Marketing Management

SUMMARY: A brand is a name, term, sign, symbol or design, or a combination of those elements used to identify a company's goods or services to consumers and to differentiate them from the products or services of the competitors. A brand is used by companies to gain maximum customer loyalty. A brand's distinctive capabilities are identified by consumers based on their perceptions that have themselves been created by the marketers over a period of time. A brand may possess about six levels of meaning: Attributes, Benefits, Values, Culture, Personality and User. The brand value is of immense importance for a firm. This is evident from the fact that most of the companies spend lot of time, money and energy in brand building. There are three major types of brands, manufacturer's brands, reseller's brands and generic brands. Traditionally, firms sold their goods and services without branding them, but as