Category: Brand

BACKGROUND

‘Worth, Combination, Administration, Trustworthiness’. These were the primary rules that brought through the business from that point onward, with the present qualities sitting at ‘Worth, Honesty and Vision’, coordinating superbly to their motto ‘Never Intentionally undersold’. The lead store on Oxford Road started as a drapery shop, opened by John Lewis in 1864. In 1905 Lewis gained a subsequent store, Diminish Jones in Sloane Square, London. 1933 the organization bought its first store outside London, the since quite a while ago settled Jessop and Child in Nottingham. In 1940 the organization purchased Selfridge Common Stores. The first John Lewis store developed as a major aspect of a mall was the moved Jessops, in Nottingham, which has been in the Victoria Place since it opened in 1972. A few Waitrose own-image items, for example, cleaning materials and gathering writing material, are additionally accessible from John Lewis. On 4 September 2018, John Lewis experienced a significant rebrand to become John Lewis and Accomplices. Waitrose experienced a comparative rebrand. In October 2018, enlistment site for sure named John Lewis and Accomplices as the UK’s eighth-best private area business, in light of great many worker appraisals and audits.

OBJECTIVES

• Its motivation is ‘the satisfaction of every one of our individuals, through their advantageous, fulfilling work in a fruitful business’, with progress estimated on its capacity to continue and upgrade the position both as a remarkable retailer and as a flourishing case of representative possession.
• To offer extraordinary items, administrations, aptitude to our clients.
• To give motivation and an approach to make customized balanced assistance with our clients. Since it needs to be one of the main UK retailers.

STRATEGY

At John Lewis and Partners, a representative is not only a worker – they are a co-proprietor of the business. To mirror this significance, in September 2018 we set out upon a rebrand and changed from ‘John Lewis’ to ‘John Lewis and Partners ‘. They propelled an activity called # WeAreParnters.

It shows the effect a little group of people, can make on an association. They at that point attempted the most noteworthy change in our media methodology – highlighting Accomplices to dispatch the 2018 Christmas advert. The dispatch was given over to 25,000 Accomplices around the nation before any paid channel and the Greatest thought is Christmas Battle Target showcase focuses on the organization’s picked client, whose needs and needs coordinate the item or administration that is being offered. John Lewis does not have a specific particular objective market as they offer a variety of items that meet distinctive client tastes and prerequisites. This is because of the way that ‘buyers contrast broadly in their individual image decisions’. John Lewis conveys items to customers inside the UK. Socioeconomics incorporates both male and female clients who might require a normal salary of over £40,000 every year to buy too good quality item offers. The attention is on the client as Mayfield (2018) a chief expressed ‘hope to see more concentrate on the client, more spotlight on development’.

PROGRAM OR TACTICS

To convey this move they saw social media as a center channel to use, giving our Accomplices an approach to lock in straightforwardly with clients. Internet-based life is PC based innovation that encourages the sharing of thoughts, contemplations, and data through the structure of virtual systems and networks. By plan, online networking is web-based and gives clients snappy electronic correspondence of substance.

They utilized instruments, for example, site item pages and paid social adverts. They needed to give our companions the reins to social media to rise above their energy and aptitude and associate them straightforwardly to the client.

The #WeArePartners program conveys on both the first key vision of arousing our colleagues to broaden their mastery onto web-based life outside of the shop floor and has altogether changed the state of our media procedure, over only a short multi-month time frame. This move in the media system has even gone to the extent of earning the consideration of predominant media. They are so amped up of #WeArePartners and it is presently one of the focal columns in their showcasing movement for 2019.

CONTROL AND EVALUATION

Allowing 25,000 accomplices to take control via web-based networking media stages was a goliath move in our strategies. The principal stage and effective turn out observed preparing conveyed to each of the 51 branches with Partners making more than 27,000 bits of substance. When contrasted with own image resources,

incredibly Accomplice content performed better, for example, a +179% expansion in change on-site item pages also, +38% improvement in ROAS (Return on Ad Sales) overpaid social adverts.

Let us have an eye at the media results that have been accomplished:

• Accomplices have made 27.6k pieces of substance since the dispatch of the program. That likens to around 230 one of kind bits of content being delivered each day.
• This substance has rolled over 27.6k commitment overall social stages, with a devotee base of 244.2k over every single social stage (barring our image devotee base).
• Accomplice made content has shown up over 220m occasions across internet-based life which, whenever estimated in media esteem, would like to just shy of £1million.
• Looking at own image design natural content against Accomplice made design content we saw +19% expansion in reach and +25% in commitment, at last, auditing Christmas as a solitary action, the size of the program can be seen:
• #WeArePartners was drifting on Twitter in the UK before the authority brand dispatch of Christmas.
• More than 180,000 perspectives were amassed just from our colleagues propelling the advertisement and client feeling from their content was 98.9% positive – more grounded than any past Christmas battle estimation.
• The Partners of brand propelling the advertisement were secured on numerous distributions, counting Great Morning England and The London Night Standard They feel that by conveying individual and pertinent experience through a social association with our clients, using our extraordinary weapon – our Partners – we will be one stride in front of their rivals.

I reason for choosing the degree of integration as creative integration shows that it is creatively integrated, was it brought together imaginative subjects, WeArePartners and conveyed through internet-based life and it made to expand their deals and got one of the leading UK merchants.

I consider it is Brand idea-led orchestration integrated as it means unified around a shared brand concept or need state platform, often built around core brand values of the organization. Similarly, there was a unification around a mutual brand idea and they put the Accomplices at the core of all that they do. Then at that point embraced the most-huge change in their media procedure – highlighting Accomplices to dispatch the 2018 Christmas advert. The dispatch was given over to 25,000 Accomplices around the nation before any paid channel. John Lewis and Partners, Christmas period is dependable for roughly 40% of their deals consistently, so putting the dispatch of this period under the control of Accomplices felt them frightening yet besides fearless. Seeing #WeArePartners slanting on Twitter in the UK before the authority brand dispatch of Christmas felt like their chance had paid off. The O2 Gurus campaign for client care is a genuine case of this. Investigation of crusades recommends that brand thought drove battles are exceptionally viable in maintenance, share safeguard, and benefit gain.

DEGREE OF CREATIVITY

The degree of creativity used in this campaign is creation creativity.

At the point when the CAN model is applied to it, as a matter of first importance, CAN means Connectedness, Appropriateness, and Novelty. They feel that by passing on individual and appropriate understanding through a social association with our customers, by methods for our uncommon weapon will be one step in front of our opponents.

Theories of creativity have concentrated on a range of aspects. The commanding factors are usually identified as ‘’The Four Ps’’- Process, Product, Person, and Place.

PERSON

The individual is the business visionary or the ambitious innovator. The individual is at the focal point of any inventive undertaking. They utilize their aptitudes, nature (or press), their innovative capacities, and their inspiration, to make the item. Innovative capacities of an individual are difficult to gauge. Be that as it may, they are quantifiable.

PROCESS

The Procedure alludes to the strategy utilized by the Individual to build up the Item. If It is not too much trouble note that, the Procedure alludes to the point of view as opposed to the approach. It is how the individual thinks when s/he is endeavoring to take care of an issue or make another arrangement.

PRODUCT

Item is worked by the Individual and is the aftereffect of the imaginative Procedure. It is a new advancement. Item is most likely the least contemplated factor in the field of inventiveness. They are for the most part taken a gander at as the result of the Procedure and the Individual.

PRESS

Press speaks to the earth and the atmosphere where the Individual works and capacities in, to make the Item. It alludes to conditions favorable/restrictive for inventiveness.

The reason for choosing for creation creativity was the

openings, ensuing challenges, propelled an undertaking that intended to change the way they convey as a business and enable Their Accomplices to convey the present day, constant experience to our clients.

This venture was called #WeArePatners. So, I consider the campaign to be the highest level of creativity. Because According to John Lewis& Partners Their project was unique and not copied from anyone and putting their Christmas period under the control of their most valuable resource and it felt them like the hazard would pay off and it had succeeded.

MARKETING COMMUNICATION TOOLS

The thought I might want to incorporate was they do not offer understudy limits. I need to transform it as it will help increment the business. Since they can advance the brand by giving top class surveys to their friends. They pay on a normal 8.81 pounds an hour and I will alter it to 10 pounds for 60 minutes, with the goal that laborers will work superbly. I might want to give more exemptions on offers. Accordingly, it might raise brand deals when contrasted with the past.

Paid channels are not used such as Facebook ads, Instagram ads…etc

Permitting 25,000 Accomplices to steer off this on the benefit of the brand was a sizeable move in our methodology and accompanied media, imaginative, and inside difficulties. The main move we expected to execute was upskilling and preparing Accomplices to turn into brand representatives over all social channels. Our first stage was a pilot turned out across eight shops, preparing more than 100 Accomplices in a quarter of a year. Inside these first months of this pilot, the #WeArePartners brand advocates made more than 8,000 bits of content across internet-based life and we saw a period of fruitful appropriation and test and learn.

The subsequent eliminate saw us move to prepare to each of the 51 branches in the UK and upskill roughly 400 of the most socially energetic Accomplices to be prepared as formal brand ministers. Through the span of the activity, Accomplices made more than 27,000 bits of substance which we began to use over their marked channels -, for example, on the site, item pages, article, paid furthermore, natural social, email, and in-branch. Unfathomably, we regularly observed this substance had a superior ROI (Return on investment) and ROAS (Return on ad sales) execution than our image resources. This move in the utilization of media as a brand was a genuine advance change and was the principal move towards making a substance age motor with gigantic potential to scale.

No, the crusade need not bother with another thought as offering a rebate to understudies may going to build deals. However, we cannot ensure that it will increment 100%. That is the reason it is smarter to expand battle thought as it might raise deals adequately with low dangers.

CRITICAL APPROACH

With regards to paid media, John Lewis and accomplices didn’t utilize paid channels, for example, Facebook Promotions, Instagram Advertisements, and they utilized their channels, Owned media such as site, item pages, publication, paid and naturally social, email and in-branch and earned media, for example, site, item pages and frequently observed the substance would do well to rate of profitability and profit for promotion deals.

