Need an Assignment Helper in the UK? Native Assignment Help is here to support you every step of the way. Our skilled experts specialize in a wide range of subjects and are committed to delivering high-quality assignments that meet the highest academic standards.
This study aims to reveal a detailed analysis of the influence of branding in business. It provides a brief description of brands, branding, and brand promotion and presents their significance in business organizations. It also gives a well-descriptive presentation on the promotional mix incorporated in a business. The study also describes brand, branding, and brand promotion. It involves the comparison between two selected companies- Unilever and Burberry. It focuses on exploring the marketing mix of a chosen brand- Unilever. The study discusses largely the role of promotion for the products of home care products of Unilever, and the importance of branding for chosen products that is, home care products of Unilever.
Description of Brand and Branding
The brand is the perception of the product, individual, or company by the consumers. Besides the name or logo of a brand, a brand is a sense of recognition. Branding is used as an instrument to structure the shape of the brand. It refers to the process by which a business seeks the attention of the customers by different methods. It acts as a tool in gaining regular and loyal customers from the population. It is required for leveling up a business brand. To cultivate the name of the business, several elements are required. Branding should be incorporated with the mission, values, and goals of the business organization. Designing the brand's website and logo are basic parts of branding.
Description of Brand Promotion
Brand promotion is a procedure by which a business influences the consumers to decide to select the brand. It involves the creation of awareness among the population regarding the brand and its products. It boosts the sale of the products and makes room for regular customers. As an example, the promotion of the brand, Dove can be taken. For efficiently promoting it among the people, its special brand features and offers are publicized. The brands' credibility and good-quality services over the years can be used to attract people. The products of the brand like Dove shampoos and soaps are of good quality and are sold at reasonable prices (Murphy and Murphy, 2018). These features of the products are used for their promotion. The promotion of the products increases its demand among the consumers and therefore the sale increases. Thus, the growth of the business gets boosted and profitability increases. Different procedures like advertisement; sales promotion, personal selling, and public relations are used for the promotion of brands and their products. Other promotional activities like fairs, exhibitions, workshops, and surveys help in promoting the brand and its products. Advertisements through papers, magazines, posters, and social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and other websites can be used for promotion. These create awareness of the brand and its products among the people. As a result, more people are exposed to the brand and the sales increase.
Compare of two businesses
The two selected businesses are Unilever UK and Burberry. The following is a presentation of a comparison between these two businesses.
Unilever UK is a consumer goods producer. The company promotes the sustainable living of the customers. Unilever UK possesses a large variety of brands. Some of the brands possessed by the business for food and refreshment are Breyers, Knorr, Kissan, and many others. The brands for beauty and personal care like Sunsilk, Lux, Rexona, Lifeboy, and others are effective enough. The brands for home care like Comfort, Surf, Domestos, Sunlight, and others make the company famous (Arafah, 2017). The personal care brands like Dove, Axe, Lux, Rexona, Lifeboy, and several others have added great value to the business of Unilever. The personal care department along with the brands for foods, refreshments, and homecare has a great role in building up the revenue of Unilever. The largest-selling brands of Unilever are Axe, Ben & Jerry, Knorr, TRESemme, Vaseline, Lipton, and Magnum. The company is the biggest producer of ice cream. The ‘Dove Campaign for Real Beauty’ played a significant role in creating a diverse portrait of women all over the world eradicating all the stereotypes. This personality attracted a large number of women consumers. However, its progressive attitude towards its brands and products attracts numerous consumers. Unilever promotes itself for creating awareness of the products and brands among the customers. This would make more number of product purchasers and thus increase customer consumption. Promotion would increase the sales of the brand’s products and increase the profit of the company. Unilever promotes its products with the help of TV advertisements, discounts, special offers, bundle prices, and social media platforms. The company is noted to invest a fair amount in TV advertisements, Facebook, and Instagram.
