Branding and Its Effects on Sales

Question: Discuss about the Branding and Its Effects on Sales. Answer: Project Context Marketing is the process of promoting and selling the products and services of a business organization. In order to achieve these, the business organizations have to different kinds of market research and advertisement campaigns. These all are the parts of marketing (Gilliam Voss, 2013). In a broader sense, it can be said that marketing is the process of delivering the right products and services to the right people at the right time at a right price (Kotler, 2012). Hence, all the activities that are needed to deliver a product or service to a customer are the different activities of marketing (Kotler et al., 2015). Branding is considered as one of the major marketing activities of marketing as branding is utmost essential for the success of a product or service in the market (Armstrong et al., 2012). Branding is the process of or the practice of giving a name, design and symbol to a product or service of the business organizations. One of the major significances of branding is that it provides the product or services a proper identification and it helps to differentiate the product or service from the others. There are many major advantages of the process of branding. Thus, it can be said that branding is one of the major components of marketing. In order to introduce a new product or service in the market, the process of branding is necessary for them as it provides the organization with the necessary competitive advantage (Abratt Kleyn, 2012). It is very much important to select a career for every student or every person. In this era, many career options are there in different fields; like marketing, finance, medical, engineering and many others. In this era of twenty-first centuries, marketing is considered as one of the most dynamic professions. Many major reasons are there for considering marketing as one of the dynamic professions. It can be seen that there are many advantages of marketing as a profession. The first major advantage of marketing as a profession is job diversity. Marketing cannot be described based one activity as there are many activities of marketing; like promotion of brand, advertisement, market research, retail, customer relation, public relation and many others. Most of the times, the marketing professionals have to interact with the customers of the organization. Due to this reason, the marketing professionals do not feel bore in their profession (Hunt, 2014). The second advantage of marketing pro fession is the high pay structure and other benefits. It has been seen that a successful marketing professional can earn a higher amount of money than the other professions. Apart from higher pay structure, the marketing professionals can enjoy many other non-financial benefits. The most important advantage of marketing profession is self-satisfaction (Baker, 2014). The marketing professional can see the results of their works and hence, they can be self-satisfied. This leads more opportunities for promotion and the professionals can have greater control on their income. Hence, from the above discussion, it can be said that one can chose marketing as their future profession as it has greater career opportunities. As per the above discussion, it can be seen that marketing can be considered as a future profession as it has major career opportunities. As marketing is a large profession, the job description of the marketing professional cannot be described so easily. As mentioned above, marketing has many components like branding, advertising, retails, customer relation, public relation and many others. Profession can be considered as an occupation that requires specialized knowledge and training in that field. Hence, it can easily be said that to be a successful marketing professional, one must have specialized knowledge and training in marketing (training.com.au, 2017). This is the first criteria to become a marketing professional. After that, to be a successful marketing professional, one must have sufficient knowledge about various markets. Market is a place where goods and services are sold. Hence, a market has three major components; they are buyer, seller and goods. In order to be a succes sful marketing professional, it is never enough to have academic knowledge on marketing. Most importantly, it takes enough practical exposure on marketing in order to be a successful marketing professional. To be a marketing professional, one must know that what kind of market they work in; the function of the chosen market; information about the new buyers of the market; to know the needs of the buyers; the tactics to meet the needs of the customers; to create preferences about the products of the company and many others (cmo.com.au, 2017). Project Proposal Background and Definition of the Issues or Problems According to the earlier discussion, branding is the process of giving a name, design and symbol to a product or service of a business organization. This is one of the major components of marketing. It can be seen that some major problems or challenges are there in the practice or process of branding. Some of the major problems or challenge in the process of branding is discussed below: One of the major problems in branding is lack of awareness about the brand or the needs of the customers. There are instances where the organizational people have little knowledge about the brands of the organization and the needs of the customers. This is a major challenge or issue in branding. The lack of significance of the brand name and logo is another major problem in branding. There are some brands that stand for nothing and they promise nothing to the consumers. Lack of differentiation is another major problem in branding. The primary objective of branding is to differentiate the products and services of the organization from others. Failing in doing so is a major issue in branding. These major problems of branding can affect the marketing activities of a business organization. With the help of proper branding strategy, the organizations can attract the customers towards the products and services of the organization. These problems are very much relevant with the marketing ac tivities of the business organizations. Aim and Objectives/Research Questions The main aim of this research proposal is to discover the means by which the process of branding can be made error free and more effective. Hence, the main objectives or research questions of this project proposal are: The first objective is to create more awareness about the brands among the organizational people in the organization. The second objective is to make the process of branding in such a way that it conveys message of the organization about the products. The third objective is to develop the branding strategy of the organization in such a way that it can differentiate the products or services of the organization with the other products and services. The last objective is to discover the means to make the branding of the organizations more effective. Literature Review Branding is the process of presenting the products or services of a business organization in such a way that they can attract the attention of the customers. Many years ago, branding was the process of giving a name and logo to the products or services of the organization for the ease of identification (Riaz Tanveer, 2012). However, in the business