Just as the media and inside results, the crusade has driven a noteworthy return on initial capital investment in its short lifetime:

Interest in the program to date has been just £200K, most of which are strategic expenses for cell phones, preparing and the cost of an inside application that is utilized as an interchanges center point, content dispersion and estimation stage

An idea of showcasing interchanges arranging that perceives the additional estimation of an extensive arrangement that assesses the vital jobs of an assortment of correspondences disciplines – for instance, general publicizing, direct reaction, deals advancement, and advertising – and consolidates these orders to give lucidity, consistency and greatest interchanges sway.

Inventiveness is the demonstration of transforming new and innovative thoughts into the real world. Inventiveness is portrayed by the capacity to see the world in new manners, to discover concealed examples, to make associations between apparently inconsequential wonders, and to create arrangements.

References

1. Blakeman, R. (2018). Integrated marketing communication: creative strategy from idea to implementation. USA: Rowman& Littlefield.
2. Bruhn, M., & Schnebelen, S. (2017). Integrated marketing communication-from an instrument to a customer-centric perspective. European journal of marketing, 464-489.
3. Key, T., & Czaplewski, A. (2017) Upstream social marketing strategy: An integrated marketing communications approach. Business Horizons, 325-333.
4. Ristevska-Jovanovska, S. (2017) GUERRILLA MARKETING AS AN UNCONVENTIONAL MARKETING ACTIVITY. Research in Physical Education, Sport & Health, 161-205.
5. Ruch, W., Gander, F., Platt, T., & Hofmann, J. (2018). eam roles: Their relationships to character strengths and job satisfaction. The Journal of Positive Psychology,190-199.
6. Turban, E., Outland, J., King, D., Lee J., Liang, T., & Turban, D. (2018). Marketing and advertising in e-commerce. In Electronic Commerce, 361-401.
7. Vangelov, N. (2017). Emojis in marketing communications. Balkan Social Science Review, 131-149

INTRODUCTION

In this essay, we utilize a case‐study strategy to examine the learning forms used to arrange brand importance inside an anti‐brand network. The arrangement of brand importance is a social procedure where network individuals take part in brand‐related talks, understandings, and sense‐making. Arranged inside new social development hypothesis.

Online communities are wide refered to as web-based online services supporting and facilitating data exchanges among community members (Malinen, 2015). One major feature of on-lie communities is that the member engagement which might be dependency on members for generating or sharing online content, thence conjointly referred to as member participation. If the core focus of an Internet community is that the complete itself, this community is then referred ton as online pro-brand community (OBC) wherever the web content is developed around brand-related consumption experiences (Wirtz, 2013). By correct management of OBCs, corporations will effectively answer shopper feedback which might facilitate drive business improvement as an example, actively contribute to price co-creation by providing new concepts or suggestions which might facilitate uncover new business opportunities (Liao, 2017). Opposing to OBC, on-line anti-brand community (OABC) aims to come up with or share anti-brand-related data to market complete rejection behaviors like negative brand relationship and oppositional attitudinal loyalty. During this association, it is very important to look at what factors influence the extent of member engagement and the way such engagement often complete in each community. This may be termed because the study of on-line community participation that has been key to in OBCs and OABCs.

LITERATURE REVIEW

Online people group investment can be contemplated from two primary points of view: individual and social.

From the social point of view, one’s mentalities, goals and activities towards online network support have been clarified with regards to different social speculations or models. For instance, social trade hypothesis has been utilized to inspect how individuals trade data by means of OBCs and what factors drive that interest (Benoit, 2016). In their paper, factors explicit to three gatherings (part, co-part and supplier) were inspected. Investigation results recommended that co-part’s collaboration was esteemed adversely connected with network cooperation which gotten the hypothesis. Part’s job clearness and satisfaction together with supplier’s responsiveness were esteemed critical to drive network cooperation. Another normally utilized hypothesis, social personality hypothesis, determines how one’s activity would be affected by one claim apparent status (participation) inside a network. Considering this hypothesis, social character (driven by apparent outside glory and saw network peculiarity) has beneficial outcome on network interest (Chiu, 2015). Notwithstanding social personality, social impact hypothesis portrays how one’s frames of mind and activities would be changed by social impact which can be acknowledged by consistence, disguise (IN) and distinguishing proof. Examination results proposed that IN was discovered critical while both consistence and recognizable proof were regarded as immaterial, which again gotten the hypothesis (Cheung, 2011). In addition, social capital hypothesis has been connected to address how social structures and connections among individuals would affect the deliberate network investment (Son, Lee, Cho, & Kim, 2016). Customarily, social capital has three measurements, for example auxiliary, relationship and subjective. (Yang & Li, 2016) investigated the inter association among these measurements in driving the network support which was estimated by the fame of customer created content (for example the complete number of remarks). Investigation results recommended that solid relationships were found between these measurements, and auxiliary measurement had no direct yet circuitous effect by means of the other two measurements for driving the prominence. This strengthened the way that network support is for the most part determined by part’s demeanor and activity instead of the supplier. Different hypotheses, for example, social nearness hypothesis, social loafing and interpersonal organization hypothesis have likewise been utilized to analyze the effect of various social factors on network cooperation (Shiue, Chiu, & Chang, 2010).

From the individual viewpoint, a large portion of the present examinations have received different speculations or models to legitimize the individual conduct towards online network investment. For instance, innovation acknowledgment show has been utilized to look at how one’s frame of mind may decide one’s selection towards another innovation (for example cooperation in OBCs) (Agag & El-Masry, 2016). Examination recommended that quality was a key to influence both fulfillment and trust which had backhanded impact on expectation to execute by means of brand frame of mind and stickiness. Some new experiences were produced with respect to the developing impact of new measure, (for example, stickiness) when contrasted with conventional measure, (for example, trust).

Apart from people’s choices, trust and dependency on brand there are several other things which affect its face in the market.

Anti-branding is a world-wide movement against brands by vast number of people of society members to convey the message to the corporate world. Moreover, these kinds of protests were present even before the online social media platform arrived (Holt, 2002)

CASE STUDY

(Awasthi, Sharma, & Gulati, 2012) ponder the instance of Coca-Cola and Pepsi to comprehend the effect of against marking on client discernment and purchaser brand relationship in the long haul. In 2003, a dissident gathering in India expressed a public statement that Coca-Cola and Pepsi, among different organizations, had pesticides buildups in their soda pops.

After the affirmation that the organizations really had buildups of pesticides above worldwide guidelines, a few enemies of marking sites, for example, killercoke.org were made and offers of the two organizations were adversely influenced from 2003 to 2006, in India. Notwithstanding, the creators advise that these brands were still in the most astounding positions on Interbrand’s Global Brand positioning always amid these periods and in 2007 Coca-Cola India enrolled 14% deals development.

In this incident some points were noted,

• Solid brands are affected adversely in present moment
• Negative exposure has restricted impact on purchaser buy choice
• Hostile to marking exercises don’t have a dependable impact on customer conduct

References

1. Agag, G., & El-Masry, A. (2016). Understanding consumer intention to participate in online travel community and effects on consumer intention to purchase travel online and WOM: An integration of innovation diffusion theory and TAM with trust. Computers in human behavior, 60, 97-111. doi:10.1016/j.chb.2016.02.038
2. Awasthi, B., Sharma, R., & Gulati, U. (2012). Anti-Branding: Analyzing Its Long-Term Impact. Journal of Brand Management, 9(4), 48-65.
3. Benoit, S. (2016). Explaining social exchanges in information-based online communities (IBOCs). Journal of service management, 27(4), 460.
4. Cheung, C. (2011). Online social networks: Why do students use facebook? Computers in human behavior, 27(4), 1337-1343. doi:10.1016/j.chb.2010.07.028
5. Chiu, C.-M. (2015). Understanding online community citizenship behaviors through social support and social identity. International journal of information management, 35(4), 504-519. doi:10.1016/j.ijinfomgt.2015.04.009
6. Holt, D. (2002, June). Why Do Brands Cause Trouble? A Dialectical Theory of Consumer Culture and Branding. Journal of Consumer Research, 29(1), 70-90. doi:10.1086/339922
7. Liao, J. (2017). Promoting continual member participation in firm-hosted online brand communities: An organizational socialization approach. Journal of business research, 71, 92-101. doi:10.1016/j.jbusres.2016.10.013
8. Malinen, S. (2015, May). Understanding user participation in online communities: A systematic literature review of empirical studies. Computers in human behavior, 46, 228-238. doi:10.1016/j.chb.2015.01.004
9. Shiue, Y.-C., Chiu, C.-M., & Chang, C.-C. (2010). Exploring and mitigating social loafing in online communities. Computers in human behavior, 26(4), 768-777. doi:10.1016/j.chb.2010.01.014
10. Son, J.-E., Lee, S.-H., Cho, E.-Y., & Kim, H.-W. (2016, September). Examining online citizenship behaviours in social network sites: a social capital perspective. Behaviour & information technology, 35(9), 730-747. doi:10.1080/0144929X.2016.1143032
11. Wirtz, J. (2013). Managing brands and customer engagement in online brand communities. Journal of service management, 24(3), 223.
12. Yang, X., & Li, G. (2016, November). Factors influencing the popularity of customer-generated content in a company-hosted online co-creation community: A social capital perspective. Computers in human behavior, 64, 760-768. doi:10.1016/j.chb.2016.08.002

In this written piece I will be investigating how typography is used to brand films. Films more often than not use word marks for branding purposes rather than using iconography; as the word-mark spells out the name of the film and is often stylized towards the specific genre or direction of the film. Due to the heavy saturation of word-marks used in the branding of films can this element alone alter the image of a film before a minute of content is seen and how is this typography used, altered and applied to expose the films genre further. The branding for films appears to be on the nose and very obvious in terms of reflecting the films content and genre to appeal to fans but is this actually true and is there anything involved in the branding that’s more than meets the eye?

