1. INTRODUCTION:

1.1. Quick Facts of Competitive Branding:

In Prevailing highly competitive marketplace, brand management has taken altogether new shape and highly given at most prominence in organizations to gain a sustained competitive advantage over rivals (Louro, M. Cunha P., 2001; High, 2004). While all products or services can eventually be copied, brands are not easily imitated. Though marketers successfully endow a brand with associations that tap into consumers’ emotional states, then branded products retain some degree of product differentiation, even if the products themselves are copied by competitors (Bengtsson Firat, 2006). This is the primary goal of brand management: to use a brand to add value to the intrinsic value of a product or service (Keller Richey, 2006). This added value is called brand equity. In the next paragraph we can observe how brands is defined and relates to corporate entity in an holistic manner.

The term brand is currently understood to have a number of different meanings especially in present business practices. Some people use the word brand interchangeably with changing logo or label as Organization Airtel did few year ago. In these contexts, the term brand is considered over and above legally protected trademarks, trade names, and trade symbols for differentiating products and in sync with organization. Others use the term in a more expansive sense, in prevailing practices to denote the larger bundle of trademarks associated with intellectual property, including product design and packaging, advertising content, sounds, domain names, as well as innumerable other items. Finally, still others use brand in an more holistic sense, to indicate the company that owns a given brand and applicable too while consolidating the brand. The terms corporate brand and corporate brand personality are often used interchangeably with reputation (High, 2004). Therefore it makes sense to understand that branding is not just about getting your target market to choose you over the competition, but it is about getting your prospects to see you as the only one that provides a solution to their problem. The process involved in creating a unique name and image for a product in the consumers’ mind, mainly through advertising campaigns with a consistent theme. Branding aims to establish a significant and differentiated presence in the market that attracts and retains loyal customers ¹ As we understood branding most of the brands create imaginations and can direct behavior patterns amongst customers and consumers. In the coming paragraphs we can see that how branding plays a vital role in sustainable growth.

1.2. Branding for sustainable growth:

After having reviewed the literature the rudimentary aspects are clear for any marketers which is becoming obsolete nowadays because market is flooded with plethora of brands in every segment . As discussed in the above paragraphs about the branding now the paper has explored into the role of branding in sustenance in a competitive market of businesses and organizations of all sizes and types.

Carter Pennington (CSS- Cardinal Strategy group) has specified about how branding plays a critical element of the turnaround process and a turnaround isn’t really complete until the company is on a path toward sustainable growth. As a researcher it can be viewed that the branding is a central focus of the organization and reshaping is very much required pragmatically speaking the shortest path to sustainable growth is brand building¹ Branding is intended to identify goods or services and deliver the message that a particular organization, business, or product is the only one that can suit customers' needs.

Adapted from Cardinal Strategy Group LLC By Carter Pennington:

The following aspects enlisted are derived from carter’s model to connect to Indian Environment

1. Strengthen the brand:

By clearly understanding the branding all about the researcher has highlighted the point that on the surface, it may seem that brands are becoming less important. There has been an emergence and expansion of luxury brands though it is in infancy stage in India. Apart from this it is seen that proliferation of store brands (particularly in super retailers such as Wal-Mart owned Flipkart, Amazon, Target, Safeway, CVS and Whole Foods) is taking place. It appears that people seem to be choosing cheaper versions of a branded product, taking comfort in the belief that it has the same ingredients and serves the same purpose. However, they can’t get 100% quality. Naturally it will take a backseat. Companies should strengthen the brand using quality components, offering great service, a hassle- free return policy, a performance guarantee and value pricing especially so that people will buy branded product at lesser price. This is psychological thinking of consumers besides advertising and promotions. In present situation; though the brands are available; it is really surprising that there is a need to revamp strategies to strengthen brand in terms of service as people are not happy about the right distribution of products and issues pertaining to packaging to mention a new.

