Perspective on Brands: Price Marks, Trust Marks, Love Marks

As a consumer, have you ever thought about this question: "what exactly are brands?". Some may say "Gucci, Chanel, Prada, etc", others may say "the name of the product I purchase...etc". Well you are definitely not wrong to say that yes a brand is Gucci, and yes a brand is the name of a product. However, there are a lot more to brands than just the above mentioned. To me as a marketer, branding is a crucial component that contributes to the value creation as well as the success of a company. Here is a simple explaining from Forbes about why brands are important to businesses: 

"Brands are psychology and science brought together as a promise mark as opposed to a trademark. Products have life cycles. Brands outlive products. Brands convey a uniform quality, credibility and experience to customers. Brands are valuable. Many companies put the value of their brand on their balance sheet."

Brand not only provides an identity for the product, its also shapes the value and creates attitudes, perceptions, as well as attachments from customers' experience with the brand. Branding is the key to making a distinctive or differentiated product, and branding is the key to how consumers associate and interact with the products. I call branding the "X-Factor". 

According to the book "Perspectives on Brand Management" by Uncles, there are 3 perspectives on brands:

Perspective 1: Price Marks

Here's an example of a price mark brand:

Indeed, Louis Vuitton is an upscale example of  a price mark brand. By using this example, it is pretty clear that the focus is on price itself. Generally, when consumers buy on price their behaviour tend to be promiscuous in that they simply choose the best buy at a particular point in time. It is arguable that this can be a form of branding. Take for example Wal-Mart. 

Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer as well as the largest company with over 2 million employees worldwide, brands itself as the "everyday-low-prices" discount store, consistently offering products at low prices everyday.

Perspective 2: Trust Marks

Here's an example of a trust mark brand:

Yes that's right, it's Cadbury Dairy Milk brand. Trust mark brands are products that are identified by their names, logos, symbols, slogans, jingles, and designs, thereby helping to distinguish one provider's offering from another. Personally I feel that Cadbury is the best example to explain what trust marks is all bout and I'm pretty sure the "wouldn't it be nice" jingle or the animated brown characters made you go "ahhh isn't that Cadbury?".

Perspective 3: Love Marks

Here's an example of a love mark brand:

oh wait no not this love mark (i.e love bites)! But this...

Apple Inc.

Apple is one excellent example that says all about a love mark brand. Love mark brands create symbols that represent and convey a meaning. Consumers connects with the brand i.e "I am the brand, the brand is me" and they assist in building the personality of the brand. Therefore Apple is the iconic brand, where they sell aspirations. This is especially true to apple consumers, and I have to agree to that.

Feel free to leave a comment or share your opinions on the importance of branding as well the your perspective of brands! Thanks.