Brand Elements
Brand elements can be trademarked to identify and distinguish the brand. Many brand elements are used by strong brands. Nike has a unique “swoosh” logo, the encouraging “Just Do It!” slogan, and the “Nike”, a name derived from the Greek winged goddesses of victory, are all trademarks of Nike.
Marketers must choose brand elements in order to build brand equity. This is how consumers would feel about the product if they knew the brand element. A consumer might expect SnackWell’s snacks to be healthy and Panasonic Toughbook laptops to be reliable based on the name.
Brand Element Selection Criteria
Six criteria are used to choose brand elements. Brand building is done by the first three criteria, which are memorable, meaningful, and likable. The last three, which are transferable, adaptable, and protectable, are defensive and help to preserve brand equity and leverage it against future challenges.
Memorable -How easy can consumers remember and recognize the brand element and when it was used, at both consumption and purchase? Brand elements that are easily remembered include Coke, Pepsi, Amazon, PayPal, Google, and Facebook.
Meaningful – Is the element of the brand believable enough? Is it representative of the product or person that the brand might be used by? Think about the meaning of names like SpaceX, Blue Origin, Mastercard, and YouTube.
Likable – How visually appealing is the brand element? Trendy names with a URL are now being used for online brands such as Flickr, Instagram, Pinterest, and Tumblr.
Transferable – Can the brand element introduce products in different categories or the same? It can increase brand equity across geographical boundaries and market segments. Amazon.com started as an online bookseller, but it was smart enough to not call itself “Books ‘R’ Us.” Amazon.com is known for being the world’s largest river and its name reflects the wide range of products it sells.
Adaptable – How adaptable and flexible is the brand element? It is easy to update logos. In the past 100 years, Shell’s logo has been updated 10 times.
Protectable – How legally protected is the brand element? How competitively protected? Names that are at risk of being synonymous with product categories (as was the case with Kleenex, Kitty Litter, and Jell-O), should be protected by their makers and not allowed to be generic.
Brand Element Options
Your brand communicates who and what you are. It is essential for survival and a key to success.
Brand elements are more than just the logo or name. These are some of the most important brand elements for creating a lasting brand identity.
Brand Names
Brand names are an important decision. They often convey the core theme or key associations of a product and can be compacted and concise. A brand name can be a very effective way to communicate quickly. While an advertisement may last for 30 seconds and a sales call might take hours, customers will notice the brand name within a second and can register its meaning or activate it in their memory.
It is the most important element that marketers can not change often because it is so closely linked to the product. They do extensive research on them before making a decision.
Even though it may seem like there are many options, every year, tens of thousands more brands are registered as legal trademarks. It can be difficult and time-consuming to find a brand name that is suitable for a new product. Many executives are frustrated to discover that many of the most desirable brand names have been legally registered.
Brand names, like any other brand element, must be selected with the six general criteria for memorability and meaningfulness, transferability, adaptability.
Slogans
Slogans are short phrases that convey descriptive or persuasive information about a brand. Slogans are often used in advertising, but they can also play an important part in packaging and other aspects of the marketing plan. Snickers’ slogan “Hungry? Grab a Snickers” was also printed on the wrapper of the candy bars.
Slogans can be powerful branding tools because they, like brand names, are a quick and efficient way to build brand equity. Slogans can be used as “hooks” that help consumers understand the brand’s meaning, what it is, and why it is special.
Slogans can be the most flexible brand element that marketers can change. Sometimes, a modified slogan can be more effective than introducing a brand new slogan with completely different meanings.
Jingles
Jingles are music messages that revolve around a brand. They are usually composed by professional songwriters. Their catchy hooks or choruses can be almost permanent in the minds and hearts of listeners, whether they want them or not.
Jingles were a key branding tool during the first half-century of broadcast advertising, which was limited to radio. Jingles can be thought of as extended musical slogans and, in that sense, they are a brand element. Jingles, due to their musical nature, are not as easily transferable as other elements of a brand.