95% of graphic design is typography (digital synopsis) and there are six main categories of typeface: serif, slab serif, sans serif, script, modern and display. Each typeface can communicate a different message and offer a different aesthetic, they all offer contrasting elements and can be used in many different ways. Psychologically a typeface can lead you to preconceived ideas depending on how it is presented and specifically which style of typeface is chosen. Serif typeface is often used to expose the aesthetic of class and heritage, making them perfect to when attempting to create something with an established feel. They also denote feelings of trust and respectability to a consumer adding to an identity that revolves around authority command. Slab serif typefaces are usually associated with confidence, solidity and strength. They often lend themselves to be used alongside bold new ideas or to create a strong confident aesthetic. Sans serif typefaces are clean and modern in appearance more often than not they are used to demonstrate a no-nonsense, straight forward attitude resembled in the aesthetic of the type. There are no added decorative elements which reinforces this message and can be valuable for a simplified approach to type. Script typefaces appear a lot fancier to the serif typefaces they derive from due to their often decorative appearance. The use of these typefaces is usually to provoke ideas of femininity and elegance due to their hand written presentation. To give a more personal feel to something they are very useful as well as adding a touch of creativity as an aesthetic. Modern typefaces are often used to communicate intelligence and style along with a modern spin. They are used to reach a younger audience with broad style connections to social media and network. Display typefaces are unique and or frequently customized type offering a unique decorative appeal. They can be used to convey any type of personality or feeling and subsequently have no boundaries the limit of a display typeface is endless and is used to create a very personalized look and feel.

Typefaces are a lot more complex than what you can physically see; they have been used since the 1400’s when Guttenberg invented movable typefaces and throughout this time the specific use of typefaces has labelled them with preconceived ideas about what they stand for. For example, the typeface Fraktur was used heavily for Nazi propaganda and therefore has negative connotations attached to it due to its use during this period in time. However, this doesn’t label the typeface as unusable as it comes down to the context it is used in because if it was used to brand a film about Nazi Germany during that time there wouldn’t be an issue whereas if it was being used for a kid’s film then there might be a problem it all comes down to context.

Typography can also hold notions of gender as throughout the years heavy, bold, jagged typefaces are usually associated with men and playful, lighter, curly typefaces are often associated women. This notion is conditioned from being a child the same as, if a baby were to be dressed in blue it would see as a boy, and pink for a girl, although a lot less prevalent now compared to years ago this still stands as a formula for differentiation. There are also physical attributes applied to type based on how they look which can relate to how they are perceived. To illustrate the point, an example of six traits: heavy, thin, small, large, loose and tight all being adjectives that can describe type forms as well as anything outside of design and typefaces showing typefaces share visual characteristics with things from the real world, offering the specified use of typefaces for this reason alone. If a bold, condensed typeface was used to brand a film whose spotlight was focused on a big, strong protagonist in an action style film this pairing would fit perfect as bold meaning heavy and condensed meaning dense both relate directly to the main character in this film and would offer the audience a glimpse at the film by just reading the title of it. Whereas, if the film was branded using a tall, thin typeface it wouldn’t have the same effect or feel as these characteristics are usually associated with beauty and would be more suited to a chick flick style of film over an action based one.

Striking that balance between the functionality and basics of type versus expressive type and grabbing someone’s attention, especially when relating that to the branding of a film it is an important balance to get right. Upper and lower case can have a large bearing on how typography is perceived, “the term comes from the position of loose metal or wooden letters laid out in front of the traditional compositors’ hands before they were used to form a word – the commonly used ones on an accessible lower level the capitals above them”. Using road signs as an example, in the 1960’s Jock Kinneir and Margaret Calvert designed and applied the road side system in Britain that is still being used to this day. During this process both Kinneir and Calvert established that upper and lowercase words are more legible than words all in uppercase as the words and letterforms create silhouettes making them more distinguishable from a distance. To relate this back to the branding of films it is an element that needs to be considered, that being legibility, especially from a distance with the logo being small on a poster from far away a more legible poster will stick in a consumers mind a lot more than one that is not. To add to the case for the functionality of type; a quote from the famous graphic designer Massimo Vingelli “I don’t think that type should be expressive at all. I can write the word ‘dog’ with any typeface and it doesn’t have to look like a dog. But there are people that think that when they write ‘dog’ it should bark”. The famous advocate for Helvetica insists that type should not have to show what it says and if the basics and functions of the type are addressed correctly and it is presented well then this should be good enough to portray what you are trying to say no matter what it is. Alternatively, from the beginning of typography titling fonts have been used they were fonts made of metal specifically designed to be used at larger point sizes mainly aimed towards headlines and titles. Titling fonts differ from normal display fonts in this way as they were a lot bigger than their counterparts and have been modified to look better at these larger sizes. Newspapers usually use titling fonts for headlines to grab the attention of the reader but have since been emphasized further to create more of a dramatic look especially for things like books, magazines and films really stylizing the type and to use Massimo Vignelli’s quote making the type bark. This opposes the functionality of type more than aligning with it as the function of a titling font now has been extended from its original use of a simple large title to being as big and as bold as possible attempting to grab a consumer’s attention in any way possible.

And in conclusion, I want to summarize everything described above with examples of the use of typography in branding famous films.

‘Aliens’ is a film from 1986, they used a sans serif typeface this gives the film a modern more futuristic look and by just reading the name of the film it would more than likely come under the science fiction genre which this sans serif typeface would display given its sleek, straight appearance. The large tracking of the word adds to the science fiction feel by literally and figuratively adding space between the letters it also gives more of an importance to each letter making the syllables more prevalent when reading the word aloud making it slightly more memorable. The physical relation to this type is tall and thin which often relates to beauty, but from the name alone this film is quite the contrast to beauty however the type does relate itself to a futuristic science driven film with it being slim and compact in appearance mirroring the evolution of technology. There is a glow that surrounds each single letterform which give the type a more mysterious feel as well as the letter ‘I’ being altered to make it look different to the other letterforms or to use another word alien referencing the use of extraterrestrials in the film.

‘Finding Nemo’ is a film from 2003, they used a mix of sans serif and a display typeface with sans serif giving it a simple look but with a touch of playfulness judging by the weight and construction of the letterforms. With the name ‘Nemo’ larger than anything else this puts emphasis on what the film is about and already who the main character is coupled with the heavy, condensed, square physical appearance of the typeface would insinuate that it would be a struggle to find Nemo in the film as everything is so tight and condensed that there no space and so many places to look. With the addition on the wave underneath all the type as well as the fish in the ‘O’ gives the impression that this film is set under water and that Nemo is in fact a fish with the image of a fish replacing the counter of the ‘O’ and that being the last letter from the title of the movie it would imply that Nemo does not get found until the end of the film with the logo giving a few clues about the film itself.

‘The Godfather’ is a film from 1972, they used a serif typeface which is often associated with trust and respectability and comparing this to the name of the film they go hand in hand as the name portrays a powerful figure by combining ‘god’ and ‘father’ together. Using a mix of uppercase and lowercase letters and measuring this up against the name of the film and that portraying a powerful figurehead this could imply a power structure in the film with the capitals representing the people at the top and lower case the people at the bottom which exactly references where uppercase and lowercase letters got their name from. The added illustration of a hand controlling the letters like puppets would give an indication that the godfather is controlling all the people working for him or under his power like puppets giving reference to film and the name directly also using the word ‘the’ implies there is only one and the reason being there is only one hand controlling all of those letters at the same time.

The consumer market includes all the individuals and households who buy or acquire goods and services for personal consumption. According to Kotler and Armstrong (2010), currently, the world consumer market consists of more than 6.6 billion people who annually consume an estimated $65 trillion worth of goods and services. Among these consumer goods shoes are one of the basics. Currently, different types of shoes are produced by different companies in different countries for different consumers around the world. These Consumers around the world vary tremendously in age, income, education level, tastes, and preferences even though they buy an incredible variety of goods and services. But these diverse customers relate with each other and with other elements of the world around them affecting their choice among various products, services, and companies.

Customers buying behavior is enormous and highlights the importance of the customer at the center of the marketer’s universe. Each customer is unique with different needs and wants and buying choices and habits are influenced by habit, and choices that are in turn tempered by psychological and social drivers that affect purchase decision processes. It is a complex multi-dimensional variable. Customer buying behavior is critical for influencing not only product purchase decisions but also important marketing decisions for commercial firms, nonprofit organizations, and regulatory agencies. Applications of customer buying behavior decisions lie in marketing strategies, regulatory policies, social marketing, and informed individuals. Buying Behavior is the decision processes and acts of people involved in buying and using products. Customer buying behavior is the sum total of a consumer’s attitudes, preferences, intentions, and decisions regarding the consumer’s behavior in the marketplace when purchasing a product or service. The study of customer behavior draws upon social science disciplines of anthropology, psychology, sociology, and economics

The study on consumer behavior in the footwear industry enables us to analyze one’s buying decisions. Footwear is a necessity and is therefore bought by the consumers of every income group whether at the top of the pyramid or at the bottom of the pyramid. The present project is an attempt to understand the differences in buying patterns of footwear of people belonging to different income groups; the difference in buying patterns of men and women. Category motivators identified are price, looks, purpose, brand name, style, variety, and durability.

Today, as a result of changing world business environment, global competition intensifying, foreign firms are expanding into new international markets, and home markets are no longer as rich in opportunity. Local companies that never thought about foreign competitors suddenly find this competition in their own backyards (Kotleret al., 2005).

According to UNIDO (2002), the African footwear sub-sector seems isolated from the fast pace of technological innovation taking place globally. Lack of design capabilities, operator, supervisory, and manager skills, and of knowledge of more appropriate material inputs and marketing techniques, all combine to cause poor productivity and a low level of competitiveness. Even in the local market, high operation costs and a lack of attention to what the market demands in shoes in terms of quality and price, allow cheap Asian products and second-hand shoes to penetrate the market.

There is insufficient production of non-footwear leather products, such as leather garments, in the Eastern and Southern Africa sub-region, although this situation has improved somewhat since the early 1990s. This is a major loss of opportunity to an industry capable of small-scale production that can offer the comparative advantages of cheap labor, low capital requirements, and relatively simple technology.

