How brand visibility increases brand equity?

What is the secret of a brand entering your subconscious mind? How do you take a decision of purchasing a brand? Or more precisely, when does a product become a brand? These are some of the questions which a newbie marketer might ask an expert brand manager. How to do branding is known by many people, but the implementation of the same is very difficult. There is one simple way to make a brand enter our subconscious mind – Brand Visibility.

Brand visibility is the single, most powerful message that a consumer can receive. And the message says that, this product is good and you can trust this product. This brand visibility, encourages and motivates the customer to look at the product along with the brand attributes. Brand managers hire different media agencies with focus on out of home media, television and broadcast, online marketing and others to increase the visibility of the brand. Here are some of the ways that brand visibility can be increased and brands can be made to enter our subconscious mind.

Through repeated advertising – One of the sure shot ways to increase brand visibility, is to advertise. Advertisements can be in the form of TVC’s or in the form of radio ads. They can be in print, in magazines, online or anywhere where the target audience can be found. Through repeated advertising, a customer becomes familiar with the message of the brand and gets a personal feel of the brand. With such an increased visibility, and with repeated bombarding of the brand name, the customer is sure to prefer the brand which is being advertised over other brands which are not using advertising.

Example – Insurance companies are the best example of repeated advertising. Insurance was previously used for insurance purposes only but now it is also used for investments. The change in concept was tough to implement because of the lack of trust in insurance companies. However, due to voracious advertising by all insurance companies, the trust gradually rose and now you can find many insurance companies doing very well in the Indian environment.

By actually seeing the brands being used in the market – The maximum boost to a brand value is received when the product is actually seen in action by the customer. For example, GM cars were used in the movie “Transformers” so that the future buyers could see the GM cars in action and a desire for the cars is created. Similarly, cars like BMW increase their want factor every time they are seen on a highway in full speed by an auto enthusiast. Thus, the more product visibility in the market, the more will be the hike in brand equity and increase in desirability for the brand.

With a proper marketing mix – We mentioned advertising but at the same time, the marketing mix is important as well. The places where you sell your products, the price, and the promotion, all contribute to making a product which is a delight to be obtained, and which in turn contributes to the brand equity of the company. Thus, the better the marketing mix, the more is the increase in purchase and visibility, and the more is the increase in brand equity.

Through word of mouth – Dove has recently started testimonial advertising in the last couple of years. The reason – Word of mouth is probably the most strongest form of marketing ever. Nothing will cinch the deal, like your best friend saying that he enjoyed using the product, or that, there have been positive changes since he started using the product. When your brand visibility increases, word of mouth increases. People talk about you. The lesson here is that if you give a positive experience to your customers, they will definitely talk positive about you. Which will create more word of mouth sales, thereby increasing the brand equity for your company.

Through an inner promise that this is the right choice – With all the above factors in place (which are in place for many top brands), the brands enter our subconscious mind and place themselves firmly there. It appears that the brand has made a promise to perform optimally when needed for the customer. Thus in the end, subconsciously, the customer knows he will buy that brand. All this, in the long term, because of brand visibility.

There are two ways to sell a product – Push and Pull. With good brand visibility, a pull is created for your products in the market. More and more customers want your product because they hear your product name everyday, they know your brand colors and logo, they trust your product to perform, and ultimately, they feel comfortable with you and your brand. The importance of increasing brand equity, is in the feeling of comfort which your customer get when buying your brand.