Burberry is a multinational luxury brand. It is renowned for its progressive ideas and innovations. The company is famous for its exclusive trench coats made up of Gabardine (Khelladi and Castellano, 2019). Burberry has its sub-brands for its exclusive gabardine raincoats, clothing and accessories, eyewear, perfumes, childrenswear, home accessories, and many others. Prorsum is one of its brands built for menswear and womenswear, Burberry Brit lifestyle is a brand for weekend clothing, and Burberry London is for workwear clothing (Kim and Ma, 2019). These three brands will get submerged into one brand named Burberry label. Burberry Bespoke is a brand for designed raincoats. Other brands of Burberry are Burberry Beauty Box for beauty products, Burberry Sport, Burberry Icons, Burberry House, Burberry Childrenswear, and Burberry fragrances. The brand of Burberry for accessories was said to be the single greatest business of 2010 (Yoon and Kwak, 2020). Prorsum, for men's and women's clothing, was a big success for the company too. The profit of the company fell with the expenditure for restructuring and set-back of its personal care brands. Therefore, the men and women clothing brands and accessories brands have the highest value in the company’s revenue. The luxurious products of the brands with a tint of advancement are the personalities that attract a large number of customers to the company. Burberry promotes itself for increasing its market revenue. It makes people have knowledge about its products and thus increases its revenue. It has been recorded that Burberry spends a fair amount of its marketing budget on digital platforms like Facebook (Silvano, 2020). The brand promotes its products with the help of Facebook, YouTube, and television. It is offering home delivery of free samples of the products to the consumers in exchange for their application.
Marketing Mix and Role of Promotion
The marketing mix of Unilever is complex. With the help of a marketing mix, the strategies Unilever undertook to take the focused market can be revealed. Unilever has significant product and place elements. To obtain an advantageous position in the international market, Unilever should take care of its marketing mix. The marketing mix of Unilever has 4Ps.
Product mix of Unilever:
Unilever has a broad range of products which helped in its business expansion over the years. the company’s output can be recognized by its product mix. The business has approximately over 400 brands under its name (Resya, 2019). Unilever has products concerning food and beverages, personal care, and home care. The food and beverage products under Unilever are sandwich spreads, mayonnaise, sauces, Brook Bond teas, Kwality wall’s ice creams, Knorr foods, and many others (Gari, 2017). It sells personal care products like Vaseline lotions, Axe perfumes, Sunsilk shampoos, Dove shampoo and soap, and others. Home care products like Surf detergent, Jif cleaners, Sun dishwasher, and several more. This suggests that Unilever has a diverse product mix. The Best Foods was achieved by the company in 2000.
Place in the marketing mix of Unilever:
Unilever has expanded to a great extent in the business market for leading multinational operations. The places for distribution of the business which are selected by the company are discussed under this category. The venues used for distributing the products of Unilever are retailers, stores, and kiosks (Zuhdi, Rainanto and Apriyani, 2020). Retailers are the most vital point of distribution of the products. One of the largest distributions of consumer goods takes place in Walmart. Unilever makes its products reach the customers with the help of stores too. With the help of personal selling, Unilever delivers the products to the customers. Kiosks refer to the direct offering of the business products to the consumers.
Promotional mix of Unilever:
This section of the marketing mix focuses on revealing the strategies adapted by Unilever to promote its products in the market. Promotional tactics like advertising, direct marketing, public relations, sales promotion, and personal selling. Advertisements on social media, television, and newspapers are used by Unilever for promoting its products (Pawar and Charak, 2017). In very few cases, suitable products are directly promoted to the customers. For maintaining public relations, the reputation and image of the company are maintained. The company promotes the selling of its products by putting discounts or beneficial offers. This sales promotion is an instrumental way of elevating the reach of products among people. The company also binds with retailers with the interest of personal selling and conducting kiosks.