Concerning Human resources development issues training agencies and institutions have been established by donations received through co-operation programs and have been supported by regular investment programs. However, the training and technical assistance infrastructure in the leather supply chain has substantial shortfalls both in facilities and services.

Manufacturing industries in Sub-Saharan Africa have generally been stagnant or shrinking for the last three decades (Bigsten and Söderbom, 2006). As Collier and Gunning (1999) and Fafchamps (2004) and many others argue, industrial development in Africa has been hindered by my raid of problems ranging from high transportation costs, high transaction costs due to imperfect information, and imperfect contract enforcement tohighlyriskybusiness and political environments. Moreover, both the provision of public services and the development of grass-rootisinstitutionsandsocialcapitaare considered to be insufficient in Africa to cope with such problems.

The history of the leather industry in Ethiopia started 88 years ago, when the then-Asko Tannery, now known as TikurAbay Shoe Factory, was established. The production of leather shoes in Ethiopia dates back to the late 1930s when Armenian merchants founded two shoe factories in Addis Ababa. These factories nurtured a number of shoemakers, who opened their own factories across the country.

The leather-shoe industry in Addis Ababa is exceptionally successful in Africa. We believe that this is a case worth investigating since it is expected to provide insight into the key to successful industrial development. A major finding is that the growth of this industry was driven initially by the massive entry of new enterprises established by former employees of the existing shoe factories but more recently by the growth in enterprise sizes due to improvements in the quality of products, marketing, and management. Such improvements were first made by highly educated entrepreneurs and subsequently followed by other enterprises. While the followers have grown in size, the leading enterprises have grown faster. Such a development pattern appears similar to the experience of successful cluster-based industrial development in China, Taiwan, and Japan, as recently reported by Sonobe and Otsuka (2006 a).

Thus, a study on consumers’ shoes preference has immense value to shoe companies through providing actual information about shoe consumers, these in turn help them better understand their target consumers and design market offers according to the need and want of their target consumers.

Companies in this industry make footwear, including athletic, casual, and dress shoes as well as boots, sandals, and slippers. Major companies include NIKE, Sketchers USA, and Wolverine World Wide (all based in the US), along with Adidas (Germany), Asics (Japan), Salvatore Ferragamo (Italy), and Yue Yuen (China), a subsidiary of Pou Chen (Taiwan). Worldwide, about $180 billion worth of footwear is exported annually, according to the International Trade Centre. The top exporting nations are China, the US, Germany, Japan, and the Netherlands.

The US footwear manufacturing industry consists of about 200 companies with sales of about $2 billion. Many of the major shoe companies in the US are mainly owners of brand names that contract to have shoes made by independent manufacturers in other countries. Some large US producers, such as New Balance, make a portion of their shoes in the US; some smaller operations manufacture all their shoes in the US. About 98 percent of all footwear sold in the US is imported, according to the American Apparel and Footwear Association.

Ethiopian footwear sub-sector produces men’s casual shoes and children’s shoe-uppers made from pure leather. Leather factories sell these products to the domestic market and directly to overseas importers and wholesalers as well as direct buying offices (Embassy of Ethiopia in the United Kingdom, 2010). As it is obvious Ethiopia has the largest livestock population in Africa and the 10th largest in the world, the country had to be one of the major shoe producers and exporters in Africa as well as in the world having a comparative advantage of raw material and cheap human resource advantages. Despite this fact, many studies indicated that the shoe companies found in the country face strong competition from shoes and other leather products imported from abroad.

According to the World Bank Group (2006), the domestic market for footwear at present suffers from fierce price competition from synthetic footwear imported from China at much cheaper prices. Though low in durability, these low-quality Chinese shoes are considered somewhat stylish and fashionable in design and heel height and are available for men, women, and children in all local shops. Tegegne (2007) mentioned that the domestic shoes market has been flooded with cheap imports from Asia, particularly from China and this has inflicted heavy impacts on the sector, and threatened its competitiveness in the domestic market. Altenburg (2010) indicated leather and leather products industry is stuck in a low-quality trap in which problems at all levels of the value chain are mutually reinforcing. That is inappropriate techniques at the stages of livestock management, tanning, and transport undermine competitiveness in high-value leather product markets, and low quality of final products translates into low prices and under-investment at all stages of the value chain. Sutton and Kellow(2010) also pointed out that the leather footwear of Ethiopia faces strong competition from shoes and other leather products imported from China and elsewhere.

But, failure to do so may result in disaster for a company’s products. In this regard, Kotler et al. (2005) noted that firms that delay taking steps and stay at home to play it safe may not only lose their chances to enter other markets but also risk of losing their sales to companies from neighboring countries who have invaded their home markets.

However, the consumer’s buying decision of shoes has still remained as open that needs to be assessed. For this reason, this study was conducted to assess factors that affect consumer buying decisions in the selection of brand shoes. Understanding consumers’ choices and why they prefer is branded for shoe manufacturers, wholesalers, and retailers, it will lead to a more accurate merchandise mix and marketing programs.

Introduction

Recently, emotional branding has emerged as a new paradigm that can solve one of the main tasks of marketing: to unite a company and customer, to establish a strong and at the same time very effective relationship between them. To please their customers, marketers, building the image of a particular brand, can exploit a wide variety of emotions: joy and nostalgia, inspiration and passion, pride and sympathy – and transmit a wide variety of messages in their context, the purpose of which, as a rule, is the same: to interest potential buyers of the brand.:

Recently, emotional branding has emerged as a new paradigm that can solve one of the main tasks of marketing: to unite a company and customer, to establish a strong and at the same time very effective relationship between them. To please their customers, marketers, building the image of a particular brand, can exploit a wide variety of emotions: joy and nostalgia, inspiration and passion, pride and sympathy – and transmit a wide variety of messages in their context, the purpose of which, as a rule, is the same: to interest potential buyers of the brand.

Emotions are the one primary reason why consumers prefer brand name products and not just any ordinary product. Advertisements play a crucial role in making or breaking a brand. As quoted by Zig Ziglar, Iconic Salesman and Motivational Speaker: “People don’t buy for logical reasons. They buy for emotional reasons.” Emotions play an important role in successful advertising campaigns but ads in general don’t talk about the effects of using the products for example: Pepsi and Coca-Cola don’t talk about fat, calories, and diabetes rather their focus is more on youth, vitality, and good times while Chocolate is associated with luxury, indulgence, and sensuality. Despite millions of years of emotions us humans rely heavily on emotions to make decisions. Oftentimes we end up making the pros and cons list when making a purchase, say you wanted to buy a washing machine and you ended up making this list. End of the day, regardless of all the data analysis you conducted about the washing machine your decision to buy was made by one of the primal regions of the brain that actually does not make you so smart. Because this is so essential we as marketers need to learn to connect emotionally with customers and clients.

Literature Review

William J. McEwen in his article “Getting Emotional about the brand” claims that all the emotional connections created by marketers are focused on customer attention. Moreover, the author mentions that the companies moved to “generating customer commitment”, “delight,” and even “evangelism”—all of which represent enduring psychological bonds that link a customer to a company” (McEwen, 2005).

Another interesting relationship between emotions and consumer is discussed in the book “Strategic Brand Management” (2011) by the authors Elliot, Percy and Pervan. First of all they distinguish the meaning of emotion and feeling. Secondly, the authors point on the six primary emotions: surprise, anger, fear, disgust, sadness and joy (Ekman (1992)) and secondary, which are uncontrolled by our nervous system. (cf. Damasio, 1999, and others). The ability to understand the complexity of human emotions is fundamental for brands to communicate with consumers.

The studies of Markus and Kitayama (1991) also show that the cultural differences have to be taken into consideration. For example, if you are from Asian culture you are focused more on the relatedness of individuals to each other, while Western people are more about individual and inner attributes. This statement is important to understand for marketers in the perspective of how to influence consumer decision depending on his environment. At the same time William J. McEwen claims that some companies that are not good at creating emotional connections with their customers.

Another problem highlighted in the book “Strategic Brand Management” is described by Zajonc (1980), who suggests that we form a preference first based on emotional response and then justify it to ourselves cognitively. It means that consumers tend to experience the feelings of regret or self-blame after their purchase. As a result, according to the theory of Motivated Choice (Kunda, 1990), people search out the evidence which supports their desired outcome. The author gives an example of the expensive camera purchase and the tendency people have to look for identical product advertisement after purchase just to prove their final decision. To sum up, consumers tend to look for rational reasons of their emotion-driven choices.

I the book “How Neuroscience Can Empower (and Inspire) Marketing” by Douglas Van Praet the author convinces us that our behaviours of purchasing are determined mainly by subconscious influences.

Following this issue, Daniel Kahneman in the article “Nothing More Than Feelings” gives the explanation of the feeling as a form of thinking. He uses new terms, such as System One and System Two, where System One is the fast, automatic and intuitive approach of brain, while System Two is more analytical and reasonable. In “Thinking, Fast and Slow”, Daniel Kahneman comes to the conclusion that the advertisement and media is dealing with the System One of the consumers. As a result, people prefer to buy automatically without rational approach. In his article the author points on an important issue of the tricks marketers use in their advertisement. The whole idea is to play on peoples’ emotions and make them buy the product using their System One. As a result, people are not going to think directly of the product when it comes to the choice they will think of the emotions that they it will bring them. The example of the phenomenal success of Cadbury’s Dairy Milk Gorilla advertisement proves the theory of Daniel Kahnerman, that emotions are more important than information for the consumer.

