevant