This article is about brands in marketing. For other uses, see Brand (disambiguation)100px McDonald's, represented by the Golden Arches, is one of the world's most famous brands
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A brand takes the form of a symbolic construct created by a marketer to represent a collection of information about a product or group of products. This symbolic construct typically consists of a name, identifying mark, logo, visual images or symbols, or mental concepts which distinguishes the product or service. A brand often carries connotations of a product's "promise", the product or service’s point of difference among its competitors which makes it special and unique. Marketers attempt through a brand to give a product a "personality" or an "image". Thus, they hope to "brand", or burn, the image into the consumer's mind; that is, associate the image with the product's quality. Because of this, a brand can form an important element of an advertising theme: it serves as a quick way to show and tell consumers what a supplier has offered to the market.
Well known products acquire brand recognition. When a brand has accumulated a mass of positive sentiment among consumers, marketers say that its owner has acquired brand equity or brand franchise. Brand equity measures the brands value to the marketer. It is an assessment of the investment a company has made in a brand. Brand franchise measures the effect of this investment on the target market. When enough brand equity is created that the brand has the ability to draw buyers (even without further advertising), it is said to have brand franchise. A brand name comprises that part of a brand consisting of words or letters that humans can verbalize. A brand name that has acquired legal protection becomes a trademark.
Branding has become part of pop culture. Numerous products have a brand identityIn philosophy, identity is the quality of being "the same as". It is of particular interest to logicians and metaphysicians. Logic In logic, the identity relation is normally, (by definition), the transitive, symmetric, and reflexive relation that holds o: from common table salt to designerDesigner is a broad term for a person who designs any of a variety of things. This usually implies the task of creating or of being creative in a particular area of expertise. Often times it is used to reference someone who draws or in some ways uses visu clothes. Non-commercially, branding can also apply to the marketing of entities which supply ideas or promises rather than goods and services -- such as political partiesA political party is a political organization subscribing to a certain ideology or formed around very special issues. In party-list proportional representation, parties (and sometimes multi-party cartels) can play a functional role in the voting system. or religious organizations.
Consumers as a group may look on the brand as an important aspect of a product, and it can also add value to a product or service. It carries the reputation of a product or company. A branded laundry detergent may sell twice as much product as a store-brand detergent. Although the two products may resemble each other closely in almost every other respect, people have learned to regard the branded product as superior. In some cases they believe that because it costs more it offers better quality.
Advertising spokespersons have also became part of some brands, for example: Mr. WhippleWhipple is a fictional supermarket manager featured in television advertisements which ran from 1965 to 1989 for Charmin- brand toilet paper. In unvarying repetition, he scolds women who "squeeze the Charmin," while hypocritically fondling the temptingly of Charmin toilet tissue and Tony the TigerTony the Tiger is the advertising cartoon mascot for Kellogg's Frosted Flakes cereal, appearing on its packaging and advertising. His catch phrase is "They're grrreat!" Tony originally appeared in 1952, designed by children's book illustrator Martin Prove of KelloggFor other things with Kellogg in the name, see Kellogg (disambiguation). See also Kellogg, Iowa. The Kellogg Company (often referred to as simply Kellogg or Kellogg's is a multinational producer of breakfast foods, cookies and crackers, with corporate hea’s.