On this stage of literature review raises another issue: how to ‘measure’ the emotions. The answer can be found in the article “How to Measure Brand Emotion” (2004) written by Percy and Hansen. The authors first give the explanation about the concept of emotions and how it corresponds with the range of primary emotions (surprise, anger, fear, disgust, sadness and joy), which were mentioned also by William J. McEwen in his article “Getting Emotional about the brand”. Percy and Hansen prove that the primary emotions lead to long-term action, which creates our associations with the brand and as a result influents purchase intentions. Secondly, the article presents the study about measuring emotion-brand associations covering 64 brands. The interesting conclusion was made about shampoo brands. By representing the results of the research, the authors of the article show that people have positive emotional associations with Dove and Sanex but negative ones with Head & Shoulders. While ’users’ and ‘non-users’ results illustrate that actual users of Head & Shoulders shampoo have very positive emotions about the brand. As Percy and Hansen summarise: “Our experiences with brands, or in terms of actual use or simply an understanding of them, will have emotional associations linked to them in memory” (Percy 2004). Another important tool for managers to understand their brand is establish trust between the consumer and the brand. The concept of the trust and confidence in brands is raised by Elliot, Percy and Pervan in “Strategic Brand Management” (2011). The ‘Theory of trust’ shows that :“Trust is required only in situations of high perceived risk; at other times confidence or mere familiarity will suffice for action to ensue” (Elliott, 2011).

One of the issues we have mentioned in the literature review is about emotions affecting purchasing behaviour. Professor of Neuroscience at the University of Southern California, Antonio Damasio argues that emotion is required in almost all decisions. He performed research on subjects who had emotional impairment but their thinking abilities were unaffected. When they were asked to make simple decisions such as the food they would like to eat they stated that they should have reasons for doing so but they were still unable to arrive at a final choice. Research from various universities show that most of our modern emotions stem from 4 core feelings; happiness, sad, afraid and angry. Looking at how emotions can affect the buying behaviour starts with particular emotions that we have to focus on. University of Pennsylvania social psychologist Jonah Berge studied that positive emotions are much more likely to be shared than articles about sad topics. According to another Harvard Professor Gerald Zeltman, the answers to all the questions regarding emotions affecting consumer behaviour is directly related to the subconscious mind. Zeltman In his book “How Customers think: Essential insights into the mind of the market” talks about marketers understanding behaviour of customers that they are not aware of themselves. One of the approaches that he suggests is to cross check stated beliefs with actual behaviour. Many consumers report handling competing brands by comparing the prices when it comes to the point of purchase, but according to Zeltman’s experiments consumers don’t even look at the alternatives when it comes to a particular brand.

Although, the idea of exploring the subconscious mind of the consumers boils down to the fact of being an advertising strategy. The belief when it comes to advertising is that a higher attention span means a higher recall rate and that influenced the effectiveness of the advert. Most of the early discussions about emotions and branding were based around the concept of brand personality. As the majority of texts on Branding define brand personality as how people should feel about a particular brand over time. In a few studies, it has also been found that a brand relationship is similar to relationship amongst people and is comprehensible. Hence, emotional advertising does play a role in creating an emotional relationship between the potential user and the brand.

Here arises the next issue: how emotions, feelings and moods are actually used in brand advertising? In the modern world, the amount of information is growing at such a rate that a person does not have time to absorb it. Due to overload and fatigue, people are often unable to distinguish between important and not important information. Over-saturation of the information field affects the quality of data processing, making analysis, synthesis, exclusion and comparison more complicated. At the same time they are necessary for rational thinking.

As a result, companies find ways to interact with the part of the brain that is associated with emotions and feelings. Thanks to social networks and the advent of the digital world, companies have new opportunities for using emotions in advertising. If the marketer does not know which emotions to activate, he will evoke emotions that match the product. To sell an adventure tour, customers need to feel excited, while for a serene trip, customers need to be relaxed and calm. Marketers use different emotions and feelings to get different results. Psychologists have been studying human emotions for some time, and they’ve identified a number of them, ranging from “anger” to “disgust” and from “envy” to “love.” (McEwen, 2004). We will give examples of main emotions to show how they are used in the advertisement:

Fear and Wonder

The definition of ‘fear’ in “Semantics, Surplus Meaning, and the Science of Fear” by Joseph E. LeDoux is “the feeling that invades your conscious mind when you are in danger.” Many marketers bring anxiety to their target customers, activating the centre of fear in their brain, that makes the consumer feel ‘need’ rather than ‘desire’ in your product. Fear pushes us to urgent action to change or buy something that will prevent terrible things. Fear in advertising has roots in the 1920’s when Listerine created the advertisement asking people to fight with bad smell. The idea was about the young beautiful woman who cannot get married because of her bad breath. For example fear is used by the world wildlife fund to advertise the detrimental effects of global warming.

Joy and Happiness

Most of the brands want them to be associated with a laugh, smile or happy customers. However, positivity has an indirect effect on increasing sales. The point is that positive information is much better distributed among people than negative.

Joyful feeling in the advertisement can be seen in 1971, when Coca-Cola released “I’d Like to Buy the World a Coke” commercial. Bill Backer commented his creation “I began to see a bottle of Coca-Cola as more than a drink … [it was] a tiny bit of commonality between all people, a universally liked formula … I could see and hear a song that treated the whole world as if it were a person – a person the singer would like to help and get to know” (Bill Baker). The idea of happiness worked well for Coca-Cola and the success was tremendous. And in the summer of 2015 Coca-Cola released the choose happiness promotion that is a powerful example of encouraging consumers to share happy moments and experiences that make them happy. Coca-Cola rallied on using the consumer’s emotions.

Sadness

Sadness makes us empathise and feel intimacy. Moreover, this makes us generous and also eliminates fear. At first, the advertisement makes its customers feel sad, and then promises them that buying is the solution to improve their mood. The famous brand to use the feeling of sadness in his advertisement is Burger King. It begins with the words: “Not everybody wakes up happy”. We can see a lonely man sitting on his bed as a start of the new Burger King ad. “All I ask is that you let me feel my way”. This is also an answer to the McDonald’s Happy Meals. A lot of brands have understood the importance of using emotional information that creates public awareness about some social issues like gender equality, poverty, lonely people, race or gender discrimination and others. For example: “Unsung hero” the TVC Thai Life Insurance commercial where a guy is seen helping people and going out of his way and in return he receives are just emotions, it’s hard not to connect and feel the emotions of this advertisement.

Anger and Disgust

In some cases, anger can provoke people and make them act. I the case of brand management these feelings can stimulate the consumers. Disgust and frustration can make us think about our point of view and ask important questions. When we see the injustice in the world that we want to correct, we are forced to do something about it. For example, in the world of fake news, media can use their ads to demonstrate their commitment to honesty and objectivity. The brand Always has filmed a video called “Like a Girl,” where the characters are asked to do something like the girls do it. At the same time, the guys exaggerate the movements of the girls, which causes insult and anger.

The last issue we studied is about trust and the brand. Although there has been substantial research on how emotions play an important role in establishing a strong brand relationship we have to realise that emotions are not static. (Morris and Crane, 2007) define as emotions “as a state of physical and mental readiness that involves directional force, evaluative appraisal, a target and behavioural tendencies.” Trust on the other hand has been defined by (Moorman et.al 1993) as “a willingness to rely on an exchange partner in whom one has confidence.” Generally, trust is affected by perceptions of the trustee’s ability, integrity, and benevolence, but in addition, these attributes are also influenced by past experiences and the trustee’s reputation (Butler, 1991). If we consider marketing as a tool to create a strong bond between consumers and brand then trust is the key ingredient in it. Trust as we know in daily situations comes with familiarity. For example, we buy a certain detergent all the time we have to purchase it because we have been familiar with the advantages of using it over time and we trust that it can clean our clothes.

Conclusion

As we have discussed in this essay one can notice how important emotions are when it comes to brand loyalty and building brand relationships. Emotions as we mentioned clearly affect purchase behavior. As we progress in the essay we have focused on particular emotions that can be used in advertising. Each of them are associated with different ways brand use emotions to convey their message and build a brand relationship with them. We definitely understand that emotional branding plays a huge role in a brand’s life. However, companies must be careful about how they use emotion to reach customers by taking into account culture, which can have an important impact on the advertising efficiency.

Brand Elements

The brand elements are the keys that uphold a brand and makes it complete for people to recognize it. For the new Crescent we will be discussing the following brand elements:

• Name
• Logo & Symbol
• Color
• Slogan
• URL

Name

We kept the name same as before, as the mother company name Crescent has its own recognition as a leather brand. So, keeping Crescent at the start of the brand name will save us from creating brand identity from the scratch. Crescent Footwear will be the brand name. It will be easily recognizable by the people and they can associate it with a leather footwear brand, for the name Crescent. Adding Footwear will indicate our niche product offering and will differentiate us from the mother brand. This will also help us to be in the top of mind of our target market who are looking for the minimum premium experience in their footwear.

Logo & Symbol

The new logo is a fully reinvented one with a rustic feel in the logo design. The narrow shapes that has surrounded the brand name has a leather texture. It covers edge to edge around the whole logo. The fonts used for the brand name is sharp and bold which represents exactly a confident person. Very bold and sharp. The fonts for the tagline is in a scripted form which shows elegance and also has a clear view with the bold font of brand name above it. It will be very easy for everyone to remember the tagline whenever they see crescent footwear logo or brand name anywhere.

Color

The color of the logo and brand is brown (a mixture of caramel & brunette). The color brown represents reliability, confidence & comfort. Which totally forms the strong emotional association that we are trying to portray in our rebranded Crescent Footwear. A brand that upholds confidence with a rustic look as well as gives comfort with 100% pure leather. This gives the brand the perfect finishing correlating with its slogan.

Slogan

The slogan for rebranded Crescent Footwear is “Confidence comes in pure leather” which replaces the previous tagline “100% Pure Leather”. The previous slogan used to portray the functional offering only. Now, with the redefined slogan Confidence comes in pure leather it not only has kept the brands authenticity of functional offering but also gives the strong emotional connection and associated the target market with the slogan perfectly. The slogan has the perfect combination of the emotional and functional approach to the consumers. It defines the target market who are looking for such a footwear that suits their productive and progressive lifestyle with a touch of elegance on their attire and posture.