2. Brand promise:

It is the critical and differentiating experience that the brand delivers to the consumer. To redefine or restore the brand relevance, this value experience must be consistently delivered, every time, everywhere. The process of redefining the brand relevance includes developing a comprehensive knowledge of the market and understanding the consumer needs that are addressed in the market segmentation. In addition, there must be an extensive evaluation of the customer, their views, opinions, habits, lifestyle, demographics, needs, wants and values. It is essential that the brand promise be clearly defined in order to restore and develop the brand experience and consumer trust. The ultimate goal of any form of brand building is to enhance and maximize the brand experience – making a promise to the consumer, delivering on that promise and doing it consistently

3. Develop a clear strategic vision:

Good strategic planning is often overlooked and misunderstood by companies. A strategic plan or business model defines how a company creates competitive advantage in the market wherein how its products and services meets consumer’s needs. This factor is very important for branding strategies which is the objective of the research. To sustain in the market the companies should develop a clear strategic plan which is a part of branding. As a result the consumers will be happy about the innovative product and service. Besides this, the major elements of competitive advantage define how consumers make purchasing decisions. These criteria include: low cost, high quality, ease of use, least amount of time and product innovation.

Successful companies are at least as good as their competitors in any of these criteria and are world-class or state-of-the-art. Less successful companies are either lacking in one or more of these areas or they mistakenly attempt at being world-class in more than one criteria, which results in loss of focus, thinly stretched resources and weak brand personality. This indicates that Good branding requires good strategic planning.

2. REVIEW OF LITERATURE:

Lin Chien-Huang and Kao,Danny T (2004) suggests that as global scenario is concerned companies have to focus on sustainable growth in order to formulate the strategies to survive in the market. Branding strategies, as the key role in the marketing mix, are increasingly viewed as a powerful tool to obtain sustainable competitive advantages, to fully utilize available resources and to avoid bleeding price competitions (Aaker and Keller, 1990).

Adner R and Zemsky (2006) has mentioned in that the sustainability of competitive advantage that emphasized on demand-side factors. It extends the added-value approach to business strategy by introducing an explicit treatment of how firms create value for consumers. This allows us to characterize how consumer heterogeneity and marginal utility from performance improvements on the demand side interact with resource heterogeneity and improving technologies on the supply side. This article addresses a variety of questions including whether technology substitutions will be permanent or transitory; the sequence in which new technologies attack different market segments; how rents from different types of resources change over time; whether decreasing marginal utility and imitation give rise to similar rent profiles; the extent of synergies within a firm's resource portfolio; the emergence of new generic strategies; and the conditions that support strategic diversity in a market. Our focus on consumer utility and value creation complements the traditional focus in the strategy literature on competition and value capture.

Jo atild;o Louro, Maria and Vieira Cunha, Paulo (2001) This article is concerned with the identification and analysis of current approaches toward brand management. Four paradigms are introduced that cluster disparate assumptions and processes of conceptualizing and managing brands. An organization's dominant paradigm determines its understanding of brands, the process and content of brand strategy and, consequently, their potential contribution to competitive advantage. The increasing recognition, by both managers and academics, of the significance of brands as sources of sustained competitive advantage accentuates the importance of validating and refining the premises and models underlying organizations' brand strategies.

Kaputa,c.(2006) This article discusses the principles in developing a career advancement plan basing from the schemes used by successful brands to deal with extreme

professional competition in the U.S. A personal-brand strategy is defined as the development of a winnable position in the marketplace with smart tactics for realizing it. By considering oneself as a brand or a product that can be viewed creatively and strategically, an individual can posses a very huge advantage in a highly dynamic work environment

Felgner, B. (2007) The article reports on challenges in brand management strategies. Liz Clairborne group president Trudy Sullivan points out the difference between a brand and a label. Several advantages of creating a new brand include higher sales and profits, better placements and longer life. Analyst Marshal Cohen suggests several areas in which to build brand attributes, including convenience, customization and indulgence.

3. OBJECTIVES OF THE RESEARCH:

To arrive at a conceptual model /framework for branding in sustainable growth.

3.1. Research Methodology:

The method adopted in this research is qualitative in nature on the field responses and observations. Total random sample of 50 practicing managers and 50 from general public Semi structured interview schedules were prepared. The opinion of practicing managers and general public were considered for the study which was likely responsible for framing a model for role of branding in sustainable growth.

Secondary sources include market reports on branding and few industry specific reports, advertisements , websites, economic times, brand communications and business magazine.

4. RESULTS AND CONCLUSION:

After having reviewed the literature on branding, the following factors were derived which is enlisted below with a conceptual model. Researcher has derived two factors Strategic perspectives and sustainability to form a conceptual model for sustenance.

Figure 1: A Model for Branding in Sustainable growth (Researcher Model)

From the figure the following important components of the model are listed.

