Discussion Post: Branding
Concept
Marketing management topic of branding is defined by the American Marketing Association as "a name, term, design, symbol, or any other feature that identifies one seller's goods or services as distinct from those of other sellers" (Marshall & Johnston, 2019). Branding has become its own strategy and division within many organizations. Branding strategies can be separated into three sections such as the information the brand conveys, the meaning behind the product, and reassuring the customer in their purchase decision. These branding strategies are what firms can use to capture long-term customers with ideals of reliability, trust, awareness. From these ideals a brand will then become admired by the consumers, and can even leverage their behavioral psychology, social anthropology, and neuroscientific needs based on three questions consumers ask themselves. These questions include: Does this brand give me good vibes? Does what this brand says make sense to me? Will I be happier if I buy this brand? (Dayal, 2021). The main platform of distributing a brand is accomplished through advertising and creating an image of a product that is distinguishable and desirable. A footprint of a brand can stretch further than the expectations of the marketing management and advertisement team just as quickly as a viral video on social media. Which can be accomplished through brand awareness and the percentage of the population that are reached from such advertisements in newspapers, television, and radio. For smaller businesses that are struggling to gain customers, brand awareness could be difficult to gain, and this is why they usually spend more of their time on advertisements. Whereas larger businesses that already have an established brand and customer loyalty can quickly enhance their brand and products simply from direct customer feedback. However, a good brand still needs to produce a good product that provides value to customers. It should be something that customers can rely on which will help all aspects of branding for future customers.
Application/Example
One brand that has been successful and able to deliver a good product to their customers is the Walt Disney Company which is categorized as being in the leisure industry, but also is a leading diversified international family entertainment and media enterprise in media networks, parks and resorts, studio entertainment, consumer products, and interactive media (The Walt Disney Company, 2022). The leisure industry being so dynamic, Disney has been efficient in each sector being visitor attractions, accommodation, tourist destinations, tour operations, transport, resorts, retail travel, arts and entertainment, recreation and sport, leisure shopping, and restaurant and catering. With twelve Disney parks around the world and six different resorts they have created a one-of-a kind business. According to a recent Forbes article Disney is the number one brand in the leisure market, and number seven overall of the world's most valuable brands with a value of $61.3B (Swant, 2022). The branding strategy includes a common international theme that is based on sales promotions to target children. Common international interest have made it easier to standardize sales promotions across boundaries (Horner & Swarbrooke, 2014). Raising awareness in recent years they added a movie/television streaming service called Disney+ that has had 118.1 million subscribers worldwide as of its fourth quarter of 2021 marking a growth of 92 million since inception during 2020 (Stoll, 2021). The surge in increasing consumers can be related to the brand loyalty and the level of expectations they have from this business. Remaining consistent Disney has only strengthened their brand to the point consumers trust they will always have the greatest time of their life at the happiest place on earth.
Task
• How would you describe your last experience with Disney?
• Which three words would you use to describe Disney? Why?
The response should include a reference list. Double-space, using Times New Roman 12 pnt font, one-inch margins, and APA style of writing and citations.