146 • 100 GREAT BUSINESS IDEAS
The cre at ion of a powerful and well-respected brand is the
key to increasing market share and company value. Brands are
key intangible resources that need to be carefully developed and
maintained. Their features include reputation, trust, loyalty, and
understanding among customers.
The idea
A brand is a design, name, or identity that is given to a product or
service in order to differentiate it from its competitors. Customers
know they can expect certain values associated with brands. For
example, Rolls-Royce cars are associated with quality, reliability, and
prestige, while Wal-Mart built its reputation on homely convenience
and low price.
Brands are complex assets. One method of managing brands is
to view them as having “personalities.” This concept of brand
personality highlights their power. Rolls-Royce is a brand with an
almost mythical status: a byword for engineering standards that
have long been met or even surpassed by others. The advantages of
trusted brands are clear:
- Pricing. A successful and established brand can command a
substantial price premium, exceeding the extra cost in terms
of production and marketing. This derives from the element
of trust that a brand provides. Research in Britain has shown
that consumers are often prepared to pay 30 percent extra for
a new product from a trusted brand than for one from an
unnamed one.