This is a really detailed article about how important branding is to your wine label. It is a good follow up article to the previous article about how wineries are using animals to distinguish their brands.
as I always say, people don't buy a product, they buy an experience.
Branding is the process of creating distinctive and durable
perceptions in the minds of consumers. A brand is a persistent,
unique business identity intertwined with associations of
personality, quality, origin, liking and more. Here's why the
effort to brand your company or yourself pays off.
1. Memorability. A brand serves as a convenient container for a
reputation and good will. It's hard for customers to go back to
"that whatsitsname store" or to refer business to "the plumber
from the Yellow Pages." In addition to an effective company
name, it helps when people have material reminders reinforcing
the identity of companies they will want to do repeat business
with: refrigerator magnets, tote bags, datebooks, coasters, key
rings, first aid kits, etc.
Memorability can come from using and sticking with an unusual
color combination (FedEx's purple and orange), distinctive
behavior (the gas station whose attendants literally run to
clean your windshield), or with an individual, even a style of
clothing (Author Tom Wolfe's white suits). Develop your own
identifiers and nail them to your company name in the minds of
your public.
2. Loyalty. When people have a positive experience with a
memorable brand, they're more likely to buy that product or
service again than competing brands. People who closely bond
with a brand identity are not only more likely to repurchase
what they bought, but also to buy related items of the same
brand, to recommend the brand to others and to resist the lure
of a competitor's price cut. The brand identity helps to create
and to anchor such loyalty.
Consider the legions of car owners who travel up to 2,000 miles
at their own expense to attend a Saturn celebration at the
company's plant in Spring Hill, Tennessee. That's loyalty. And
supposedly, more people have the motorcycle brand
"Harley-Davidson" tattooed on their body than any other brand
name. That's out-of-this-world loyalty.
3. Familiarity. Branding has a big effect on non-customers too.
Psychologists have shown that familiarity induces liking.
Consequently, people who have never done business with you but
have encountered your company identity sufficient times may
become willing to recommend you even when they have no personal
knowledge of your products or services. Seeing your ads on local
buses, having your pen on their desk, reading about you in the
Hometown News, they spread the word for you when a friend or
colleague asks if they know a ____ and that's what you do.
4. Premium image, premium price. Branding can lift what you sell
out of the realm of a commodity, so that instead of dealing with
price-shoppers you have buyers eager to pay more for your goods
than for those of competitors. Think of some people's
willingness to buy the currently "in" brand of bottled water,
versus toting along an unlabeled bottle of the same stuff filled
from the office water cooler.
The distinctive value inherent in a brand can even lead people
to dismiss evidence they would normally use to make buying
decisions. I once saw one middle-aged Cambridge, Massachusetts,
intellectual argue to several colleagues that Dunkin' Donuts'
coffee tastes better than Starbucks'. So contradictory was this
claim to the two companies' reputations for this demographic
group that the colleagues refused to put the matter to a taste
test.
5. Extensions. With a well-established brand, you can spread the
respect you've earned to a related new product, service or
location and more easily win acceptance of the newcomer. For
instance, when a winery with a good reputation starts up
regional winery tours, then adds foreign ones, each business
introduction benefits from the positive perceptions already in
place.
6. Greater company equity. Making your company into a brand
usually means that you can get more money for the company when
you decide to sell it. A Coca-Cola executive once said that if
all the company's facilities and inventory vanished all around
the world, he could walk into any bank and take out a loan based
only on the right to the Coca-Cola name and formula.
7. Lower marketing expenses. Although you must invest money to
create a brand, once it's created you can maintain it without
having to tell the whole story about the brand every time you
market it. For instance, a jingle people in your area have heard
a zillion times continues to promote the company when it's
played without any words.
8. For consumers, less risk. When someone feels under pressure
to make a wise decision, he or she tends to choose the
brand-name supplier over the no-name one. As the saying goes,
"You'll never be fired for buying IBM." By building a brand, you
fatten your bottom line.
About the author:
Marcia Yudkin is the author of 6 Steps to Free Publicity and ten
other books hailed for outstanding creativity. Find out more
about her new discount naming company, Named At Last, which
brainstorms new company names, new product names, tag lines and
more for cost-conscious organizations, at
http://www.NamedAtLast.com .
Tags: winery marketing - branding - wines
