Leading Entrepreneurship

In my previous post, The Brand, we took a general look at the term and definition, but we have yet to define its reason for being, so we’ll accomplish that goal in this post.

“For most companies brands are their primary source of competitive advantage and their most valuable strategic asset. Without brands we’d live in a world of commodities – undifferentiated products that are traded solely on price, according to the laws of supply and demand. Branding enables companies to actively influence the demand side of the equation by encouraging consumers to base their purchase decisions on factors other than price.

Brands are also important for consumers. They enable consumers to make informed purchase decisions and help them to navigate their way through the bewildering number of alternatives that exist in any product category. It can also be argued that brands enrich our lives. In a world in which our basic needs have been satisfied, brands give us something which we can aspire and help in defining our own identities. This, however, is a question of ideology, and many would disagree.”

Paul Stobart (2002)
Creating Powerful Brands,
Business: The Ultimate Resource.
Cambridge, MA: Perseus Publishing.

“Great brands – Coca-Cola, American Express, McDonald’s, IBM, Rolls-Royce, Chanel, Sony – command awareness and esteem from consumers around the world. Strong, relevant identities for specific branded offerings enhance a firm’s profitability and influence in terms of competition in its industry. Brands also greatly facilitate the introduction of additional products by companies in possession of popular brands – Coca-Cola’s Diet Coke, Caffeine-free Coke, Sprite, Fresca, and so on.”

Nancy F. Koehn (2001)
Brand New: How Entrepreneurs Earned Consumers’ Trust
From Wedgwood to Dell.
Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press

“There are unemotional brands such as Kmart and Compaq, and emotional brands, such as Wal-Mart and Apple. The difference between the two is the vision, visualization, and emotional connection the later have been able to convey to the world.”

Marc Gobé (2001)
Emotional Branding.
New York, NY: Allworth Press.

“Companies with strong brands therefore have a few enormous advantages in the marketplace:

Companies with strong brands succeed not just because their brands have such a strong influence on an external audience of consumers, but also because their brands have such a strong influence on an internal audience of employees, vendors, and distributors.”

David F. D’Alessandro (2001)
Brand Warfare: 10 Rules for Building the Killer Brand.
New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.