Source of Brand Strength in business

Consumers decide to buy for sure for a reason. One of them is your brand crossed their mind and create a positive impression so as to trigger the purchase. How did all this happen?

Brand is one of the company's most valuable assets. All businesses are now competing to strengthen their brand. The question is, what is the trigger so that a brand can be strong?

To be strong, the brand must first come into the minds of consumers when they think about a particular product category. Brands can arise in the minds of consumers both consciously and subconsciously. Brands can also appear in the first, second, or third order, when consumers think of a particular product or service. Usually brands that do not appear in the top three in the minds of consumers will fail to compete in the market.

Once emerging, the brand must also be able to survive long in the minds of loyal customers. Brands must be able to survive amid all the other information milling about in the customer's mind. Furthermore, the appearance and resilience of the brand in the minds of the customer must be able to create a strong image or positive impression, until finally able to trigger purchasing decisions.

Brand Awareness Source of Brand Strength

Because of that, marketers find a powerful term in marketing their products or services, namely brand awareness. In many cases, brand awareness alone is enough to get a response or interaction with customers. In a survey conducted by Deloitte in December 2016 on consumer shopping behavior, it can be concluded that consumers still tend to be loyal to the brand they are used to buying. This means consumers will continue to buy the same brand, unless they are let down by the brand.

The survey also found that the main factors influencing consumer decisions to buy brands that they know or brand new, coming from internal consumers, and rarely derived from external factors such as rising fuel prices, stock market conditions, economic bad news, and others . Thus, brand awareness increasingly plays an important role here. Other brands can steal the attention of customers who were loyal because of the cheaper price factor. But, the brand whose brand awareness is already strong have the ability to survive greater in conditions like this.

To boost brand awareness, marketers must first convince consumers that their brand has a significant difference compared to other brands. Consumers should be reassured that not all brands are equal in a particular product category. Marketers must also be able to create a brand's positive image in the minds of different consumers uniquely.

Brand Recognition and Brand Recall

There are two important elements in a brand awareness, namely brand recognition, and brand recall. Both must have excellent performance in order to create a high brand awareness.

Brand recognition is the ability of a brand to be quickly recognized by the customer, whether the consumer is looking for a product in the midst of its competing brands, or when given a hint about products in a particular category. For example smartphone products bearing apples that have been bitten, quickly recognized as a sophisticated iPhone made by Apple.

While brand recall is the ability of consumers to call the memories of a brand from their mind, while thinking of a specific product category they need. Or it could be a successful brand to remember when consumers are thinking about the usefulness of a product in a particular category. For example, when consumers are looking for detergents that can clean without fading colors, then the brand that appears first or second time in their mind is the brand to be purchased.

When the consumer's decision to buy is done while shopping or is about to pay at the checkout, with all brands, logos, packaging appearing physically and visible instantly, brand recognition becomes more important. Conversely, if the decision is made not at the time of shopping, then the brand recall becomes more important.

Therefore, in the context of online services and products / brands, brand recall becomes more important. This is because consumers have to actively search for a brand in their memory when thinking about needs or browsing for a need.

Although brand recall seems to be only the second most important moment of purchase, evaluation, judgment, consumer choice will still always depend on the first time they are able to recall a brand from their minds. Brand recall is very important because in most cases, for consumers it is much easier to instantly recognize a brand when looking for it physically, rather than having to recall a brand from memory.

Usefulness of Brand Awareness

Then, what's the point of brand awareness and why should marketers try to push it up? There are three benefits that can be obtained when a brand is able to have a high brand awareness, namely at the stage of learning, considering, and choosing.

Stages of learning affect the factors that make up the power and everything that can be associated with a brand. This is because to form the image of a brand, the first time the marketer must create something memorable. Means to create conditions so that consumers can learn as well as associate the brand with certain things. The goal for the brand to get a place in the minds of customers at once can be connected with certain things so as to be unique in the memory.

Stages of considering is a condition in which consumers always enter a particular brand into their list as a consideration when looking for a product to satisfy and meet the needs. High brand awareness guarantees a brand entry into the consumer's list of considerations when making a purchase. Consumers are certainly only loyal to the brands that enter the list only.

Choosing stages affect the choices taken when considering a series of brands in the list of considerations. At this stage consumers will choose brands that have the highest brand awareness and the most positive image on their list.

Two factors that may be influential in this stage are the motivation and the ability of consumers to buy something. It could be the brand with the highest brand awareness and the most positive image was not bought because the price is too expensive, or the urgency rate is considered not too high. But, more consumers ignore the price factor because they are more confident in the image of the already good product and the product whose brand awareness is already very high in the market.

So how do you create brand awareness? Broadly speaking, creating brand awareness means enhancing the intimacy between brands and consumers whenever interactions or contacts occur. The goal is to create high brand recognition and brand recall capabilities. This means more and more positive experience experienced by consumers when listening, seeing, thinking, or interacting with a brand, the stronger the brand will be embedded in consumer memory.

Thus all elements of the brand can be very helpful, such as names, symbols, logos, characters, packaging, slogans, including promotional messages, sponsorships, advertisements, events, and publicity. Any repetition and creativity combined with all these elements enhance the brand's familiarity with its customers. In the end brand awareness greatly determines how strong your brand is on the market.