1. Strategic perspectives and sustainability:

In order to sustain in the market during difficult situation one has to understand that the Strategic thinking is a vital factor and the marketers has to understand that there should be a link between strategic perspectives and sustainability. It can be understood from the model that strategic perspectives and sustainability are like two faces of a coin.

Thorough customer analysis has to be done at this stage because the company should be able to understand the customer’s business model as well in order to anticipate the needs

of customers. Researcher believes that the company should undergo intensive analysis of customer’s by carefully understanding their preferences of products and related factors.

2. Brand Promise should be guided and regulated by the concern for sustainability:

The model suggests that the brand promise should be guided and regulated by an organization. In this line, continual quality improvement should be carried out for long term relationship with customers. As discussed with few experts in branding they are under the opinion that the quality improvement is a prime factor for survival. It consists of customer retention and continual quality improvement. Moreover it is the critical and differentiating experience that the brand delivers to the consumer. Brand promise has to redefine the importance of brand in a product which must be consistently delivered, every time, everywhere which is crucial to sustenance. This is very critical in present economic condition in which India is heading at.

Minimum conflict between “Brand Promise” and “organization and corporate values”

It is noteworthy to mention that organizations should realise that for corporate values, ideally

speaking conflict should be very minimal as during the period of sustenance, researcher felt that there is lot of conflict which occurs which may loose direction in achieving sustainability especially during economic slowdown. Brand promise and organization and corporate values are important dimension which varies across industries. The values in which organization follow should be in tandem with brand promise. Core identity of the brand- core identity, is the essence of the brand, and includes the associations that are expected to remain consistent as the brand moves into new markets. There should be synchronization of values of the organization and the core identity (Aaker, 2002). This research as explained earlier that if the company has to sustain its brand, researcher has noticed that the core identity should be consistent factor for the betterment of business and of course sustainable growth should follow as the brand is entering into a new markets by collaborating with foreign brands. The values associated with brands should go hand in hand with the values of organization.

CONCLUSION:

An Effort has been made to arrive at the conceptual model of branding in sustainable growth giving due importance to branding as critical element in sustenance. The various factors required as presented in Figure 1 has been discussed with at most emphasize on the strategic perspectives and sustainability. Based on the study, the following recommendations are being made.

RECOMMENDATIONS:

1. Organizations should focus on active interaction between strategic requirements and sustainability is needed.

2. Brand promise should aim at customer retention and sustainability through quality improvements

3. Minimum “brand core”/organization and corporate values” conflict should be ensured

REFERENCES:

1. Lin, C., and Kao, D. T. (2004). The Impacts of Country-of-Origin on Brand Equity. Journal of American Academy of Business, Cambridge, 5(1/2), pp. 37- 40.

2. Felgner, B. (2007). New Challenges in Branding. Home Textiles Today, 28 (5), pp. 1- 31.

3. Adner R Zemsky.P (2006). A demand-based perspective on sustainable competitive advantage. Strategy Management Journal,27(3), pp. 215- 239.doi.10.1002/smj.513

4. Felgner, B. (2007). New Challenges in Branding. Home textiles Today.28(5), pp.1-31

5. Louro, Maria and Vieira Cunha, Paulo (2001). Brand Management Paradigms. Journal of Marketing Management.17(7/8), pp.849-875

6. Kaputa, C. (2006). Creating a Brand Strategy. T+D,60(4), pp.90-91 http://www.cardinalstrategy.com/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderfiles/branding.pdf

7. Brand Management. (2008). Brand Management-Research starters business, 1.

8. High, D. Knowles, J. (2004). How to define your brand and determine its value. Marketing Management, 13(3), 22-28. Retrieved March 23, 2007, from EBSCO Online Database Business Source Premier. http://search.ebscohost.com/ login.aspx?direct=true db=buh AN=13468247 site=ehost-live

9. Aaker, D. A. (2002), Building Strong Brands, The Free Press, New York

10. 1.http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/branding.html

11. http://marketing.about.com/bio/Laura-Lake-9179.htm

12. http://www.qualitylogoproducts.com/lib/why-is-branding-important.htm

Received on 10.03.2020 Modified on 12.04.2020

Asian Journal of Management. 2020;11(3):339-342.

DOI: 10.5958/2321-5763.2020.00053.0