By M. Isi Eromosele

Brand Awareness

Brand awareness is the connection between a brand and its product or service group. If a brand is properly managed, consumers will be able to easily place it in its suitable purchasing framework. The inability of customers to do this would place the brand at a disadvantage because of lack of recognition and recall.

As such, brand awareness represents customers’ capability to define a brand as part of an appropriate group, which facilitates their ability to make the desired purchase. More powerful brand awareness is evident when customers can name a brand as part a particular group without assistance (unaided recall).

A crucial market branding objective for any company in global marketplace is to achieve "top of the mind" status, which signifies that a greater number of its customers can identify its brand first without being assisted.

Having a foremost brand provides a distinct competitive advantage because in most purchase scenarios, consumers would not consider any other brand.

Brand Image

A brand’s image is the sum of the associations that have been established to help it produce a strong global imprint. The associations that underpin the brand image will get stronger as the quantity of its brand related experiences by customers increase.

Unreliable associations will result in the wipe out of the brand equity. To prevent this from occurring, a strong brand foundation must be established and the brand vision must be steadfastly maintained.

The power and differentiation of a brand image is directly related to a company’s ability to expand the brand. Being able to do so broadens the brand’s scope of influence, with the potential of raising its equity.

In managing a brand’s associations, its core values must be maintained and brand consistency must be practiced.

Brand Loyalty

Customers form brand loyalty based on their positive experiences with the brand. It is a measure of how inclined a customer is to choose the same brand when buying from a product group. When a customer continues to buy a brand, despite strong competition from other brands of similar quality, that indicates the existence of strong brand equity. Please, take note that even the most loyal customers will switch to another brand if yours fail to meet their expectations at any particular time for any reason.

The level of brand loyalty is the most significant pointer to the strength of the brand’s equity. There can be no brand equity without brand loyalty. To be in the top three of any product group, a brand needs considerable brand loyalty.

Market leader brands usually have extraordinarily high brands loyalty i.e. Apple. If a brand’s awareness and its image do not translate into brand loyalty, the entire branding campaign would need to be reevaluated.

In order to maintain high performance brands, the following recommendations need to be implemented:

• Your brand’s vision must be clear and consistent
• Conceive your brand identity (name, logo and slogan) after careful thought
• You cannot change your brand’s name. Your logo and slogan may be changed
• Build brand awareness that goes beyond advertising
• Protect your brand image. It practically represents everything in your brand
• Do all you possibly can to maintain brand loyalty in your customers

Happy Branding!

M. Isi Eromosele is the President | Chief Executive Officer | Executive Creative Director of Oseme Group - Oseme Creative | Oseme Consulting | Oseme Finance

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