Brand Management: Definition, Benefits and Examples

Updated September 24, 2023

Brand management is an important part of a company's marketing strategy that helps brands develop and maintain their identity, more clearly define the value of their products and services and form meaningful connections with their target audience. The techniques and methods involved in brand management vary, depending on a brand's industry and marketing objectives. Understanding the common elements of brand management strategies and how to effectively use them to promote your brand's image is a crucial part of successful marketing.

In this article, we define brand management, discuss its importance and benefits, provide examples of effective brand management within different industries and offer tips to successfully create and maintain a brand management strategy.

Key takeaways:

Effective brand management is an important facet of marketing that allows you to increase brand loyalty and perceived value.
A brand manager is a professional who designs and coordinates logos, packaging, awareness, lettering and color schemes.
Brand equity is what a company gains when it boosts it's name and brand recognition, and it's what encourages consumers to choose the brand's product over generic options.

What is brand management?

Brand management is a set of techniques and strategies used by marketers to increase the perceived value of a brand, product or service and awareness among a target audience. Those who focus on brand management may create advertisements, marketing campaigns, product development and packaging. These are some primary components of brand management:

Awareness: Brand awareness is a term that refers to how familiar the public is with your brand. This is important because awareness often relates to how likely a person is to make a purchase from the brand.
Equity: Equity refers to how much value your customers place on your brand. High brand equity allows you to support higher prices for your products.
Loyalty: This term refers to how frequently your followers engage with and make purchases from your brand.
Recognition: When a consumer easily identifies your brand, that means your brand recognition is high.
Reputation: Brand reputation is how your target audience and the public perceive your brand. This may include factors like status, character and quality.

How does brand management work?

Brand management is an important part of effective marketing for several reasons, including:

Creates brand awareness

For customers to recognize and remember a brand when making purchasing decisions, it helps to give them a clear image or logo to remember. Fostering an effective brand management strategy can help create and maintain brand awareness and increase the likelihood that customers consider your brand first when contemplating their buying options.

Fosters consistency

Developing a clear brand management strategy can help your company create and maintain consistency throughout its marketing, advertising and development efforts. Consistency allows your organization to make choices that align with your values, identity and mission. Brand management may also help prevent confusion within your customer base by allowing your organization to tailor its marketing efforts toward a certain set of brand-specific guidelines.

Builds an identity

In order to manage a brand, it's important to understand the identity and values of your organization. Creating a brand management strategy can help you prioritize the aspects of your brand you want to explore, nurture and promote. Fully understanding your brand's identity can help you make informed decisions about current and prospective products and the general direction of your organization's business plan.

Benefits of brand management

There are several benefits of investing time and resources into brand management, including:

Easy product introduction

With a consistent message and identity, it may be easier to introduce a new product or service to a large customer base. If you already have a consistent customer base, they may be more willing to purchase your new products or services and may even anticipate releases. Also, if your customers are familiar with your organization, they may be more likely to try a wider range of your products or services based on their positive association with your brand.

Credibility

Promoting a positive brand image can help your organization build credibility. Enhanced credibility among your customer base, industry and marketplace can help you build and maintain customer loyalty and recognition. Often, credibility may influence your customers' decisions to remain loyal to and invest in your brand.

Customer recognition

Often, customers are more likely to choose a brand they recognize over an unfamiliar brand. Effective brand management works by incorporating images and ideas that customers can easily associate with your organization into marketing, sales and distribution initiatives. A brand management strategy that effectively increases customer recognition may help improve a customer's purchasing process and increase the number of successful sales.

Examples of brand management

Below are some examples of effective brand management techniques within different industries:

Example 1

A car insurance company develops a brand management strategy to promote brand awareness and recognition and foster familiarity within its target audience. Throughout the course of their marketing and advertising campaigns, they decide to partner with an easily recognizable spokesperson for their television ads. This spokesperson is a well-known actor who currently appears in a popular television show, has a large fan base and possesses a reputation for trustworthiness and integrity.

By partnering with this actor to promote their brand, the car insurance company fosters an emotional connection and sense of familiarity with its target audience. They also promote brand recognition and awareness through associative thinking. Each time a customer sees this actor on their popular television show, they may associate him with the car insurance company and consider that company first when contemplating car insurance options.

Example 2

A toothbrush company works on a marketing campaign and brand management strategy to maintain consistency while introducing its new line of children's toothbrushes. When designing their packaging, they decide to sell their toothbrushes in boxes shaped like items such as a rocket ship, dinosaur, castle and unicorn using the same colors and logos as their line of adult toothbrushes. By associating this product line with other items children enjoy, the company increases brand recognition through associative thinking and familiarity but remains consistent by using the same colors and logos used in its adult line.

Example 3

An airline company works on a brand management strategy to promote safety and comfort while developing designs, logos and staff uniforms. They decide to incorporate the color blue into their designs because customers may associate shades of blue with feelings of peacefulness and comfort. They choose a shade of blue that closely matches the color of the sky to promote brand awareness through association. Because of the calmness associated with the color used in the designs, customers who feel anxious when flying may consider this airline first when contemplating their purchasing options.