Product branding is not an enigmatic phenomenon that needs unraveling. It is on our faces in our everyday life. Top brands like Coca-Cola and Nike have made it almost impossible for one not to recognize their products and differentiate them from many similar competitors.
For instance, you can’t mistake Coca-Cola’s iconic, signature-like white font inscribed against a red background for Pepsi – Neither can you mistake Nike’s “swoosh” logo for the leaping Puma.
While many brands compete for a place in their respective markets, a well-executed branding strategy makes your product stand out from the various comparable options. Fortunately, your company doesn’t have to be worth a billion dollars to benefit from branding: You can still make a mark even as a start-up!
Let’s examine the definition of product branding, some strategies for doing it right, and some of the most successful examples.
What is Product Branding?
Product branding is the process of giving a product its own identity. It involves a combination of logo, design, messaging, and experience that strategically sets a product apart. Branding captures everything from the product name to its visual design, materials, delivery, and packaging. The goal is to build a strong, positive perception in the minds of consumers, leading to increased recognition, preference, trust, and loyalty.
How is Product Branding Different From Corporate Branding?
Although product and corporate branding are often used interchangeably, both have different meanings. Product branding is like decorating a specific room with its unique furniture and paintings, while corporate branding is about designing the entire house’s architecture and style to give it an identifiable look. The difference between the two can be likened to the one between a company and its goods and services. While product branding focuses on actively building a product’s reputation, corporate branding involves building the reputation of an entire business.
For instance, Microsoft’s corporate brand message, which is to “empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more,” focuses on inclusivity, innovation, and creating technology that caters to productivity across many sectors of the globe. However, the product brand message of Microsoft’s Xbox, “the most powerful console ever,” is about delivering outstanding gaming experiences and entertainment. The Xbox brand conveys the message of excitement, immersive gameplay, and community engagement. This reflects its commitment to gamers rather than the wider societal empowerment message that Microsoft’s corporate brand champions.
Branding a company is also characterized by higher stability. It is typically permanent across the business setup, unlike product branding, which is much more exposed to changes as it differentiates a particular product from competitors’ product brands and other products of the same company.
The product brand is often dependent on the reputation of the business brand. That’s why the stronger the business brand, the greater the advantage for the product brand. However, most businesses channel all efforts into branding the company, missing out on the rare opportunities that product branding offers. Let’s explore some of these opportunities that exemplify the importance of product branding.
Why is Product Branding Important?
Product branding, if well-executed, gives your business a competitive edge in the following ways:
Recognizability
Successful product branding helps people easily recognize your product, among many others. At its best, your product can become the iconic example for its entire category, like the iPhone for smartphones, Nike shoes for sports footwear, and Coca-Cola for soda. Google, for instance, has become so known that it represents the entire search engine category. People would use it as a verb in a sentence like “Google it” instead of saying, “Search for it on the internet.”
Differentiation
Product branding is critical for large companies with many product lines that must be differentiated to ensure that buyers can easily make their purchasing decisions. Customers will typically buy if you make it easier for them to do so.
Branding also sets your product apart from other similar ones from competitors. If your product is on the shelves of online or offline stores, you need a product brand that stands out from the overcrowded market. Think of Twix, Milky Way, Haribo, and Cadbury on your local store shelves or a website full of candies. These brands will immediately stand out from whoever is the competition.
Emotional Connection
Have you ever wondered why the Apple vs. Samsung smartphone debate isn’t stopping anytime soon? It’s simply because of the emotional connection these products have built with users over the years through effective branding!
Two 2023 studies published on Greenbook analyzed the emotional needs of over 2,000 consumers. The research found that 86% of their buying decisions were influenced by an average of ten emotional needs, from boosting self-worth to shaping how others perceive them. Meeting these needs led to higher brand loyalty and satisfaction.
Brand Advocacy
Branding gives your product an identity that requires little or no effort to promote. Imagine having a great experience with a product but not being able to find the brand name or logo clearly engraved on it. You will obviously have a difficult time recommending that product to others. That’s how poor product branding can undermine brand advocacy.
How Do You Build a Strong Product Brand Strategy?
Branding is crucial for making your product stand out in an overcrowded market. It combines various aspects, including the logo, colors, package design, product names, brand voice, values, story, and overall messaging. But what are the strategies to harmonize these elements and grow your business?
1. Research Your Audience and Competitors
Research comes first before adopting any strategy, but it’s even more critical when dealing directly with humans, as in a competitive marketplace.
