Branding & Why It's Important

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 Branding. You hear people talk about it all the time. But what exactly does branding mean?

“A brand is the feel of your business card, the way the company’s phone is answered, the tone of a letter, the package that’s almost impossible to open, the receptionist at the corporate office who continues to chat with a fellow worker when a customer arrives, the instructions that are too hard to follow, the lane-hogging driver of a corporation’s truck. The brand is every touch point and every thought the customer has about the brand.” - American Marketing Association

The impressions consumers have of a company extend well beyond the product or service the firm provides. Brand image is a mental picture that reflects the way a brand is perceived, including all the identifying elements, the product or company personality and the emotions and associations evoked in the consumer’s mind.

A brand has real monetary value. Successful companies invest heavily in building and protecting their brands. And that investment yields tremendous rewards in terms of name recognition and positive impressions.

How can you cut through advertising clutter and make your brand stand out without spending a fortune? Use promotional products.

Promotional products are the only advertising medium capable of engaging all five senses, and in a world where consumers are bombarded by messages, promotional products stand alone. A print ad, an internet pop-up or a television or radio spot all interrupt and distract consumers. But promotional products engage and are welcomed by consumers and integrated into a lifestyle.

An experimental study conducted by Georgia Southern University shows that recipients of promotional products have a significantly more positive image of a company than consumers who do not receive promotional products.*

Effectiveness of Promotional Products

How, you may wonder, can a marketing medium that is so affordable, be so effective? It’s because promotional products are powerful opinion-changing agents. Savvy advertisers look for media with reach, recall and low cost per impression, and promotional products provide that. In a 2004 study conducted for PPAI, the impression of a company using a promotional product as a brand builder was reported by 52 percent of the study participants as more favorable since receiving the item.**

Promotional products furnish advertisers with advantages that may not be available in other media. These include:

• High recall where the name of the advertiser is remembered
• Repeated exposure to the advertising message because of the length of time a promotional product is kept
• A more favorable impression the advertiser** 

The value of promotional products is in their ability to carry a message to a well-defined target audience. Because the products are useful to and appreciated by the recipients, they are retained and used, repeating the imprinted message multiple times – without added cost to the advertiser.

For more information about promotional products and how to add them to your company’s marketing mix, contact Burston Marketing, Inc. at 574.262.4005. 

*2004 PPAI Study Promotional Products’ Image on Brand/Company Image 

**2004 PPAI Study Promotional Products: Impact, Exposure and Influence