URL

We will have a website for Crescent footwears which will be – www.crescent.com.bd where there will be bunch of segments. First of all, the portfolio of both Crescent Signatures and Crescent Everyday will be there. Which are our two footwear categories. Also, the concept of Your Crescent category will be based on full web mass customization. Anyone can open a free account in the Crescent Footwear website and can pick bunch of options according to their own preferences. Suppose anyone has bought a suit for a party and now wants to match the shoe color with it. He/she can upload the full image of the shoe and then they can get suggested colors matched with the suit from our available stock. If the color doesn’t match the available ones, one can completely select the shoe color by a color picker and get the exact same color as the suit with his/her crescent shoes. From shoes color to lace, anything can be customized on the website. Every customized and non-customized product will be available for home delivery and for free home delivery in specific regions. Last but not the least, the Crescent Footwear community will be on the website where all the free account holders of the website can showcase there crescent collection and moments and can interact with each other. All the Crescent Footwear events will also be published on the website.

Brand Associations

There will be two kinds of associations for the brand: a) POD Association b) POP Association. The selections for these two kinds of associations will be based on keeping the desirability and deliverability criteria in the mind.

POD (Point of Difference) Association

These will indicate the elements that will set Crescent Footwears apart from the available footwear products in the Bangladesh market. These are the ways in which it should be done –

• a) Function Design: The collection of Crescent Footwear will have a unique rustic series of products that will have the attractions for the customers. Every design will have different supplicated approaches to the feeling of the customers who visit the crescent outlets or the web stores. The bunch of confident people will find their personality associated with these elegant designs of the footwears of Crescent.
• b) Key Attributes: The key attribute will be the pure leather that has been associated with the brand for a long period of time in the Bangladesh market. Crescent’s promise on delivering the absolute pure leather footwears will be the core of the product. It will ensure the utmost comfortable experience yet with a premium outlook.
• c) The One Strong Persona: This is where the Crescent Footwear is completely distinguishable with the other footwear brands, and that is the personality that is created by the rebranded Crescent Footwear: Confidence Comes in Pure Leather. The opportunity for the customers to relate to one of the strongest emotional appeal that they want to achieve and want to relate it with their lifestyle and activities. The urge to be confident in their every important stage of life will be connected with their choice of footwear, which is Crescent Footwears. The Crescent Footwear will not be selling a series of product only, but also will be perfecting a lifestyle and persona among the consumers.

POP (Point of Parity Associations)

Among three kinds of POP associations, Crescent Footwear will have two of them and they are:

• a) Category Point of Parity: Crescent footwear unlike any footwear will offer most of the variety of footwear products in both physical outlets and web store. Outlets will have first-hand (foot) experiences for every product available in the outlets.
• b) Correlational Point of Parity: Despite of being a premium footwear brand, Crescent Footwear will have a segmented category for the people who seek for a regular usage with a quality offering. This will correlate the core offering with this subsidiary model.

With the above POD and POP associations we can see that from the consumers perspective the associations are certainly desirable because the premium experience and the footwear has a demand in the market and the differentiation personality association lets the consumer decide to go for Crescent Footwear. As for the firm’s approach, it surely is deliverable as the positioning is feasible and also profitable for the brand.

Brand Personality

The kind of brand personality Crescent footwear upholds can be defined by a) Competence and b) Sophistication.

Competence: The Progressive Ones

People full of competence are the ones who are successful, hardworking, competitive and who wants to feel accomplished in life. The desire to keep progressing in life is what Crescent Footwear users wants. So, the brand personality associates with these people through its competence. These usually incorporated people who are in the corporate workforce and also business man with prestige.

Sophistication: The Elegance and Prestige

The success of life offers elegance and prestige to people and that is something they want to sustain. The feeling of self-confidence is the utmost sophistication that the people want in their lifestyle. By associating with it Crescent makes sure that the customers are preferring crescent rather than any other brand to sustain their elegance and prestige in their important moments of life.

Media Selection and Strategy

The promotional activity for the launching will be of three kinds: ATL, BTL and Public Relations. These activities will start from the beginning of the year and will be conducted till the end of the year.

ATL Promotion

The ATL promotions will incorporate mass media such as print media, TV, radio and digital media for its promotion. ATL promotions will be conducted throughout the year

BTL Promotion

To create the experience directly to the customers the BTL campaigns will incorporate activations, guerilla marketing, events etc. Customers will get the chance to connect with the brand physically. The BTL campaigns will also be digitally broadcasted to the mass media to give a glimpse of the activity. It will bring more people to the first-hand experience.

Public Relation

This segment will focus building up the community with keeping confidence at its core. The public relation will incorporate live seminars, talk shows and conferences about professional life grooming, featured by Crescent Footwear. These kinds of events will give the customers more window to get associated with the brand.

The Media Buying

The forms of media that will be used to showcase all the campaigns are TV, Radio, Newspaper, Magazine and Digital Media. For the TVC broadcasting we will be choosing three of the most popular and most viewed channels of Bangladesh and to keep the cost management precise. The choice for radio channel will be Radio Foorti for its maximum number of listeners. Prothom Alo and The Daily Star will be the choice of newspaper as the target market revolves around these two newspapers mostly For the magazines the selection will be picky as well, featuring Shouts, ICE Business Times and Corporate. Last but not the least for the digital media, we will be covering, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and LinkedIn for publishing the digital contents. LinkedIn and Facebook will be used to connect with the target market directly.

In this essay I will outline the importance of branding within organisations and in businesses including its relevance to how the brand is represented. By the end of this writing, it should be clear as to why branding is important and useful to an organisation. What is branding? Branding is defined as an image or a technique used for companies to help distinguish the differences to other organisations highlighting the products and services they can deliver to its consumers. Branding is used for how the company is delivering its services and what customers can expect from the company. As mentioned by (J Murphy, 1998) it’s really important for consumers to recognise and recommend to others about the products the service can deliver. It is very important of how the organisation would be perceived and to develop a good understanding with its consumers. It is a technique used to create an image on the perception of the organisation. The term ‘branding’ comes from the Anglo-Saxon term which expresses the creation of a brand or its identity and its relationship with its customers, as mentioned by (Aragón en la Edad Media, 2016).

The business I will use with a recognisable brand will be Nike. I believe Nike is a brand well recognised worldwide and is familiar to different types of audiences. Nike is an organisation that works on the marketing and selling of sportswear including footwear and sports equipment. It is one of the largest suppliers in the world delivering top of the range sportswear for affordable prices. The company was founded in 1964 but was known as Blue Ribbon Sports but officially changed the name to Nike Inc in the year of 1971. Ironically, the name Nike roots from the Greek goddess of victory, establishing the strengths of the company and relates to its representation. According to (Thomas, 2019) Wall street was surprised at the level of sneakers and sports equipment sold and how much revenue was expanding, boosting it to over 10 billion US Dollars. This shows the financial gain and the success the brand has benefited the organisation.

The branding of the organisation is relevant to the business, its events and its products because it raises the returns of the customers. It allows the organisation to be recognised easily due to the distinctive Nike tick. The Nike tick is a symbol of the wings of the goddess of victory which again relates to the name and its origin. It is very important for its marketing purposes for it to be recognised for its logo. This aspect of the company creates its identity which dominates the sporting world. This increases value to the company and allows it to be a successful brand. Nikes branding is culturally understood and allows its customers to identify and label themselves with the brand and to be able to proudly represent the Nike brand. It goes beyond just being a brand, it is the definition of the organization. It allows the creation of the brand being recognised and to stand out from all of its competitors.

Nike has a slogan ‘just do it’ which is part of their marketing strategy for consumers not to think twice. Nike prioritises their customers interests by meeting their needs and demands in order to benefit both the company and its audience. It is a company that tries to keep up with the current social standards and the trends which enable them to stay relevant. As (Fournier,1998) states the consumer-brand validates the relationship between the bonding level of the customer and the organisation. It is also highly backed up by American football quarterback, Colin Rand Kaepernick, who was an activist and representative for African Americans, was asked to do an advertisement for Nike which then increased its value by $6billion. This shows us that by getting one person to do a short ad had a major impact on the income of the company. When branding Nike know exactly what they need to do to ensure sales are hit.

This brand has many different missions when promoting their products. As well as giving sport a better innovation in the eyes of the public; they also have a major impact on local communities. They have created the Nike community impact fund or NCIF in America which allows 48 non-profit organisations and schooling communities to be awarded with $240,000 for grants to benefit children. It gives children the opportunities and experiences to exceed their physical abilities by sports and exercise. As recognised by (Size, F. and WIRE, B.,2019), it was believed that the promoting of the brand is what enabled the communities to involve themselves due to the equipment and products being provided for them.

A variable that Nike uses when promoting their products is psychographic to target lifestyle and personality-specific people. Their audience becomes those who enjoy sports whilst this creates a feeling that surpasses the product. This then makes it a lifestyle for them as they want to use these particular products. Many events such as Nike: Run with me, athletic and non-athletic activities help create a group of individuals who share similar interests as they feel they belong to one family called Nike. It also creates a huge number of fans to be involved with what Nike has to offer.

As a brand, Nike’s audience is usually aimed after three kinds of customers which are women, young athletes and runners. They expanded the woman sportswear in 2015 as its was in high demand and in 2017 it was estimated that the female attires would add $2billion in sales. As reported by one of the main CEO’s of the Nike company, as reported by the (Business Insider,2019), Mike Parker spoke on how ‘running is our heritage and our largest performance category’. It establishes the link to the target audience and how it has a positive impact on the increasing and developing of more products in different sectors within the brand.

Nike has two pricing strategies which are split as the value-based and the premium pricing strategy. The value-based strategy, as stated by (Medium, 2019), that it determines ‘the maximum prices that consumers are willing to pay’ on the basis that the customers have a good perception of its value. This tells us that Nike works well for its customers due to maintaining a good price margin which all customers can find within reach. It is not a brand where it pressures its audience with an unrealistic price range for their products which therefore is satisfying for its customers and also to secure the returning of the customers. The second pricing strategy, the premium pricing strategy, establishes Nike and its products in its highest quality and value than any of its competitors and their products. Nike believes that this helps cover both audiences and is able to produce products needed to reach and cover the needs of their target audience.

