Why Branding is important when it comes to creating brand recall value
Imagine you’re hungry and are craving some yummy burgers, fast. What brand comes to your mind? McDonald’s? Wendy’s? Burger King? The very fact that you were able to connect burgers to all or even one of these companies shows the strength of their brand recall, which is all thanks to branding.
Branding is more than just designing a brand logo or choosing vibrant colours. It is a process by which a company attempts to make people loyal to its product by creating distinctive and long-lasting perceptions in their minds. It is a steady process of building a link, attachment, or trust between consumers and the company by using branding elements such as brand name, brand identity, brand positioning, brand experience, brand equity or value, brand awareness, brand strategy etc.
Simply put, the role of branding involves creating a name, design, symbol, image, or any artwork that helps customers easily identify and differentiate a company’s product from that of their competitor’s; creating an entire customer experience if you will.
The branding process starts with creating the brand.
What is a brand?
According to the American Marketing Association (AMA), a brand is “a name, term, sign, symbol or design, or a combination of them intended to identify the goods and services of one seller or group of sellers and to differentiate them from those of other sellers”.
Brand or, in broader terms, brand identity is one of the many branding elements. The others are brand image, brand positioning, brand personality, brand equity, brand experience etc.
Once the brand is ready and the branding and marketing strategies have been implemented, it is only a matter of time before the company is on its way to conquering the market through brand recall.
What is brand recall?
Brand recall, a part of brand awareness, is the likelihood of a customer instantly remembering the name of the brand when a product, service or any other form of brand association arises. In simple terms, brand recall refers to the customer’s ability to remember a certain brand name after being exposed to promotional content.
Now, there are two types of brand recall: Aided and Unaided.
Aided brand recall is when you need a prompt to remember the brand. For example, when you are asked to recall the name of the company by looking at its logo, which is an apple with a piece missing. From this logo, you know that the company is Apple Inc and their product range includes smartphones, laptops etc.
Unaided brand recall is when you can remember the brand without any prompts. For example, when you are asked to list the names of companies associated with the IT industry, you remember names like Google, Samsung, Apple, Microsoft, and Amazon Web Services.
Why is branding important for creating brand recall?
Without branding, there is no brand recall, period!
The entire process of branding is aimed at making way for the company and its products into a customer’s subconscious, leading to brand recall and finally to purchase.
In the example mentioned at the start of this piece, we mentioned how a mere craving for burgers can make you recall brands like McDonald’s, Wendy’s and Burger King.
However, when you think of these brands, it is not just the name you remember. You also remember the logo, colours, mascot, and even their jingle and tagline. For example, if you are thinking of McDonald’s you will remember the big yellow ‘M’, the clown with the big red afro and yellow jumpsuit and the jingle “I’m lovin’ it”.
All this is made possible through successful branding strategies that establish a company’s brand identity, brand awareness and sets it apart from the competition with the help of marketing and advertising.
While it may take years for some companies to achieve this level of brand recall, it is not completely out of reach for newer companies to achieve. All you need is a little time, patience, willingness to spend money and enlisting the services of a good branding agency.