First, you need to know your audience and their preferences, behavior, values, and pain points to stand a better chance of developing a compelling product brand strategy. You can gather your data through online surveys and social media analytics. This information will help you align your product and brand values, goals, and promises with your target audience’s needs.
Another thing you must factor into your research to nail your brand strategy is your competitors! The goal is to identify where your competitors fall short and capitalize on those shortcomings to develop a better brand.
Some questions that demand answers while researching your competitors include,
- Who am I up against?
- What are their strengths, weaknesses, and market positions?
- What are their branding efforts, and what do their visual identity, messaging, and customer engagement strategies look like?
In asking these questions, you are trying to identify what works for your competitors and what doesn’t.
You don’t have to do exactly what works for them or avoid what doesn’t, but thanks to the information you gather from the research, you can improve on both. That’s how you create the much-needed competitive advantage to stand out in the market.
2. Show Your Product Personality
The fact is, there is no product brand without personality; hence, any product brand strategy you adopt must have your preferred personality “written” all over it.
Your product personality depicts the profile of human personality characteristics that describe your product variant, distinguish it from others, and, most importantly, how customers feel when they use that product. It’s crucial to ensure that the personality you choose for each product matches your brand’s core values, target audience, and style guide.
3. Be Consistent
No matter how robust your product brand strategy is, it can only take your business far enough with consistency. To engage and connect with your audience, you must be consistent with design, images, quality, and messaging across all marketing channels (social media, email, etc.).
We recommend a style guide to help you stay consistent with your product branding efforts, especially regarding grammar, tone, logo usage, colors, visuals, word usage, abbreviations, acronyms, points of view, and more.
4. Involve People
Developing a successful branding strategy for your product doesn’t end with any of the abovementioned steps. You must integrate the human factor and see what the strategy feels like for real people.
You can start by asking for people’s honest opinions, especially your team’s. Their point of view can help you develop strategic approaches regarding your product identity.
Best Product Branding Examples
Companies like Apple, Coca-Cola, and Starbucks have set standards worth emulating with some of their product branding strategies. Let’s examine what they did to dominate their respective markets and how they did it.
Apple
Apple has grown in the last decade to the point that Forbes touted it as the most valuable brand in a 2020 ranking. But this success doesn’t end with Apple as a corporate brand; even the iPhone (an Apple product) was ranked the United States’ most popular smartphone brand in 2024 by Statista.
The reason for these successes is not far from the iPhone’s robust product branding strategy. From their high performance and quality visuals to their sleek packaging and emphasis on user experience, Apple’s products have managed to lead not only the United States’ digital technology market but the world at large.
Coca-Cola
Not many brands that have been in the picture for over a century and are still waxing strong in 2024. But Coca-Cola has managed to achieve this feat with products characterized by solid branding!
The question now is, what product branding strategies have helped the Coca-Cola company, which mainly produces soda drinks, remain relevant even in a world that demarkets soda due to several health concerns?
The answer is simple: Coca-Cola has remained relevant by focusing on consistent, nostalgic branding, innovative marketing campaigns, and diversifying its product range to include healthier options.
In 2015, Coca-Cola shifted its focus from brand personality to clear product differentiation in its marketing to help consumers make informed choices, especially highlighting the differences between Coke Zero and Diet Coke.
“We’ve failed to communicate clearly enough the product differentiation,” says Bobby Brittain, GB Marketing Director for Coca-Cola. “That’s a major wakeup call for us. We need to ensure that we are enabling consumers to make an informed choice,” he added.
Starbucks
Starbucks has built a brand that represents quality coffee. Each product, like the seasonal Pumpkin Spice Latte or the Frappuccino, has its own identity and following. The twin-tailed siren logo speaks to the mystique, obsession, and addiction surrounding the products. However, the main reason the brand has made a difference in an era where coffee shops are literally on every street corner is the recognizable logo, quality coffee, and a familiar ordering experience anywhere in the world.
Your location doesn’t matter with Starbucks because even the remotest neighborhood in each of the 83 countries that host Starbucks will serve you coffee that feels the same. What more should a successful product branding offer?
Launch Your Brand Today
Strong product branding is crucial for building emotional connections with customers and standing out from the crowded market. At Project Branding, we craft unique branding strategies that reflect your product’s individuality and drive sales. Ready to power up your brand? Book a free consultation with us today!
