Brand vs Product Marketing in 2024: What to Expect

What is Brand Marketing?

Do you recall when Coca-Cola launched their Share a Coke campaign, which involved replacing their characteristic cursive branding with the names of its customers?

After seeing them, many of my pals began seeking coke at practically every outlet, only to find the tin can with their name. Additionally, Coca-overall Cola's revenues climbed by 3%. Well, this is what Brand Marketing is all about.

In some ways, brand marketing is about emphasizing your brand while advertising your product or service. Its fundamental goal is to connect the brand's identity value and personality with the audience. 

Your organization can develop brands that go beyond exhibiting product characteristics and display brand values or intangibles by using an effective brand marketing plan.

If done correctly, these campaigns will provoke an emotional response from your clients, resulting in increased loyalty and repeat business. 

Compared to product marketing, Brand Marketing is more practical because it aids in developing an emotional bond between the brand and the product.

What is product marketing?

Product marketing entails determining product positioning and messaging, introducing the product, and ensuring that the salesperson/customer is aware of the product's benefits. 

Furthermore, it involves a deeper understanding of the product's target demographic and, as a result, generating a message that appeals to that population. 

Product marketing is concerned with all the steps customers take before deciding whether to buy a product. Your product will not reach its full potential with your target audience without it.

When it comes to the best product marketing approach, the VW Bus from Volkswagen, which is known for its hippy attitude and the Sound of Silence playing in the background, has gotten a lot of attention (conveying that the electric cars are silent).

Some of the benefits of developing a good product marketing plan are listed below:

• Highlights the product/advantages:

As previously stated, product marketing will focus on the development, its characteristics, how they might affect the customer's life, and how they differ from their competitors.

• It can help you better understand your customers and competitors:

Because the advertisement is product-specific, you will learn whether the target audience likes the product over time. It also draws in new customers, mainly when a company introduces new products with new features. Finally, it aids in the development of a practical buyer persona targeting approach.

Brand vs product marketing: Friends or foes?

Here are some of the advantages of brand marketing that distinguish it from product marketing.

1. Customer Recognition:

Never underestimate the power of repetition. 

If buyers recognize your brand by its packaging/colors/images of a brand they remember, they are more likely to pick up that product over the sea of others surrounding it while shopping. 

Why? Because it's appealing and well-known. Brand marketing is perfect for establishing a distinct position in a crowded market, especially with numerous competitors.

Numbers do not lie, let’s take a look at how many of consumers value authenticity:

2. Helps in the effective growth of revenue and client loyalty over time:

When a customer receives excellent service after purchasing a product/service, they may become brand loyalists and choose your product/service again and over again. 

After watching your promotional campaign on media or digital channels, they will restructure their association with the brand, and they will feel delighted and sure about their purchasing decision.

3. A Competitive Advantage:

The firm frequently faces stiff competition from current companies and new start-ups who offer a similar product/service and a similar target audience/market. 

You can, however, develop a distinct identity in the market with the help of brand marketing, which underlines the unique selling propositions and product differentiating aspects.

Brand vs Marketing Strategy

What are the biggest goals of B2B Marketers? Here’s what 89% of them say:

Brand marketing strategies are what you need. Product marketing strategies are what you want.

I believe you require both. Each has some advantages, and depending on your level of experience, you may prefer to prioritize one over the other. If you have a unique product, product marketing is unquestionably more effective. 

Promote yourself if you can solve a problem that no one else can!

However, if you sell a comparable or same product, differentiating yourself through brand marketing may be the best option. Brand marketing is typically more important than product marketing for established companies with a well-known product.

A critical benefit of brand marketing is that you may keep your brand even if a product goes out of style. Products may become obsolete, but a brand can last a lifetime, allowing you to diversify effortlessly.

For the untrained eye, these two can be confusing or indifferentiable from each other. Let’s try to review how they are actually different.

An organization's brand is a long-term commitment to its audience, and it should be consistent across all mediums and activities. 

Meanwhile, marketing strategy is more pliable and can be changed by the time of year, major news stories, or societal movements.

Product Management vs Brand Management

Brand management entails establishing a space for the brand, ensuring brand memory, and ensuring that the brand is relevant to the target audience. 

A brand manager's primary role is to manage the brand's image or perception and how it is presented to the public. They must ensure that the brand's perceived value is communicated to the appropriate audience, which will aid in the sale of the goods.

As a result, consumer products sectors are more interested in brand management.

For example, suppose a fruit drink is designed to appeal to young adults. In that case, the logo, tagline, visuals such as advertisements, and everything images associated with the fruit drink must all be tailored to that demographic.

