Elements of the Brand

    Brands are complex entities that are made up of both tangible and intangible ingredients, all of which play an important role in speaking to the consumer, communicating a message, and building an audience. Brand managers are responsible for building trust, communicating a message, and forging an emotional connection with their market. All of that takes the careful fostering of promise, personality, unique qualities, and representative icons and elements.

The Importance of Branding

   Brand building is such an important element to success that most large companies hire people with the title of Brand Manager, as well as look to outside agencies for help building brands. Successful brand building involves paying constant attention to user enjoyment of a given product or service, setting sufficient budgets for marketing, and evolving the brand over time as markets and opinions change.

Companies invest in building and marketing their brands for a number of reasons, including:

• Increasing recognition

• Establishing trust

• Building brand loyalty

           

Breaking Down the Brand

   Understanding the brand is vital to the success of any marketing campaign, whether online or offline. In fact, the brand is the foundation upon which marketing programs are developed. What exactly is a brand? The answer often depends on who you ask and the context in which you are asking. The best way to arrive at a comprehensive definition, for marketing purposes, is to break the word down, starting from the beginning.

       Visit any cattle farm and you are likely to see cows with letters or icons burnt into their hides with a branding iron. These burn marks help farmers determine which cows belong to which farm, should herds become intermingled while grazing.

Video as a Social Media Tool

   Online video has become an important part of the social media revolution, infi ltrating sites in practically every category and expanding into its own industry. One reason for the popularity of video-sharing sites is that most provide free storage space, so that producers do not need to pay to upload their content. Th e cost of servers and the potential complexities of developing a site capable of showing videos could be an insurmountable barrier for the average user. Video sharing sites virtually eliminate the costs and hassles for producers and create a central place where viewers can come to watch a variety of videos.

Web Based Video

   Video is one of the fastest growing mediums on the Web. It has captured the attention of millions of viewers who tune in to watch everything from their favorite shows, newscasts, and music videos to movie trailers, home videos, and a wide range of amateur productions. Marketers have jumped on the bandwagon, getting involved in the online video market to help promote their brands to a growing audience that is hungry for new video content.