What is Brand Identity? Definitions Business Dictionary: The visible elements of a brand (such as colors, design, logotype, name, symbol) that together identify and distinguish the brand in the consumers’ mind. Investopedia: How a business wants a brand’s name, communication style, logo and other visual elements to be perceived by consumers. Kapferer’s Brand Identity Prism Model: The brand identity prism by Kapferer describes the brand through six different facets. The identity of a brand describes what makes it stand out and special, as well as the attractiveness of the brand. By the brand’s physique the physical appearance is meant. This includes a prototype of the brand: the product that represents the brand’s qualities.The brand personality connects the brand with human characteristics to differentiate. It is the way a brand speaks to its customers.Every brand tries to build a relationship with its customers. This relationship is more obvious for service brands, but product brands like Porsche and Morgan build relationships with their clients The question here is what role does the brand occupy in the relationship. It could be being a friend or being dominant.The culture of the company is reflected by the values the brand is communicating. Values can be linked for example to the origin of the company and their heritage.The reflection of a brand can be seen as the typical user of the product it is the outward mirror of the brand. It therefore often gets confused with the target market.The self-image is the way customers see themselves when using the brand and how this makes them feel. (Kapferer, 2012) Pic Courtesy: Marketing91 What are the top 3 things that make customers loyal to a brand? Quality – Quality in business, engineering and manufacturing has a pragmatic interpretation as the non-inferiority or superiority of something; it is also defined as fitness for purpose.  Quality is a perceptual, conditional, and somewhat subjective attribute and may be understood differently by different people. Customer Service – The process of ensuring customer satisfaction with a product or service. Often, customer service takes place while performing a transaction for the customer, such as making a sale or returning an item. Customer service can take the form of an in-person interaction, a phone call, self-service systems, or by other means. Price – For many consumers, price is a very important attribute. The attribute price can indeed be more important on decision making than that of quality, brand name and others. We can conclude that consumer consideration to decide product brand is mainly based on price. The main question is how consumer brand decision is effected by price fluctuations. Does consumer move to another brand as price rises? Branding Gone Bad : Pizza Hut Tries to Lose the Pizza For some bizarre reason, Pizza Hut made an attempt to rebrand in 2009 by calling themselves “The Hut.” As a result, the fast food chain received a significant amount of ridicule from the public, and had to revert back to the original name. Although the company may deny rumors regarding the name change, photographic evidence of the redesigned logo are still circulating online. When British Airways Removed the Union Jack In 1997, British Airways executive Bob Ayling stated, “Perhaps we need to lose some of our old-fashioned Britishness and take on board some of the new British traits.” The company then embarked on a project that saw the Union Jack tail fin flag being replaced with other designs. After receiving numerous complaints from customers, this decision was reversed in 2001 when Ayling was replaced by Rod Eddington, and the Union Jack was once again painted on the fleet’s tail fins. Source: Six Examples of Branding Gone Wrong How Important is Brand...

The Idea behind Patent Protection In product markets, the problem of imitation poses a great problem for innovators who are deprived of enjoying economic profits fully. If imitators are able to move in rapidly and capture a substantial share of the market, the initial profits earned by innovators may not be sufficient to cover their costs and risks in the long run. However, a substantial delay between the time of innovation and successive entry by competitors may provide the pioneers with decent profits and make invention and innovation a more attractive activity. The patent system, by establishing a period of time during which the firm faces reduced competition, increases the expected return for innovative effort.     Product and Process Innovations: A nation by stimulating research and development can increase the prospects of product and process innovations. Governments can encourage such innovations by granting patents. Three criteria must be satisfied to obtain a patent: The invention must be new It must not have been known to the public before the inventor completed it for more than one year prior to a patent application It must be useful and must be non-obvious     Picture Courtesy: Basics What are Patents? Patents confer the exclusive right to the use of an idea for a long period (which varies between nations,say,in countries like India, it is seven to fourteen years, depending on the nature of the product) within which the innovator might be able to recover his initial investment. Another reason to grant patents is to provide for widespread disclosure of new ideas and techniques. The main objective of patent protection is to encourage research and development. Patents: Encourage research and invention Induce an inventor to disclose his discoveries instead of keeping them as a secret. Offer a reward for the expenses of developing inventions to the state at which they are commercially practicable; and Provide an inducement to invest capital in new lines of production Granting of Patents: The idea behind granting of patents thus is to benefit the society. Developing countries have to offer patent protection, the lack of which has made many foreign firms shy away from investing in core sectors like pharmaceuticals and biotechnology in these nations. As a result, people of these countries are forced to buy life saving drugs like those for cancer and have to pay ruinous prices. Once patent protection is available, there is a possibility for manufacturing most of the drugs that are being imported, eventually leading to a fall in the price levels.     One of the difficult aspects of patent law is the principle that, whether a patent is to be issued to the person who conceives the idea or who first files for a patent. Another international issue involving patents is that, countries allow firms to steal and copy protected ideas, due to lack of severe legal enforcements or lack of interest. Either way it proves detrimental to the interest of the patent holders and such violations have to be strictly prohibited. Note: THE PATENTS ACT, 1970: An Act to amend and consolidate the law relating to patents The Patent Amendment Act,2005 The Patent Rules,2003 and Amendment Rules,2006 are some of the laws that protect patents in...