Issues to Consider When Developing a Brand:

Brand promotion is the commitment of the business when providing its products and services on the market. If the business does exactly as committed and brings satisfaction to customers when consuming, the brand will certainly receive good feelings from customers.

1.1.6: Issues to focus on when developing a brand:

A strong brand helps the company gain a foothold in the minds of customers, thereby increasing the company's profits and value. In the process of building a brand, the company must present outstanding differences in the company's products and services compared to competitors. Therefore, when developing a brand, we need to pay attention to the following issues:

- Pay attention to the needs and expectations of potential customers, this is the purpose of market research.

- Closely combine technical and technological advances to create service cost differences and business advantages

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- Ensure output and consistency of product or service quality

- Control the quantity and quality of products and services provided.

- Ensure delivery to intermediaries and distributors on the basis of strict compliance with delivery deadlines, conditions, and required designs.

- Create image, direction and promote the meaning of the brand to each target customer group to have budget plans for advertising.

1.1.7: Brand characteristics:

Brand identity represents the direction, purpose, and meaning of a brand. It is the “heart” and “soul” of a brand. Defining brand identity is central to brand strategy. Brand identity is a unique set of associated attributes that brand strategists seek to create and maintain. These associations will

reflects what the brand aims for and is the manufacturer's commitment to customers. It can be said that these are identifying features that help us distinguish different brands. Brand characteristics can play an important role in establishing a relationship between the brand and customers by the brand's commitment to bringing customers benefits that can be material benefits, spiritual benefits and tools for customers to express their self-worth.

Four aspects to create brand identity: Brand as a product;

Brand as an organization;

Brand as a person_brand personality; Brand as a symbol.

The relationship between brand identity and brand image: When we talk about brand image, we mean from the perspective of the message receiver, that is, the customer. Image is the result of a certain public group's imagination and visualization of a product, a brand, a company or a country... Brand image tells us how the public decodes brand signs through products, services and brands that communicate and advertise it. On the contrary, brand identity is considered from the perspective of the message sender, the company. The task of the message sender is to specify the meaning, direction and purpose of the brand and to make it possible for the reader to decode the message that the company wants to convey. Therefore, brand image is the result of decoding the received message. From the perspective of brand management, brand identity must be determined in advance and through communication, the brand image is created. Brand identity takes time to become meaningful and have a certain position in the customer's mind.

1.2: Steps to build a brand:

1.2.1: Concept of branding:

Branding has become one of the most important factors for business success today. Even though our business is a product

Whether we are producing goods or services; whether we are working for a large corporation or simply running a small company, the brand is always the first factor that determines the success or failure of the company. That is why success in branding is success in business. And the main goal of branding is to make a product or a company uniquely different from other products and competitors. Branding is the process of selecting and combining tangible and intangible attributes with the aim of differentiating a product, service or corporation in an interesting, meaningful and attractive way.

1.2.2: Steps to build a brand:

1.2.2.1: Determine the brand foundation structure:

This is the most important step because just like a house, if the foundation of the house is not built firmly, it can destroy the house that we have just built. Therefore, building a brand is like building a house because if the foundation is built wrongly, it will be difficult to adjust later and it can even destroy our brand. The basic elements to build a brand foundation include:

- Basic brand recognition (Brand Attributes): logo, color, identifying features that help the brand differentiate from other brands. For example, the logo of Tomato Bank Japan uses the shape of a round, sturdy tomato to show the authenticity and intimacy of this bank. Therefore, when designing elements for the brand, we need to pay attention to the following criteria:

Memorable Meaningful

Easy to convert Easy to adapt

Protection ability

- The brand name will create an image and feeling that attracts customers. Some names are highly descriptive of the product's features, but there are names that describe the benefits of that product. Therefore, the brand name is the center of the

gravity, around which other elements are centered. Over time, the brand name actually builds its own personality that drives the communication process with customers. However, we should not allow the brand to be generalized because this will weaken the assertion of the trademark owner when the brand name is used to refer to a specific object.

- Slogan : When designing a slogan, the company must make sure that it can reinforce the brand name; introduce the product; suggest and promote shopping motivation or reinforce the brand's position and positioning. The slogan should be designed and updated regularly to suit each period and advertising purpose.

- Brand Benefits : are the real benefits, emotional benefits and sentimental benefits that the brand brings to consumers.

- Brand Beliefs means creating consumer confidence in the product, to demonstrate that the brand will bring benefits to consumers.

- Brand personality (Brand Personlization) : At this point, we have personified the brand, turned the brand into a person with emotions and personality, and how do we want to create this person?

- Brand Essence summarizes the elements that create difference and character, it is often used as the brand's slogan.

1.2.2.2: Brand positioning:

Brand positioning is to engrave the brand image in the minds of customers and create a difference from competitors. Because today with the development of information technology, customers have to receive too much advertising information about products every day, so they cannot remember all of that information. That is why we have to position to attract the attention of customers. To position the brand image, businesses need to determine the brand vision and core values of the brand to adjust and orient the brand development work. There are many other ways to position the brand.

different to suit the specific characteristics of the product or service and the market characteristics as well as the choice of the business. Positioning by value is the most commonly applied positioning method in all businesses to create a difference between the product or service of the business and competitors, suitable for each market segment. You can choose the type of positioning as follows:

- High quality but also high price. With this type of positioning, it is necessary to create a clear appeal and outstanding quality to attract and serve high-income customers.