Pricing mix of Unilever:
In this category of the marketing mix, price strategies of the diverse products of Unilever are largely discussed. Pricing strategies such as Product Bundle Pricing Strategy, Market-Oriented Pricing Strategy, and Premium Pricing Strategy are used by Unilever. Product Bundle Pricing Strategy refers to the selling of a bunch of products to the consumers at lower prices. Market-Oriented Pricing Strategy is the pricing of the consumer products according to the market factors (Nacchia and Massaro, 2017). And Premium Pricing Strategy indicates the pricing of the products based on the premium standard of the brand.
Appropriate Promotional Mix for the selected product
Home care products of Unilever like antibacterial products of Surf and Domex; Surf laundry powder; liquid detergents of Comfort, Surf, and breeze; fabric conditioner of surf and comfort; and bathroom cleaners of Cif and Domex are promoted on a large scale. These are instrumental in elevating the growth of the business.
The promotional mix in Unilever is done by the following methods- advertising, sales promotion, public relations, and personal selling.
Advertising- Universal uses advertisement as its core method for promoting its business products (Tien, 2020). Products of home care like detergents and cleaners of Surf, Dormex, and other brands under the company are promoted with the help of advertisements. These products are promoted in the market by presenting the quality and reasonable price of the products in the market. They are advertised on different platforms like newspapers, television broadcasts, magazines, posters, radios, and social media platforms (Zhang and Fan, 2020). Creative advertisement attracts a new group of consumers to the products of the company. With the help of advertisements, detailed information regarding the products of Unilever can get revealed to the customers. The customer consumption of these products will increase as a result of which the profitability of Unilever will increase.
Sales promotion- Sales promotion refers to the short-term process for elevating the sales of the company's products to a great extent. Home care products of Unilever as detergents and cleaners are promoted by providing free samples of them to people. Hence, people become aware of the product and tend to use them thus increasing the sales in business. The products are sold in bonus offers, price-off offers, and discounts to make the products reach people (PRWMSC and Adikaram, 2021). Unilever also sells its health care products in fairs and exhibitions at a low price, for promoting their products.
Public relations- Information regarding the homecare products of Unilever like laundry powder, bathroom cleaners, fabric conditioners, and liquid detergents of Comfort, Surf, Domex, and others are published in public reports. Information about the products and their sales are publicized for making their way through the eyes of the people. These products are promoted in public with the help of magazines and the annual report of the company.
Personal selling- In very few cases, the salesperson of Unilever sells the home care products like liquid detergents and bathroom cleaners of Surf, directly to the consumers (Lakada, Lapian and Tumiwa, 2017). The salespersons have proper knowledge of the need of the consumers; hence they efficiently sell the products benefiting their needs.
Importance of branding (promotional branding) for the selected product
Branding plays an important role in the home care products of Unilever. The importance of branding home care products of Unilever like liquid detergent, fabric conditioners, bathroom cleaners of the brands- Surf, Dormex, Comfort, and several others are discussed below.
Branding plays a significant role in making a brand gain a competitive advantage in the business market (Reza, 2020). By, branding the home care products of Unilever, the company stands out from its competition. With the help of branding, Unilever lets people identify the features by which their products are different from others. Unlike the products of other brands, the home care products of the brands of Unilever are of good quality, high reliability, and reasonable pricing. Hence, by branding, Unilever influences the consumers to select its brands and products other than the others.
Branding helps in the creation of recognition of the brand. Unilever uses branding for creating a platform for itself in the business market (Sharma and Kataria, 2020). It promotes the recognition of the brand's products with the help of branding. And due to this recognition, it attains success.
With the help of branding, Unilever develops a brand products' experience among the consumers continually. This helps in the success of the brands of Unilever.
Branding of the home care products helps Unilever to create a bond with the people. Later on, they turn into purchasers for the emotional connection. The customers of Unilever are retained with the help of branding.
Therefore, it can be said that the branding of these products of Unilever will increase the market share and help in the long-term establishment of the brand. Branding is significant for Unilever as with the help of it, the company makes the consumers aware of the quality, quantity, price of its home care products (Doyle, Farrell and Goodman, 2019). Hence, the customers can make fair decisions regarding the products of Unilever. It benefits society by increasing the production of the products and decreasing the costs.
