Branding is used as a marketing practice to increase customer loyalty as a long-term exercise. There are many types of brands including products, services, individuals and groups, and private labels. Another type of brand recently added to this list is known as e-brand, which could be anything intangible or non-physical, such as an e-book. Here we are going to form a link between branding and packaging and therefore we will limit our discussion to physical products only – things or items that can be packaged.
A branding strategy is typically used to introduce a brand into the market and help it expand through reputation and maturity. Many different types of branding strategies are in practice, such as attitude branding, no-brand branding, cannibalization, and crowdsourcing, etc. There are traditional methods in which businesses create brands but there are some unconventional techniques as well in which people or consumers create brands. Now this is interesting.
Individual branding requires each brand to be named differently. The same company or business would launch many different products under unique brand names but they would all represent the same company and would have many things in common. Nestle is an example of such a company, which produces many products under different brand names. Then there is something called multi-brands strategy, in which the same company would launch competing brands itself so that a large market share could be owned.
Brands are also created by keeping in mind an individual consumer’s personal identity and traits. The strategy that helps create such brands is known as iconic branding. Some brands are marketed without any brand name. Mark Di Somma defines 21 different types of brands ranging from personal and corporate brand to ethical, celebrity, and global brand. Each one of these brands has to be marketed using a unique branding strategy so that they are received with the same expectations the creator had in mind when he was creating the brand.
Product packaging is another type of marketing technique used today to bring to light some of the product attributes so that the customers would remember the product. Another concept called white label products needs to be introduced here as these products can be sold under different names simply by changing its packaging. These are produced by the same producer but brought to market under different “brand” names.
Investing some time and money into packaging designs could be a business opportunity for some people. Colour scheme, graphics, text, and overall design of packaging play a vital role in attracting consumers. Here some creativity has to be put into action if a business owner wants to get ahead of their competitors. Freelancers make money online by offering their services in this regard.
Private labels are quickly gaining in popularity all around the world and these are also known as own brands. Retailers create their own line of products to compete against other companies’ brands and this strategy at times proves to be very successful. It helps to put forth some very useful products without having to spend a lot of money on branding.