- Increasing quality but keeping the price the same is a form of positioning that is currently being applied by many businesses. This form of positioning often reduces the business's revenue, but in return it will attract more customers and in the future will compensate for the decline in sales and profits.

- The quality remains the same but the price is cheap. To position in this way requires businesses to reorganize the production and supply of goods and services in the most economical way to have the opportunity to reduce the selling price.

- The quality is reduced (the features of the goods are reduced) but the price is greatly reduced. This type of positioning is suitable for regular consumer products and services and for low-income customers. The quality is improved but the price is reduced. This is a type of positioning that is very difficult to implement for most businesses in Vietnam.

Positioning according to competitors. To position in this way, businesses need to thoroughly research their competitors, find out the weaknesses of their competitors and the market to position their products and services. Along with the strengths of their competitors, there are always weaknesses, and this is an opportunity for their products and services to be easily accepted.

Besides, businesses can also position their products and services in many different ways such as: positioning based on famous people, positioning based on geographical indications, positioning based on the uses and benefits of goods and services, positioning based on the attributes of goods.

1.2.2.3: Building a brand strategy:

This is the next step in the branding process; after the brand positioning step we must build a long-term brand strategy including:

- Brand goals for each year

- Brand promotion spending each year

- Plan to launch new products every year

- Market research plan

- ….

A company has four options in building a brand strategy:

Method 1: Product line extension : Product line extension occurs when companies introduce additional items into the same product category under the same brand name such as new flavors, new forms, new colors, etc. Method 2: Brand extension : A company may decide to use a

existing brand name to launch a product in a new category. This strategy will make a new product with a famous brand name easy to recognize and quickly recognized by consumers. At the same time, it also makes it easier for the company to participate in new products. Helps save advertising costs for new products. However, this strategy will also be disadvantageous for the brand if the new product disappoints consumers or the brand name is not suitable for the product. And if the brand is overextended, it will make the brand lose its special position in the minds of customers. Therefore, when using this strategy, companies need to be very careful.

Method 3: Multi-branding : When a company wants to establish different personalities or appeal to different buying motives. Or a company inherits different brands when it acquires competitors' companies and each brand has its own target audience.

Method 4: New brands : When a company launches new product lines, it may find that none of the existing brand names are suitable for the new product, so it creates a new brand name. Or

The company realized that the power of its existing brand name was waning and a new brand name was needed.

1.2.2.4: Building a communication campaign:

After agreeing on the brand strategy, the brand manager uses the first year's budget to plan the communications for the following years. The plan includes: how much money to spend each month?, what message to advertise? Through which channels?... Here are the steps to build a communications plan:

a. Access to marketing communication opportunities : This is the first but very important job. The company must research to find out the needs and desires of the company's target customers, find out what factors affect their purchasing decisions and the level of that influence.

b. Determine the information channel to use: When completing the research, the company will base on the results to choose the most suitable and effective information channel for the company's promotional communication campaign. There are many information channels that the company can use such as: Advertising, P&R... The company will base on the above investigations along with the goals and budget for the campaign to be able to choose the most suitable information channel.

c. Determine the goals to be achieved: The company must determine the goals that the company needs to aim for after each campaign. For example, how many % will the number of customers and revenue increase after each communication campaign?

d. Determine the complex communication strategy Promotion Mix: The basis and potential of the company in using the elements of the promotion mix are sales promotion, advertising, public relations and personal selling. The company bases on each customer, time and potential of the company to use an appropriate communication strategy from there to create awareness within consumers to have a successful communication campaign.

e. Message development : To have a successful communication campaign, the message we want to convey to customers is an important factor.

indispensable. Must research, select and deliver a truly attractive message that is appropriate to the culture and characteristics of the target customer market we are aiming for.

f. Budget development: This is an extremely important factor. We need to determine how much total budget we have for this campaign? How to allocate it? This work is very important because it will decide the campaign idea, the information channel we use, the scope of space and time of the communication campaign.

g. Estimating program effectiveness: All the above steps can be meaningless, our money can be lost if we cannot estimate the effectiveness of the program. Everything needs to be built on clear writing, not just empty words. We must measure the effectiveness of what we have spent so that we can manage and adjust accordingly.

1.2.2.5: Measuring and adjusting the communication plan:

After each communication stage, it is necessary to measure the effectiveness of the communication campaign to make timely adjustments.

The information we must collect includes:

- What elements of that brand do customers remember?

- How do customers relate/comment on that brand?

- What % of people try that brand?

- What % of people continue using it after the trial?

- What percentage of people recommend the brand to others?

From the information we collect, we will know the success or failure of our brand; adjustments for the future. From there, we will know in the future how we will develop our brand?

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