26 May 10 What is Brand Association?

Anything that connects consumer to the brand is ‘Brand Association’. Such associations can be developed with elements like – imagery (attitudes, beliefs, and perception), product attributes, brand personality, symbols, color, use situations etc. Brand associations reinforce attributes of the brand in consumers’ mind, when the brand is talked about. It can be implicit or explicit. In a word, brand association unveils the ‘feeling’ or ‘perception’ people possess of the brand. That is the degree to which a particular brand is associated with the general product category in the mind of the consumer.

Brand associations are definitely not the reason to buy, but bare the differentiations that are unique and immune to replacement. Such perceived qualities of a brand actually develop brand’s entity, and over the time cultivates brand positioning. For example ‘Nike’ reminds of sports, ‘BMW’ talks of sophistication and superior engineering; ‘Tide’ is synonymous to whiteness. That’s the power of brand association.

Marketer should never underestimate the prowess of brand association. It goes much beyond of what it seems like. Marketer should associate his brand with a positive imagery. Brand association should be strong and explicit so that whenever people come across imagery associated with the brand, they immediately think of it and the brand remains on top of the mind. Association should never be negative and out of the marketer’s control. Marketer cannot always fully exercise his control on brand association, but can surely influence it. Marketer should always strive to make an association stronger, so that the brand receives share of voice in the market. Such positive situation helps brand incur a good positioning in the mind of the audience. So, while choosing the brand name marketer should carefully craft a name which reinforces an important attribute or benefit associated with brand.

A brand seated on a deep positive brand association enjoys the benefits of good image, trustworthiness, brand familiarity, brand acceptance and even brand loyalty. Thus strong brand equity is not a myth for such marketer. Such brands are huge threat for competitors and new entrants in the market. And which brand will not enjoy such benefits?

Brands associations are developed on the basis of elements like –

• Advertisements
• Word of mouth publicity
• Quality of the product
• Retail price
• Packaging
• Customer relations
• Employee relations
• Brand ambassador
• Schemes/offers
• Promotions

Now as you know what brand association is, are you going to use it to construct one for your product, or may be of your blog? It would be interesting to see how you use this concept for your blog.

Tags: Attitudes, Attribute, Audience, Bmw, Brand Name, Brand Personality, Brand Positioning, Consumers, Elements, Imagery, Marketer, Nike, Perception, Product Category, Prowess, Share Of Voice, Sophistication, Superior Engineering, Tide, Whiteness