Product management is done in software firms. The product manager handles the entire product life cycle, ensuring that the product works smoothly—execution, rollout, and customer satisfaction. 

A product manager usually takes one effect, but a brand manager is in order of the entire brand. Dove's brand manager, for example, will be in charge of the whole product line, including soap, deodorant, cream, face wash, shampoo, conditioner, and hand wash.

Product Marketers vs Brand Marketers

The Product Marketers: These individuals work on the premise that the best product will always win. That's not to imply you shouldn't work hard to promote your goods (that would put them out of business). However, in many media efforts that emphasize superiority, it does mean stressing the product's inherent excellence.

A soft drink with more fantastic fizz, a shoe brand with famous customer service, or a smartphone with waterproof capabilities could all be reasons for superiority. A product marketing effort, in any case, would stress features and benefits.

The Brand Marketers: The focus of this camp is on narrative. They might design an entire marketing campaign that has nothing to do with the goods they're selling. Kate Spade New York is an excellent example of this. The company's #missadventure YouTube campaign follows a fake persona played by Hollywood star Anna Kendrick through "the glamorous life'' of a fictional figure.

Even though the company's handbags are shown throughout the series – product marketing – they aren't the main focus. Instead, the marketing effort piques clients' interest by urging them to participate in a sensory experience.

When to use brand vs. product marketing?

Knowing the right way to put together a marketing plan can help in the decision making process. We'll examine the advantages of each type and explore ways to use it.

Brand Marketing: The Power of Storytelling

People remember tales 22x more than facts and data alone, and as a result, storytelling can increase conversion rates by 30%. According to Neil Patel, “62 percent of B2B marketers regarded narrative as an effective content marketing tactic"

Storytelling has become a common practice among brand marketers to attract and engage audiences. It gives us a direct connection between brain areas affecting experiences and feelings — the emotion.

Product Marketing: Better Metrics Tracking

When you sell tangible assets, you are sometimes unable to see their effects. 

Is it worth measuring whether customers have similar views on your product? Product marketing helps you reduce your efforts and reduce costs over a longer period of time. 

This adds to product advertising dynamism by ensuring the product is sold at an increased price. The more rapidly a business moves forward the better it becomes.

Product Marketing: Drive Brand Alignment

When it comes to discussing your brand and service offerings, are your employees on the same page? 

Once you seal the deal, do they follow through on their promises? 

Brand alignment allows you to answer "yes" on both of these questions.

The brand alignment of your company is determined by how well it delivers on its brand promises. The strength of your firm's brand alignment is determined by how well your employees comprehend, convey, and deliver on your brand's major ideas.

Defining Your Brand's Building Blocks with Product Marketing

Product marketing aims to establish and improve company positioning, messages, as well as value propositions. 

Once identified, this function will be integrated within all the activities of your company. Market positioning indicates your products or services ability to affect buyers perceptions relative to their competition. 

Use Product Marketing to Boost Reach and Sales

Although some organizations don't understand Product Marketing position for their company, their Product Marketing's efforts are consistent with their strategy. 

Product marketing teams across a company strive for continuous improvement in the best products to provide the best customer experience. Your product's marketing strategy varies based on the business goals for the moment.

During an expanding company's business phase, you tend to focus on the promotion and marketing.

Brand Marketing: Create A Community of Raving Fans

A group of devoted followers is an almost priceless asset for one simple reason: when you develop a community around your brand, it becomes one of the world's top marketing engines.

Use Brand Marketing Strategies to Build Brand Equity

What does Brand equity mean?

It's an intangible value the consumer places on a familiar item, which is why it is a better choice for consumers. 

Branding tries to enhance brand reputation and influence the perception of the brand. Having enough information to keep a consumer engaged can help you build the best shortcuts to your business. 

Research indicates people purchase from the same brand as their personal brand. They create brand associations and pick a brand based on their image.

How can marketers measure the impact of brand over product initiatives?

In order to measure influence, it is crucial to understand how well something is performing. 

Ideally, it requires combining continuous brand value measurement with brand marketing management. Marketing is focusing more on the measurement of brand impacts. 

Luckily for you, we have the information and have made it readily accessible. 

How do you measure the effectiveness of the product tracking process? Here are the answers:

Identify The Brand Metrics Needed for Impact Measurement

When looking at measurable brand marketing campaigns, marketers should understand the impact the advertisement is making on businesses and consumers. 

Most marketing teams have developed an integrated toolbox of metrics for measuring product success in marketing campaigns. Brands that focus more on converting consumers towards a shorter cycle can for instance use business-centric metrics like purchase intent, referral traffic and social metrics, along with traditional metrics such as online and offline revenue.