Although they can communicate brand benefits, they are often used to convey product meaning in an indirect and abstract manner. The brand’s potential associations are likely to be based on feelings, personality, and other intangibles.
The most effective way to increase brand awareness is through jingles. They often repeat the brand name in creative and funny ways, giving consumers multiple encoding options. After the commercial ends, consumers are more likely to mentally practice or repeat catchy jingles. This increases memorability and encoding possibilities.
Color
Careful consideration is given to brand colors. You can see the brand colors in their brand books. Each color has a specific message. Yellow is a color that brings joy. However, dark yellow and light yellow are different in their messaging.
Famous brands have conquered markets with their colors. One of them is Coca-cola. We all remember the red color of this brand. Coca-cola promotes red color love and emotion. The bottle’s color can also be seen in the Christmas advert where trucks were riding in red. It is the same color as Kit Kat packaging.
The brand is certain that the color has brought them success. Starbucks has adopted the color green. The color green is the color that represents nature. It encourages us to take a journey and discover our individuality. Many websites consider the color blue to be a color that spreads trust.
Symbols and Logos
Logos can be corporate names, trademarks, or abstract designs. They may also include corporate names, trademarks, or even corporate activities. Coca-Cola and Dunhill are examples of strong word marks that have no logo apart from the brand name.
Some examples of abstract logos are the Olympic rings, Rolex crown, and Mercedes star, as well as Nike swoosh and Nike swoosh. These logos, which do not wordmark logos, are often called symbols.
Although logos and symbols can be easily identified and used to identify products, consumers may not be able to associate them with any particular brand or product. Logos also have the advantage of being versatile. They can be used across cultures and for a variety of product categories.
Uniform Resource Locators (URLs)
URLs are the locations of web pages and are commonly known as domain names. To own a URL, you must register for and pay the name. The number of URLs registered grew dramatically as companies prefer their online presence. Every three-letter combination, and almost all words in an English dictionary, have been registered.
Companies also face a problem with URLs. They need to protect their brands from unauthorized use in other domains. The company has the option to sue the current URL owner for copyright infringement, purchase the name from him, or register any variants of its brand as domain names in advance.
Fonts
Another important element of branding is the fonts that a brand uses. The fonts used by a brand to write, such as on their website or in an email template, are carefully chosen to convey their values and personality. Fonts’ components are similar to how colors correspond with different emotions or traits.
Characters
Characters are special brand symbols that can take on real-life or human characteristics. Advertising is a common way to introduce brand characters and they can be a key part of ad campaigns or package designs.
Brand characters are eye-catching and very useful in generating brand awareness because they are colorful and rich with imagery. Brand characters can be used to help brands stand out from the crowd and communicate key product benefits.
Brand characters with a human aspect can increase likeability and create a perception of the brand’s personality as interesting and fun. If a brand has a character or human presence, a consumer will be more likely to form a connection with the brand.
Brand characters are not usually associated with a specific product, so they can be easily transferred between product categories. It is important to update characters over time in order to keep their personality and image relevant to the target audience.
Packaging
Packaging refers to the process of creating wrappers of products. To achieve their marketing goals and satisfy consumers’ requirements, marketers need to choose the right packaging components. Packages’ size, shape, material, color, and graphics are governed by aesthetic considerations.
Innovative technology allows marketers to create appealing packaging and helps to convey the complex brand message in a convincing way to the customer at the point of purchase.
Packaging can be a powerful tool for brand recognition. It can convey or imply valuable information that will help to strengthen or build brand associations.
In order to appeal to new markets, one of the most important packaging trends in recent years has been to offer smaller and larger packaged versions of products. Packaging innovations can reduce costs and/or increase demand.
Marketers can use each brand element to build brand equity. It is easier to recall brand names with logos than without them.
The brand identity is the sum of all elements of the brand. It includes the contributions of each brand element to awareness and image. The consistency of brand elements is a key factor in the cohesiveness and quality of the brand identity. Marketers should choose the right elements to support each other so that they can all be easily integrated into the brand’s marketing program.