Book Overview

According to the American Marketing Association, a brand is a name, term, sign, symbol, or design, or a combination of these, intended to identify the goods or services ofone seller or group of sellers and to differentiate them from competitors. A product becomes a brand when some dimensions are added to it to differentiate the product in some way from other similar products. The dimensions can be rational, functional, and or tangible or they can be emotional, symbolic, and/or intangible. In the former case, the dimensions can be related to the performance of the brand and in the latter case, related to what the brand represents. Thus a brand can also be defined as a product that provides functional benefits plus added values that some consumers value enough to buy. At the operational level the function of the brand is to convey the identity of the brand, that it embodies a specific set of unique features, benefits, and services to the consumers.