Babies may be born with brands on them as they get exposed to

thousands of brand names when they are in the mothers womb???

• So how does the modern day new born would look like ?

• Just exagerate,,, You will see the baby like this…..

• The name brand comes from the word brander which means “to burn”. As still seen in our country in the olden days cattle owners burned the skin of animals to identify them with their own specific mark. So the core concept of branding is still the same and it serves to identify and differentiate from others of your product

• AMA defines a brand as “Name, term, sign or symbol or design or a combination of them intended to identify the goods and services of one seller or group of sellers and differentiate from those of competitors.”

Different strategeis have been used by companies to brand their products.

• Company name is always used with the brand; Siddhlepa, Damro, Arpico, Singer, LG, Hewlet Packard, General Electric

• No company name is used: individual brand names are given: lux, signal, surf excel, astra, fair and lovely, Hico, debutante, rexona of Uni Lever

• Tide, pampers, Pantene of Proctor and Gamble• Band names based on people: Jinadsage

Thalaguli, Peire Cardine, Estee lauder, Calvin Cline, Geogio Armani, “ Maxwel Ranasinghe” ???

• Brand names based on place: Champaign, British Airways,

• Animals, birds: Dove soap, Robin blue, Kiwi polish, Jaguar cars,

• Brand names with inherent product meanings: Multibond, Suntec, Tropicana, flora,Dialog, mobitel, celltell

• Coined words: SONY, AJAX,

• There are so many ways that brands could be formed and used. However, according to the Intellectual Property Code of Sri Lanka there are many restrictions s to registration of brands as Trade marks. If one needs to obtain exclusive right for the usage of a brand that brand has to be registered under the IPC.

• There are two different sections applies to the brand name registrability.

• The product has five levels according to Kotler:

• Core product• Generic product• The expected product• The augmented product• Potential product

• It could be observed from the market place that most of the products do not make a big difference upto the expected level. The difference is seen basically at the augmented level where marketers play a big role to show that their product differs from others.

• Harvard’s Ted Levitts points out that “ the new competition is not between what companies produce at factory level but between what they add to their product in the form of packaging, branding, advertising, delivery, after sales, guarantees that people value.”

• In my opinion a wider meaning of the brand could be described as a product that the marketers have attached various attributes more of emotional than logical. Further in this process marketers have made simple product concept into a complex one to make it much different from others in front of the eyes and minds of consumers. E.g. Expresso Coffee, Levis jeens, Coca Cola, Benz,

• Creating a successful brand is the job of the whole organisation. Marketers may define what it should be but every one in the company has to nurture it and develop.

• Almost all the top class brands come from top class companies. So a top class company and a top class brand is two sides of the same coin.

• Discuss some local and foreign brands and their companies.

Can anything be branded?

• Automobiles, computers, pens, furniture, food, water, people, organisations, News papers, magazines. Radio and TV programs, DJs and presenters, lecturers, sermons, healing services, Bana preaching, religions, medicines, places, services, airlines, retail shops, internet services, e mails, sports clubs, massage clinics, sports persons, singers, musicians, movies, politicians, fish vendors, vegetable vendors

Branding in actionBasic branding guidelines• Easy to pronounce• Memorable• Protectable• Adaptable• Differentiates