era of twenty-first centuries, branding stands for more than just giving name and logos to the products and services of the organization. Now a day, branding is the perception of the customers about the company or products or services. Todays business organizations consider branding as a moving target that evolves with the behavior of the consumers. It can be seen that many organizations consider marketing and branding as a same activity (Aaker, 2012). However, in actual, there is a huge gap between the process of branding and marketing. First, marketing is a tactical process where branding is a strategic process (Hovnyi, 2013). The devel opment of branding is from marketing, but the branding is a bigger effort than marketing. However, from the current scenario, it can be observed that many major problems have been found in the process of branding (Aaker Joachimsthaler, 2012). The main problem is the awareness of branding (McKenna, 2012). In many organizations, the people among the organization do not know the actual inner meaning of the brands of their products and services. This is a major problem as due lack of awareness, they will not be able to meet the needs of the customers (Dinnie, 2015). Another important issue or problem is that most of todays brands do not convey the message of the organization. Apart from these, many problems are affecting the branding strategies of todays business. The process of branding has a history. More than 4000 years ago, the ancient Akkad artists and architects started to seal or mark their arts as a proof of their authority on their artworks. That was the start of banding process. It can be seen that the present day companies use to underestimate the power of branding in the process of business decision-making (Kapferer, 2012). However, branding plays a major party for the decision making process of both the businesses and customers (Hanna Rowley, 2013). As per most of the marketing managers of the world, business marketing is all about the delivery of superior products and services with affordable and reasonable price. In this case, branding can be considered as icing on the cake. At the time of decision-making, the marketing managers considers the central element of marketing. It has been seen that there is a strong relationship between branding and financial performance of the business organization (Philiastides Ratcliff, 2013). T he positive effect of branding enables the organizations to earn greater revenue and profitability. On the other hand, a strong brand has the power to differentiate that particular company from the other companies (Plassmann, Ramsy Milosavljevic, 2012). Moreover, the business brands are considered as the focal points of the process of communication among multiple stakeholders of the organizations. Hence, from the above analysis, it can be said that the business organizations should not ignore the importance of the power of brands in marketing. Overview of the Research Method The will be certain steps by which the project will be done. As per the above discussion, the main aim of this project is to find the ways to improve the branding strategies of the business organizations. For the purpose of this study, secondary research method will be taken into consideration. In the process of secondary research methods, the necessary information will be collected and after that, they will be evaluated. In order to carry on the secondary research method, secondary information will be collected from various sources. Some of these major sources are various relevant websites of the companies; various relevant websites of the government; various corporate fillings like annual reports of the companies; various kinds of trade, business and professional journal articles; various kinds of media release and many others. After the collection of the secondary data and information, they will be analyzed with the help of qualitative data analysis method. After the analysis of t he secondary data, they will be interpreted to get the necessary findings of the research project. In this regard, the major milestones of this research proposal will be the setting up of the objectives or research questions of the research; selection of the research method; collection relevant data and information; analysis of these data and information and interpretation of the secondary data. The Gantt Chart Schedule of the research is given below: Research Activities 1-4 4-8 8-12 12-16 16-20 20-24 24-28 Setting up of the objectives Collection of the secondary source Layout of the investigation Literature review and theories Operations and research plans Research Plans and Techniques Secondary data Analysis Interpretation of Data Analysis Findings and Analysis Conclusion and Summary Figure 1: Gantt chart (Source: As created by author) From the above figure, it can be seen that the total research process will take 28 days to complete. The predicted time taken by the major activities of the research is shows in the above figure. Based on the interpretation of secondary data, the findings and conclusion will be drawn. References Aaker, D. A. (2012).Building strong brands. Simon and Schuster. Aaker, D. A., Joachimsthaler, E. (2012).Brand leadership. Simon and Schuster. Abratt, R., Kleyn, N. (2012). Corporate identity, corporate branding and corporate reputations: Reconciliation and integration.European Journal of Marketing,46(7/8), 1048-1063. Armstrong, G., Kotler, P., Harker, M., Brennan, R. (2012).Marketing: an introduction. Pearson Prentice-Hall, London. Baker, M. J. (2014).Marketing strategy and management. Palgrave Macmillan. Dinnie, K. (2015).Nation branding: Concepts, issues, practice. Routledge. Gilliam, D. A., Voss, K. (2013). A proposed procedure for construct definition in marketing.European Journal of Marketing,47(1/2), 5-26. Hanna, S., Rowley, J. (2013). A practitioner-led strategic place brand-management model.Journal of marketing management,29(15-16), 1782-1815. Hovnyi, G. (2013). Revealing the Corporation. Perspectives on Identity, Image, Reputation, Corporate Branding and Corporate?level Marketing.European Journal of Marketing. Hunt, S. D. (2014).Marketing Theory: Foundations, Controversy, Strategy, and Resource-advantage Theory. Routledge. Insider, I. (2017).What Does a Marketing Professional Do?.Training.com.au. Retrieved 5 April 2017, from https://www.training.com.au/ed/marketing-professional/ Kapferer, J. N. (2012).The new strategic brand management: Advanced insights and strategic thinking. Kogan page publishers. Kotler, P. (2012).Kotler on marketing. Simon and Schuster. Kotler, P., Keller, K. L., Manceau, D., Hmonnet-Goujot, A. (2015).Marketing management(Vol. 14). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. McKenna, M. P. (2012). A Consumer Decision-Making Theory of Trademark Law.Virginia Law Review, 67-141. Philiastides, M. G., Ratcliff, R. (2013). Influence of branding on preference-based decision making.Psychological science, 0956797612470701. Plassmann, H., Ramsy, T. Z., Milosavljevic, M. (2012). Branding the brain: A critical review and outlook.Journal of Consumer Psychology,22(1), 18-36. Riaz, W., Tanveer, A. (2012). Marketing mix, not branding.Asian Journal of Business and Management Sciences,1(11), 43-52. Williams, A. (2017).Marketing professionals prove hot property in Australian jobs market.Cmo.com.au. Retrieved 5 April 2017, from https://www.cmo.com.au/article/579697/marketing-professionals-prove-hot-property-australian-jobs-market/