Branding
A brand is defined as a name, term, sign, symbol or design that is intended to identify the goods and services of a seller that differentiates them from others. Good branding is good business. Brands are psychology and science brought together as a promise mark as opposed to a trademark. Products have life cycles. Brands outlive products. Brands convey a uniform quality, credibility and experience. Brands are valuable.
The world has changed drastically in the past few years. Marketing a product has no limits. Companies are gaining recognition through new media software and apps such as pintrest, twitter and instagram, stepping away from traditional marketing strategies and branding their companies in a new manner. For instance, Alice + Olivia started a fashion blog called 4 am Finds, which includes social media and trends.
Since consumers have been able to shop online, the most successful retailers with e-commerce have been those that set their brands apart by creating an experiential story. Those experiential stories are crafted though every communication tool – packaging and signage, highly stylized display advertising photography for print, radio and television ads that are then translated to the web, social networks and now mobile apps.
According to Tory Burch’s CMO, the fashion designer has “not bought traditional advertisements in U.S. magazines,” relying instead on an aggressive digital-first strategy that generates more revenue than any physical store. Reasons why? Tory Burch is perhaps the only fashion brand to have an editor-in-chief position within the company, and the Tory blog is a great example of exploring brand lifestyle.
Another example of non-traditional branding is Net a Porter. Widely know for their excellent editorial magazine, Net a Porter is tech savvy, including real time shopping feeds that shows what people around the world are adding to their shopping carts.
