Since the birth of the word brand, there is still no unified understanding of the concepts of brand and brand strategy in academic circles. This undoubtedly forms a fatal obstacle to the development of brand and brand strategy theory and the promotion of brand competition. In recent ten years, people have claimed to have invented new brand strategy methods or tools, but the brand strategy theory that can stand the test of time seems to have not appeared yet.
Based on the understanding of the origin and evolution of "product", this paper deduces that brand is a "natural product and its extension", which seems to find the "root" of brand and brand strategy. In addition, "it is what I need (object), sometimes tangible (object), sometimes a combination of tangible (object) and intangible (symbol)." It also seems to tell the basis of all consumer behaviors and the highest degree of generalization of object characteristics. As for the understanding of brand strategy, I think it is scientific and convincing that I quote the classification theory of combat mode in military strategy and deduce the content components that should be involved in brand strategic planning according to the content components in military strategic planning. If the viewpoint of this paper can be widely recognized by academic circles, there may be a really correct starting point in the research of brand strategy theory, tools and methods.
(A) the essence and connotation of the brand
1. What is the essence of "brand"?
At present, there is widespread confusion about brands in the field of marketing and even brand (strictly speaking, few people can really be called brand scholars at present, and most of them are marketing "scholars"). As for the former students, the actual managers and executors of brand and marketing, the understanding of brand is even more confusing. Even in China since the early 1990s, the brand has remained in the primary form of CI. From the beginning of 2 1 century, under the influence of international successful brands, even though there have been some very successful cases of "branding", I think this is only a partial success of empiricism, and it happens to be the result of collision with brand truth. Why do you say that? Because, even if it is a very successful multinational company at present, the success rate of brand launch is actually very low. This is no wonder, because since the birth of the word brand, there has never been a unified opinion on the definition of brand in the marketing or brand circles. According to my long-term understanding and observation, the definition of brand, product or commodity is a simple question in every consumer's consciousness-"It is what I need (object), sometimes it is tangible (object), sometimes it is the combination of tangible (object) and intangible (symbol)."
The word "brand", whether expressed in Chinese, English, Japanese, Korean or any other language, is a formal symbol prescribed by human beings, and has never had a natural and true correspondence with what it refers to, so it cannot change the essence of the brand. Therefore, trying to find the most convincing explanation from the literal connotation of "brand" is doomed to fail.
In fact, the brand is essentially the same as the original concept of "product", and the only difference is their connotation width, acquisition means and the identity of the provider.
Brands, like any other substance that meets the most basic physiological needs, are the objects that consumers want. This is an objective fact that no one can change. Because, from the earliest "products" given by nature to humans and any other animals and plants, to the self-sufficient "products" created by people through labor, and then to the "products" (goods, services and cultural symbols) obtained through social exchange, that is, the exchange of labor, goods and currency, the essence of "products" for people is-"it is what I need. Nothing has changed. However, with the development of human society, the connotation of products (natural attributes and cultural attributes), the means of obtaining products and their suppliers are constantly changing. In order to distinguish these changes, human beings invented such prescriptive words as "product", "commodity" and "brand" with the relationship between inclusion and inclusion. As far as their conceptual width is concerned, these words have such a relationship: product ≥ commodity ≥ brand.
2. What is the connotation of "brand"?
"It is what I need (object), sometimes tangible (object), sometimes a combination of tangible (object) and intangible (symbol)." In my opinion, this sentence expresses the essential connotation of brand as a "natural product and its extension", and its birth and existence history is even earlier than human beings. Because the original form of the brand, or the origin of the brand, is the "product" given by nature to human beings, that is, all available "materials" that human beings think are in line with nature "just what I need". The so-called advanced form of brand is just the result of these materials or products being "processed and manufactured" by using these materials, or the combination of natural objects or related people and things-related symbols-culture.
Human beings invented the word "brand" in economic activities, and its starting point is nothing more than the following two aspects:
First of all, in order to distinguish different manufacturers of each product.
As a commercialized material product, the differences in technology, management, interests, ethics, concepts and other aspects of products and related services produced by various businesses will inevitably lead to differences in quality, performance, appearance and other connotations or forms. Out of confidence in their product quality and business philosophy, in order to make consumers easily identify their products, merchants try their best to create differences in the external form of products. Therefore, the main "expression" forms of brands such as trademarks, trade names, trademark graphics, packaging and decoration have emerged and become popular.
The second is to distinguish it from products with only material functions in the traditional sense.
Traditionally, products generally only provide customers with the benefits brought by some physical properties of products. Due to the continuous enrichment of human material life and increasing attention to spiritual life, the need for spiritual life has also developed into what I want (things) with exchange value. In addition, due to the mutual imitation of best-selling products in quality, technology, appearance and concept, the phenomenon of "homogenization" between brand products is widespread. The so-called "homogenization" may be qualitative, or it may just be that the external forms are too similar. However, no matter what kind of homogenization, its harm lies in that it is difficult for consumers to judge the benefits that products of various businesses may bring to them and the difference in income/price ratio, so in the end, they may only take price as the final purchase decision factor, which will easily lead to vicious price wars. Under the circumstances that it is difficult for products to create obvious and intuitive effective differences, market competition cannot be "on an equal footing" for a long time, and business cannot be separated from "profit maximization", culture, the third commodity attribute after materiality and service, shoulders the third force to create competitive advantages. In order to distinguish products with only physical attributes and emphasize the spiritual value carried by products, "brand" has replaced "product" and "commodity" as the latest identification character form of products with the richest connotation coverage, but in terms of its essence, brand is still not divorced from the essence of products-it is what I want (object).
In recent ten years, vicious price wars have frequently occurred in many industries in China. Although this is related to the lack of technical advantages of Chinese enterprises, it is more important to show that Chinese enterprises still lack experience in tapping new consumer needs, especially spiritual life needs. However, this responsibility should first be attributed to the lack of academic theory. Of course, this is not only the lack of corresponding theoretical guidance and experience in this respect in China, but also the same topic faced by enterprises and brand circles all over the world. )
On the relationship between products, commodities and brands, the conclusion of this part of the discussion seems to be: "brand ≥ commodity ≥ product", which seems to be in contradiction with the conclusion of "product ≥ commodity ≥ brand" obtained from the above discussion on the essence of brands. In fact, this is not contradictory. I think both conclusions are correct. Because their opposite conclusion is only from two different angles-nature and human choice.
3. Definition of the word "brand"
In the above analysis of the essence of the word "brand", I put forward the view that the brand is essentially the same as the original product, and the only difference is their connotation width, acquisition means and the identity of the producer. And in the elaboration of brand connotation, the difference between the word "brand" and the traditional concept of "product" lies in two aspects: one is to distinguish the producers of various products; The second is to distinguish it from products with only material functions in the traditional sense. Combining these two conclusions, we can easily define the word "brand" as follows:
"A brand is a' product' that can clearly distinguish different producers, is used for market exchange, contains material functions or has both material and cultural functions."