Formulate Appropriate Measurement Models

Branding is difficult. Since the benefits of a brand can be a little less obvious, it is important that marketers use a dedicated marketing measurement tool that collects, analyzes and distills aggregate data based on the data analyzed. 

Common pitfalls preventing marketers from understanding brand impact can result in short-term measures being prioritized over lengthy-term measures if not analyzed properly.

Identify Your Goals

By definition, brand measurement is long-term — over several months a year a cumulative measurement can last. To fully understand brand influence marketing strategy marketers need to identify first a specific goal.

FAQs on Brand Marketing

Why are brand initiatives so popular today?

Expectations of consumers and their value for products and brands are no longer straightforward. 

Consumers want more than just good items at a reasonable price; they want a link between their individual needs, hobbies, style, and brand. Consumer attention must be captured, and winners are distinguished by their ability to cut through the clutter through advertising that resonates with their clients.

As defined in marketing and advertising, establishing brand identity ties emotions into the purchasing cycle. 

Will Brand initiatives continue to be successful in the future?

Loyalty and engagement rise when customers identify a brand with good emotion.

Research suggests that customers place a greater emphasis on emotions than on goods and price when deciding between companies. Given the complexities of today's omnichannel customer journey, emotional brand association, and the benefits it brings. 

It can make a difference in keeping unresponsive leads engaged.

What does effective brand messaging look like over products?

Publicly accessible resources are part of a brand messaging campaign.

Its objective is to convey to the public an immediate impression of what the brand can offer. A great example would be a Slogan or a tagline that is shaped by the following:

• brand's personality
• target market
• marketing strategy.

The power of a well-known and emotionally connected brand is undeniable. Here are a few instances of successful brand marketing:

The Volkswagen ad "The Force."

An iconic Super Bowl commercial from the last decade is a great example of advertising that focuses on the emotional relationship between a brand and its customers. The 30-second commercial, which cost $3 million, promoted awareness ahead of the 2012 debut of the VW Passat in the United States. 

The lack of discussion of price, features, or capabilities makes this commercial so intriguing.

Instead, a small youngster dressed as Darth Vader used "the force" to start the car in the commercial. What is the campaign's goal? To elicit an emotion among customers that they could recall once the car hit the market. The outcomes speak for themselves. "The Force" had 2 million views the day after the Super Bowl and became the most shared ad of all time.

"Just Do It" Nike campaign.

The best brands are instantly identifiable, one of the best in Nike's notorious "Just Do It" ad. These three simple words have driven Nike products and inspired a population far beyond the target demographic. "Just Do It" encapsulates both the athletic nature of Nike items and how individuals feel when they exercise.

The campaign makes no mention of Nike's product quality, cost, or athlete benefits. It does, however, appeal to the emotions of Nike's target market, linking the brand with the most potential purchasers. Nike made $800 million in sales at the start of the campaign in 1988. Sales had surpassed $9.8 billion a decade later.

What are some considerations for putting brand-oriented initiatives in place?

Marketing professionals are always looking to make the most of their brand initiatives by using effective measuring strategies. Consider these tips:

Consider the following factors when launching a brand initiative:

1. What is the brand's current perception?
2. What impact will brand-focused campaign initiatives and advertisements have on the brand's strength?
3. What kind of messaging, emotions, and interests are most likely to appeal to the target market?
4. What channels and touchpoints will result in the highest levels of engagement?
5. Have you determined the objectives of your brand initiative?

Considerations for Measuring Brand Impact:

How Important is measuring your brand impact? More importantly, how many marketers actually measure it? The stats below will surprise you.

Here’s what you should consider when measuring your brand’s impact:

1. Is brand influence being assessed as a whole or relating to a single campaign?
2. What is the timeframe for determining the brand's impact?
3. Are the metrics being tracked in line with the brand's objectives?
4. Can you combine offline and online measurements for reliable omnichannel measurement?

Final Note

As customers hold businesses to a higher standard, capturing and sustaining consumer attention throughout the buyer journey is getting more challenging. 

In response, marketers are now focusing on brand initiatives rather than product objectives. In fact, by 2025, employing people-based marketing to develop more personal, emotional ties with customers will be more effective. 

While measuring the performance of brand-oriented efforts and their influence on ROI is no easy feat, it can significantly impact if done well. The foundation will be clear goals, precise data, robust marketing analytics skills, and unified marketing measurement.

All these are made easy for you through our Guidebook on How To Measure Brand Metrics and KPIs and even easier through the help of our experts from AI bees. Capturing and sustaining your consumers’ attention throughout the buyer journey can go smoother through Performance-Based Marketing.

Let’s talk about it! Book with us and let’s make loss impossible.

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