I don’t think I am an actress.

I don’t think I am an actress. I think I’ve created a brand and a business.
Pamela Anderson.

Brands worth more money than Products

According to the American Marketing Association, a Brand is a name, term, sign, symbol or any other feature that identifies one seller’s good or service from those of other sellers. The word ‘brand’ comes from the Norwegian brandr meaning to burn, as in branding cattle.

                A product is something created by labour that can be marketed or sold as a commodity. A brand is created when you take that product and give it special meaning through names, logos or any form of identifi cation that separates one seller’s goods or services from their competition.
               Why do we create brands? Quite simply, we create them because brands are worth more money than products.

Role of Opinion leaders in making a Brand successful

A society will always have opinion leaders who are generally the fi rst to try new products, help set trends and be very valuable to brands trying to get established. Opinion leaders are often show-business idols, politicians
or sports stars. When Michael Jordan started wearing Nike, everyone started wearing Nike. 

                When Red Bull was fi rst introduced in the US, Red Bull refrigerators were taken to movie shoots and given away free to cast and crew for years before the fi rst consumer got the opportunity to have the energy drink. Once a generation of movie stars had adopted the beverage, there was no stopping Red Bull, the number one energy drink in America. 

              At the moment, the weight opinion leaders carry appears to be diminishing in the US (but certainly not disappearing). Consider fashion. What is in style today? The answer, probably for the fi rst time in history, is everything. Everything is in style right now. Whatever you want to wear is in style. Why? Because teens of today don’t feel the same overwhelming need to mimic others outside their peer group as they have in the past. Armed with YouTube and a host of ways to become famous themselves, these teens are confi dent enough in themselves to make their own rules and one of those rules is to not be manipulated by marketers or celebrities.

Price is the success factor for Wal-Mart

Wal-Mart: Price

Sam Walton went to work for the JC Penney company for $75 per month after graduating from college. After bouncing around the Midwest from retail job to retail job, he bought a small store in Bentonville, Arkansas, and opened Walton’s 5 & 10. By the end of his life in 1992, Wal-Mart would be the world’s largest retailer.

Single-minded focus on low prices

How did a simple man with vision go from being a low-level retail employee to one of the wealthiest and most successful men in the world? By keeping a very single-minded focus on offering the lowest prices in every category he sold. The result? Approximately 80% of disposable diapers sold in the US go through Wal-Mart. About 60% of shampoo and conditioners are sold through Wal-Mart. Quite simply, Walton kept prices low and customers rewarded him with their loyalty.

     But how could Wal-Mart sell for less than their competitors at K-Mart and Target stores? Location. While other stores were locating in the centre of large cities, Sam Walton built his stores out in the country between two small towns. The land was cheaper and his Wal-Mart stores could draw customers from both small towns. The result? Walton had as many or more potential customers and did so at a much lower cost than his competitors. Those savings were passed along to customers in the form of some of the lowest prices offered anywhere. The result of this? Very few stores could successfully compete with Walton’s prices and all the family retailers that make up a small town began closing up as they lost their customers to Wal-Mart. 

      As scanners and UPC codes expanded, suddenly Wal-Mart controlled a tremendous amount of information about the sales of every brand they handled. They knew better than anyone exactly what was selling minute by minute, category by category. Soon, they were telling manufacturers how much they were willing to pay for products. Manufacturers were then left trying to fi gure out how they could make the goods for the price Wal-Mart were willing to pay. This spurred the growth of offshore manufacturing closing thousands of factories in the US and Europe in favour of shipping manufacturing to less expensive manufacturing countries such as India and China.

     Wal-Mart is a controversial company to say the least. It’s also stunningly successful. As Sam Walton famously said to his critics, if he wouldn’t have done this, someone else would have. For Wal-Mart it’s all about low prices.

 

Giving chocolate to others is an intimate form of communication, a sharing of deep, dark secrets.

Consider the difference between a box of Godiva chocolates and a Mars bar. Both are chocolate, right?
If you invite me to dinner at your home and I show up with a box of Godiva chocolates, you are likely to be very happy you invited me. If I show up with a Mars bar; you might not invite me back. What’s the difference?
Remember, they are both chocolate. Right? Actually no. A Mars bar is an ‘everyday’ treat, while a box of Godiva chocolates is a selection of ‘premium’ handmade chocolates. A Mars bar tells the recipient I’m cheap. The box of Godiva tells the recipient I’m very happy to be there, and that they are worth ‘the best’ I can give. So how do Godiva communicate all this?