Approaches to Branding Essay

It is essential for a business to build strong relationship with its customers to be able to stay above all competitors. One tool that a company has is a strong brand. The following are the most common ways of how companies use branding in marketing their products or services. Corporate Branding. This type has been around ever since competition among business started. In corporate branding a company uses its own name as the brand for the company. The company usually promotes its products under that brand name (Crystal 2003). An example of which is Disney, where all products of the company included the name â€Å"Disney†. In this approach the corporation or company is the main selling point (Csaba, Schultz & Yun 2005). If successfully used the company can create brand loyalty where customers look for products under that company or under the brand name. The downside of this approach is that the company will have a tendency to be identified with a single product category (Crystal 2003). Employer Branding. With the rise of newer resources like technology, the fact remains that personnel are still the most important resource of any company. As the competition for first-rate employees becomes tight, companies attract them through Human Resources Marketing or through employer branding (VersantWorks 2008). Employer branding is the impression of the stakeholders – current employees, potential hires, and previous staff – about the company as place of work (Harris 2002). The idea is to instill in the stakeholders mind that the company is â€Å"great place to work†. It immerses the employee into the company, gives the employees a sense of pride and belongingness and most important of all job fulfillment (VersantWorks 2008). A company with a good employer branding is L’Oreal. Voted as one of the Fast Moving Consumer Goods – FMCG – Employer of Choice (Employer Profile 2008). L’Oreal’s career website declares it in black and white. The company’s objective is to provide a sound working environment for its employees. Working for L’Oreal would entail a secure workplace, performance is given credit, a diverse culture, and where privacy and private life are valued (As An Employer 2008). What makes this strategy work for the company is because L’Oreal knows who it wanted to hire and focus the HR endeavor to accomplish the task (Klein 2008). Cause Branding. This is an approach in branding where a company supports a cause to be able to increase profits or to set it apart from competitors (Ivy Cohen Corporate Communications 2007). As examples will be Avon Breast Cancer Crusade, ConAgra Foods’ Feeding Children Better Program, Reebok’s Human Rights Awards and Rockport’s Fitness Walking Program. This initiative is usually interchanged with cause marketing and corporate social responsibility. Cause marketing just like cause branding seems to have the same objective but the difference lies in the duration. Short-lived cause marketing initiatives are usually one-time deals like food drives, collection bins, and auctions for charity. While cause branding is a year-long continuous endeavor. Where the company tries to associate a cause to the brand in the customers’ mentality (Evergreen & Partners 2005). On the other hand CSR or Corporate Social Responsibility is the broader initiative that consumers expect from a company. CSR involves labor practices of the company, community activities and environmental programs. It comprises various causes while cause branding focus only on one cause (Evergreen & Partners 2005).