Nike utilizes geographic segmentation differently to density of market countries, areas, towns and populations. They use their brand through famous players who play baseball and football in the United States to market their products. In the United Kingdom they also use football and rugby as well as cricket in India. From this we can see that their brand has become a household name due to having an international impact.

When advertising their brand Nike uses a mixture of techniques to promote their product. One way they do this is by using marketing communications; this is effective as it attracts and keeps a steady balance of existing customers and new customers. To maintain this, again stated by (Medium,201) that Nike strategically combined advertising, direct marketing, sales and its promotions, public relations in order to succeed. Their marking efforts are to a large extent fruitful in remembering this. Their efforts have helped to foster a steadfast and dedicated client base that will constantly spend on products with their tags.

The Nike Run Club app is designed to provide all the tools needed for the perfect run. In order to do so they decided to partner up with Apple and embed this app into every Apple Watch sold. (Panmore Institute, 2019), states that Nike originally created a series on YouTube which was viewed over 80 million times. This allowed the downloading of the app to increase within its audience, thus outlining how Nike uses different platforms and techniques to sell their products in a way which will reach all of its audience.

Nikes idea of this was led by the idea of carefully creating its advertisement to suit the needs and wants of the customers for them to be satisfied with its services. They do this throughemotional branding, which allows the brand to create a direct attraction to any emotional state, needs, and desires of customers. Nike use Heroism to tell their story when branding as a marketing strategy. Consumers believe that they are the hero with Nikes brand and you are the indolent villain.

The company is very smart about the launches of its products and its events. It uses methods such as social media sites to notify the public about any upcoming activities. It uses Facebook and Instagram to inform the public and to keep them updated using visuals and images including their six categories of running, Nike basketball, the Jordan brand, football, training, and sportswear. This type of branding allows the wider audience to forward information and generate referrals. By remembering this, their marking endeavours are to a great extent successful. Their endeavours have helped encourage a steadfast and devoted customer base that will consistently spend lavishly for items with their tag on them.

Overall branding is relevant to the impression left on its users. It allows clarification of what the company has to offer and also what they can deliver. In this essay you can see that Nike uses many different types of branding to push sales with their customers.

Branding is essential because it not only gives consumers a memorable feeling, but it also enables your customers and clients to understand what to expect from your business. It is a way of ascertaining the brand from competitors and letting the target audience know what makes your choice of branding different from the rest. This then helps build the brand and gives a portrayal of the business and how the audience distinguish it from the rest. By using many different platforms to voice their brand, Nike saw results as figures rise; they done this by using a unique logo, slogan famous athletes, social media and making sure that they give back to local communities around them. They also used different pricing strategies to target the needs of their consumers by making affordable and high-quality products in comparison to any other competitor. From this their brand has thrived and has become one of the best leading sports company.

References

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6. Size, F. and WIRE, B. (2019). Nike Gives Back Locally to Strengthen Communities and Get Kids Moving Through the Nike Community Impact Fund. [online] Businesswire.com. Available at: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20161201006001/en/Nike-Locally-Strengthen-Communities-Kids-Moving-Nike [Accessed 4 Sep. 2019].
7. Thomas, L. (2019). Nike misses on earnings but beats on revenues as customers buy more sneakers and sports gear. [online] CNBC. Available at: https://www.cnbc.com/2019/06/27/nike-reports-fiscal-4q-2019-earnings.html [Accessed 4 Sep. 2019].
8. Vox. (2019). Nike’s Colin Kaepernick ad sparked a boycott — and earned $6 billion for Nike. [online] Available at: https://www.vox.com/2018/9/24/17895704/nike-colin-kaepernick-boycott-6-billion [Accessed 4 Sep. 2019].

Pakistan’s fast food industry ranked 8th world largest market for food and related businesses [1]. While ranked 2nd largest in the country, and accounted for 27% of value-added production and 16% of total employment in the manufacturing sector [2]. [3], affirmed that almost 70 global franchises are operating in the country, and most projected franchises are from Canada, Australia, China. To date, Pizza Hut is considered the first fast-food chain in the country to go public and operating with 74 franchises throughout the country. Simultaneously having the desire to open more franchises in every district of the country [4]. 53.09% contribution to GDP comes from the service sector of the country [5]. There are 37 million social media users out of 180 million, comparing to the previous year 2018, this year witnessed the 5.6% increase in users, [6]. Changes in daily routine, along with the increasing desire for outing motivated the previous scholars to work in this sector. However, [7], stated that changes in customer’s routines have directed to an upsurge in the plea for diverse eating experiences and to the fast advancements in the fast-food industry. Owed to the distinctive qualities of services like intangibility and heterogeneity, products-based brand equity, it is claimed, necessitate alterations to encounter fast food industry and service brand assessment requirement [8]. Such progress has an impact the exterior of various local and international brands which repeatedly comes from robust brands in order to fortify keenness and brand equity so that customers are capable to identify a particular restaurant [9]. Albeit some scholars have considered the progress of the fast-food restaurants, an inadequate number of scholarships emphasis on customers based brand equity in the hospitality industry [10]. The Researcher’s argument about whether brand equity dimensions utilized in product marketing can be practical to service-based brands. [11], proposes that liberated cafes and restaurants putting effort as because the customers are varied to local restaurants.

From a perspective of Branding, [12], originate that external influences restrained the product/services structure, brand equity, orientation and brand performance (BP) association between Finnish organizations. [13], claimed that the rivalry nature of business entities and the environmental pressure may lessen the direct influence of the variable on the brand performance. Branding is an efficient and effective device for organizations to recognize and differentiate goods/services in the consumer’s (Cs) concentrations. It is a critical strategy of marketing mostly utilized to advance or flourish organization’s performance [14]. The work highpoints constructing a robust brand as the prime goalmouth of firms[15]. Normally, the whole forte of a brand functioning in single or multiple nationwide markets is assessed by its brand equity[16]. According to the [17], conclusion brand is afar a name, goals to achieve, but it’s one of the important tools to assess the overall performance of firms. In addition, brands can craft the value of customers and outcome in more income for the organizations. Brands may prone to greater success and healthier enactment if they logically and unceasingly estimate themselves. The altered measurements of brand equity can be supposed as a vital driver in the development and lessen of the overall performance of a brand. Hence, most of the organization’s executives desire to have a robust brand, it is anticipated that the drivers influencing the brand performanceto be assessed more exactly. Therefore, with respect to the influence of brand equity measurements on the brand performance, it is prospective that they should be fused in a spontaneous model to get purer and further exact outcomes. Building and sustaining a brand is indispensable in the current era of modest marketing milieu, and band equity is the result of efficient branding activity stashes [18].

The dimension of brand equity should precisely assess purchasers’ insights of the brand in order to advance marketing approaches that bring into line with consumers’ morals [19]. This is pertinent, not only to customers, buyers, or users, who buy, and use a brand but also to executives and marketing personnel’s, who assess the performance of the particular brand and make influential schemes [20]. Hence, the assessment of brand equity offerings and efficient means to judge both end-user brand insights and marketing motion [21]. [22], proposes that building strong brand equity is a key issue in the current era. “Consumer-based brand equity could lead to robust distribution networks, establish product brand extensions, and reinforce price elasticity”. In addition, [23], investigated the role of brand equity and corporate reputation in “customer-relationship management” in the large transitional market of China. In addition, it has been recognized as a critical perspective as witnessed by the “proliferation of models and arguments on the concept”. Additionally, it has various definitions which exhibits the “commercial intention of brands” [24]. While, preceding studies have evaluated the association amongst brand equity with the firm performance [25], and repurchase intention [26], accounted the brand equity as one of the most critical antecedents of the business performances [27]. Albeit less emphasis has put on the effects of brand equity and brand performance in the fast-food industry in developing countries like Pakistan. In previous literature, most of the scholars have well diagnosed the influence of brand equity on firm performance, but brand reputation (BR) has been untapped into the previous work. [28], indicates that brand reputation playsa key role to examine the satisfaction of customers for varying degrees of failures. The forecast that brand reputation could protect or bulwarks the undesirable results of service failure, which advise that the customer would like to give another opportunity to the well-reputed brands.

Indeed, [29], concludes that, as technologies alter, social media (SM) are where viewers can interact with those brands. All the brands have both positive and negative areas, which may not be included in the overall strategies of branding or failure to be connected to them with audiences. In such conditions, technologies create problems. In addition, by using SM audiences can “help to develop the brand strategy, providing real feedback on how it is working. They provide a greater connection with the management, with audiences being able to affect the thinking of organizations behind the scenes, giving their brands greater relevance and appeal.” In order to expand brand positioning and brand equity, brand executives could effectively adopt and use popular social media means along with customary campaigns to stimulate performance qualities, satisfaction and their outcomes, such as trust[30]. In addition, [31], proposes that in current era Facebook is not just a considered a platform for linking with loved ones, but also an online space for brand lovers to interact with each other as well as with the brand. Owing to this potential of social media platforms, a number of companies nowadays launch their brand pages to create and retain customer relationships and brand loyalty. It is argued, that consumers not only pay attention to brands via visiting but also spread well as well as bed word of mouth by using social media. When customers make selection against service brands such as eateries, they give a higher weighting to risk reduction [32]. That is, customers try to decrease doubt and disquiet by taking into account the overall brand equity. In contrast, in order to know about the overall performance of the brand and reputation of them, organization operatives started focusing on all the dimensions and broader range of environmental effect (SM). Albeit, preceding work have exhibited concern in SM values for firms, there are exact imperfect experiential educations on conclusion the effect of utilizing SM on the performance of small medium and enterprises in the fast-food industry especially in developing countries. [33], contend that scholars should bash to emphasis on the sympathy of factors and moderators that harvest influence on firm performance somewhat than concentrating on SM values. Therefore, this study aimed to examine associations among brand equity, brand reputation, brand performance and moderating role of social media in the restaurant industry of Pakistan.