Conclusion
Thus, it can be concluded by saying that branding is a fundamental element in shaping up a brand. Comparison between the two brands- Unilever and Burberry is done from which the different aspects of their branding procedures are revealed. The promotion of Unilever's products like liquid detergents, bathroom cleaners, and fabric conditioners of Comfort, Surf, Dormex, and other brands under the company is promoted by various means. Promotional methods like personal selling, sales promotion, public relations, and advertisement are used by Unilever to promote their home care products. It has been revealed that Unilever possesses diversification in terms of its marketing mix as it involves varied markets and products. The varied products and markets influence the pricing. The importance of branding of the home care products of Unilever is explored from the study.
References
Khelladi, I. and Castellano, S., 2019. Play it like Burberry!: The effect of reputation, brand image, and social media on e-reputation–luxury brands and their digital natives fans. In Handbook of Research on the Evolution of IT and the Rise of E-Society (pp. 281-300).IGI Global.https://www.igi-global.com/chapter/play-it-like-burberry/211620
Kim, S. and Ma, J.J., 2019.A study on the digital transformation strategy of a fashion brand-Focused on the Burberry case.The Research Journal of the Costume Culture, 27(5), pp.449-460.https://www.koreascience.or.kr/article/JAKO201932569394425.page
Murphy, P.E. and Murphy, C.E., 2018. Sustainable living: Unilever. In Progressive Business Models (pp. 263-286). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-58804-9_12
Pawar, A. and Charak, K., 2017. Study on Evolving Extents of Employer Branding Using Employment Value Proposition in India. International Journal of Research in Business Studies and Management, 4(12), pp.1-8.http://ijrbsm.org/papers/v4-i12/1.pdf
Resya, P.I., 2019. ANALISIS KESELARASAN VISION-CULTURE-IMAGE DENGAN CORPORATE BRANDING STRATEGY DALAM EVENT EMPLOYER BRANDING UNILEVER FUTURE LEADERS’LEAGUE (Doctoral dissertation, UNIVERSITAS BAKRIE). http://repository.bakrie.ac.id/2415/
Sharma, M.N. and Kataria, M.R., 2020. Employer Branding: A Descriptive Study. http://ijrretas.com/PublishedPaper/4Vol/Issue6/2018IJRRETAS6201837650-8516428a-ebd9-401c-8353-9a3b9a0c59a85460.pdf
Silvano, M.D.C.L.F., 2020. Playing against the rules: how a digital strategy can enhance a luxury business: the case of Burberry (Doctoral dissertation). https://repositorio.ucp.pt/handle/10400.14/29675
Tien, N.H., 2020. Comparative analysis of multi-domestic strategy of P&G and Unilever Corporation.https://www.academia.edu/download/63457092/1-2-2-49920200528-90060-1r51f7w.pdf
Yoon, S.N. and Kwak, T.G., 2020. A study on'See now, Buy now', the latest trend of the new supply chain management of a luxury fashion brand, Burberry in the digital era. Journal of the Korea Fashion and Costume Design Association, 22(2), pp.29-43.https://www.koreascience.or.kr/article/JAKO202020550932634.page
Zhang, L. and Fan, Z., 2020, November.Analysis of Unilever’s Branding and Marketing Strategy in China. In 2020 International Conference on Management, Economy and Law (ICMEL 2020) (pp. 288-291). Atlantis Press.https://www.atlantis-press.com/proceedings/icmel-20/125946177
Zuhdi, S., Rainanto, B.H. and Apriyani, D., 2020, May. Analysis of Co-Branding Strategy to Improve Company’s Competitive Power (Case Study on Walls Selection Oreo).In 2nd International Seminar on Business, Economics, Social Science and Technology (ISBEST 2019) (pp. 146-149).Atlantis Press.https://www.atlantis-press.com/proceedings/isbest-19/125940930