A substantial extent of inquiry is rapt towards classifying the measurements of brand equity and forming a conjoint basis for the additional scholarship [34, 35]. [36], definitebrand equity as “a set of brand assets with the liabilities, linked to a brand (e.g. It can be a name, symbol) that can be added to or subtract from the value provided by a products/services to a firm or to the firm’s customers.” While, [37]definesbrand equity as “brand value or brand meaning, where brand meaning implies brand salience, brand association, and brand personality, where brand value is consequences of taking care of brand meaning.” Furthermore, [38], categorized four measurements of brand equity, specifically, brand awareness, brand association, perceived quality, and brand loyalty. Keeping in view the distinctive qualities of services, scholars have investigated accustomed dimensions of service brand equity. To investigate the brand equity of luxury hotels and chain eateries,[39], used (e.g. Brand association, brand image, perceived quality, and brand loyalty). Constructing on this, [10], makesthe addition of the food quality to perceived quality measure in the context of a chain restaurant. In the present study, we have been using to measure their studies brand awareness and brand association dimension of brand equity. To determine further association with other branding features, the present education further includes brand reputation and brand performance.

[40], stated that “the performance of brand points out how successful a brand is in the market and aims to evaluate the strategic successes of a brand.” In addition, trust, perceived quality, brand image, satisfaction, and brand performance differ across “stakeholder groups” [41]. Scholars have confirmed that a decent reputation and increasing profits are signs of better performance[42]. In previous literature, brand performance used as an independent variable [43], as a dependent variable [44], and also as moderator [45]. Meanwhile, an influence of SM on brand performance still needs more literature [46], it has to be utilized in SMEs, particularly in the service sector proposed by the [42]. Furthermore, [47], also used the perceived brand reputation as a mediator between brand extensions brand equity and perceived quality. Thus the present work adopts brand reputation as a mediating variable among dimensions of brand equity and brand performance. While the [46], used SM activities as a mediating variable between entertainment, customization, perceived risk, interaction, trendiness and dimensions of brand equity and customer response. In addition, [44], used the SM capabilities as a moderator among the brand orientation and brand performance. Hence, keeping in view the wide acceptability and increasing penetration percentages of internet users globally, we argued that it has a significant influence on the performance of the organizations.

The current study adds to the mounting literature on brand equity, brand reputation, and brand performance and moderating effects of SM. First, this study focus on the progress of a brand equity model, suitable for chain and fast food restaurant Brands (KFC, Pizza Hut, TGI Fridays, Subway, The Chair Bar & Grill), and emphases on its measurements as embodied by “chain restaurants’ consumption psychology”. The present study proposes that brand awareness and brand association are major components of brand equity. Although various Scholars have investigated on the advancement of brand equity framework, there has been less framework in the context of fast food restaurant Brands particularly in a developing country like a Pakistan. The results are shown in table – 3: indicate that brand awareness and brand association have positive impacts on brand reputation, as well as brand reputation has an optimistic impact on brand performance. Thus, we confirm the mediating role of brand reputation on the association among brand equity dimensions and brand performance.

More specifically, we have constructed seven hypotheses. From which four comes under the umbrella of direct effect and remaining under the roof of the indirect effect. We constructed that H1: the brand association has a significant influence on brand reputation. Results mentioned in the table – 3: reveals positive beta coefficient 0.133, standard deviation 0.063, t-value 2.108 > 1.96, p-value 0.036 < 0.05, decision supported the hypothesis. Hence the results are consistent with previous studies of [66]. In addition, Hypothesis – 2: stated that brand awareness hasa significant influence on brand reputation. Results mentioned in the table – 3: reveals positive beta coefficient 0.625, standard deviation 0.0626, t-value 10.553 > 1.96, p-value 0.000 < 0.05, decision supported the hypothesis, results of the study supported by previous work of [58]. In addition hypothesis – 3: constructed for the positive and significant impact of brand reputation on brand performance. The 0.558 beta coefficient, 0.031 standard deviation, 17.744 > 1.96 t-value and 0.000 1.96, p-value 0.000 Hypothesis – 4 & 5: established in support of mediating effect of brand reputation towards brand performance, the results founded positive and significant as t-value 2.163 and 7.81 > 1.96 and p-value 0.031 and 0.000 < 0.05. The results noted also supported by previous studies [66, 67]. Furthermore, the hypothesis – 7: established for moderating effect of social media, results founded with negative path coefficient -0.071, standard deviation 0.036, t-value 1.992 > 1.96 and p-value 0.047 < 0.05. However, a hypothesis supported because the results are significant. The result is consistent with previous studies of [87].

In conclusion, it is indispensable to understand the drive of stopover and advance brand equity dimensions grounded on the aims of the visit in the fast-food industry to improve the reputation and trust of service providing organizations. Furthermore, executives should habitually crisscross whether customers are satisfied with restaurant, and alter it consequently grounded on social inclinations and target customers penchants.

Creating a business requires making choices that will contribute to the success of the business: from the colors of the website to the price of products or services. But, in my opinion, one of the most important choices to make at the start of business creation is to create a logo. After all, the logo will be at the heart of the brand image. It’s something people recognize, it has to be in line with the company’s values and mission.

First, it’s good to know what importance a logo design can have for a business. Although the logo does not ensure the success of the company, it is the basis of the brand image and the visual identity. Once the logo is created, companies can use it everywhere: on social networks, on virtual business card, on cars, and, of course, on their websites.

It is very important that the logo is coherent. Since the logo is central to the branding, the colors used should be similar to those of the company’s website, Facebook page, etc. A certain uniformity should be kept in mind to avoid confusion and lack of credibility.

It is also important that the logo is easy to remember. It should be borne in mind that people most often recognize a company when they see its logo. Absolutely everyone who sees an ‘apple’ remembers the well-known Apple brand, and the letter ‘F’ reminds many of Facebook itself.

The logo design should easily fit several types of screens, mobile phones, and tablets. It should also be easy to apply on any surface, be it a business card, a t-shirt, or a poster.

And of course, the logo must be timeless. No company wants to redo its logo every year because it is out of date. Trends change quickly, so it is important to keep the logo simple and classic. Moreover, if a company changes its logo every two months, it risks losing credibility and visibility.

Big companies prefer to use the talent of an experienced graphic designer to create their logo, but now there are completely free or very inexpensive tools on the Internet that require no technical knowledge, just imagination. One such online tool is FreeLogoDesign. Such online tools allow entrepreneurs, small and medium businesses, craftsmen, or associations to create professional-looking logos in minutes.

In conclusion, I believe that creating a logo is an important step in business development that should not be taken lightly.

When it comes to earning the loyalty of repeat customers, strong branding is essential. The visual element of your brand identity plays a critical role in driving consumers to your door. This is not, however, where the power of branding stops. Branded items, including customized apparel, can go a long way in building a strong company culture amongst employees and customers alike.

Setting Branded Apparel Apart

What sets branded apparel apart from other forms of branding is that when employees sport your custom threads, they’re proudly taking their stand as a brand representative. No matter where they go, employees and fans alike who show off your branded apparel essentially become walking billboards for your business. This makes the visual element of your brand a critical part of your business identity as a whole.

Better Morale Through Branding

Few things tie your team together like common apparel can. Employees who share common designs will feel an increased sense of connection and team spirit. On top of that, customers will know just who to turn to for help when they walk through your doors and notice the branded professional attire. They’ll be on a first name basis with your employees, right from the start.

Sharing Cultural Values

The values of your brand may include attention-to-detail, customer dedication and style. These values can be conveyed through clothing that represents the passion that you put into your day-to-day. It may not seem like much, but a custom t-shirt design can be the first impression a consumer has of your business, and it’s important to make that first impression count.

Branded Apparel Options

There are various ways to give your logo legs with branded apparel and strengthen brand culture. Here are just a few ideas to give you an idea of what some of the promotional possibilities are.

Custom T-shirts are one of the most popular promotional items out there. Virtually every major brand has a custom T-shirt design of their own for a simple reason: customers love them. Comfortable and stylish, custom tees are globally recognized as a staple of business brand culture. In addition, they serve as a decent sized canvas for logo designs. Consider using your T-shirts to share bits of wisdom from your brand vision.

If you’re looking for another level of sophistication and class, custom embroidery is a great option. Virtually any type of garment or hat can be decorated with your logo or a teammate’s personalized design in a way that is sure to make your customization ‘pop’. Your embroidered designs can even extend beyond wearables, into items like towels, duffel bags and totes. Keep in mind that more complex designs, such as those that use shading, may not be best suited for embroidery.

Hoodies, polos and custom jackets are also great options for branded designs. Businesses that use a variety of custom apparel options earn the valuable repeat impressions which drive brand loyalty. Business culture is built one impression at a time, among prospective customers and employees alike.

Quality and Quantity

No matter how many custom t-shirts you print, if your quality isn’t up to par, it’s unlikely they’ll end up on the backs of your customers. Cost isn’t the only factor when it comes to the materials, colors, logos and other design elements which make up your branded apparel. The quality of your promotional goods reflects the quality of your brand as a whole, so take the time to design a product which your fans would be proud to show off.

Once you’ve got a design worth wearing and which accurately reflects your brand values, you can focus on getting them into the hands of consumers and employees. Utilize the following strategies to optimize your custom apparel — and therefore your brand culture’s — impact on the public.

Effective Custom Apparel Strategies

There are many ways to effectively use branded apparel to strengthen company culture. In the workplace, give your employees personalization options so they can represent your brand in their own unique way. Reward your employees with embroidered gear, or welcome new teammates with some fresh company merch. While your promotional items should be consistent with your brand values and visuals, your team can still personally express themselves with company attire.

You can use your custom apparel in giveaways to spread your message to new prospects, or put them up for sale as a way for your most loyal fans to show their support. Every time one of your branded items enters circulation, awareness of your business culture grows. Send a message along with your branded gear that says you care about customer satisfaction and welcome any feedback they may have.

Weaving It All Together

Within your company, branded apparel helps to tie teammates together and build a unified sense of company culture. For customers, your custom threads can make the difference between an average logo and an iconic one. All of these elements contribute to overall company perception, as well as a stronger brand culture.