Brand Management: A Short Strategic Guide

Brand, branding and positioning have changed fundamentally as a result of digitalization. Today, the most important points of contact are mostly digital — this increases the importance of digital brand management. Digital skills are also important for digital brand management.

What is a brand?

A brand can be understood as the target image that is to be created among the relevant target groups and that is to generate trust.

The brand identity is the internal view, while the external view of the target group perceives a brand image. The objective of brand management is to make the defined brand identity perceptible to the outside world in order to achieve positive differentiation from the competition through relevant benefit arguments for customers and to achieve preferences for one’s own offer.

What all belongs to a brand?

A brand is created by a name, terms, signs, logos, symbols or combinations of these for identification and orientation purposes when selecting products or services. A brand delivers a bundle of benefits with specific characteristics that ensure that the brand is sustainably differentiated from the perspective of relevant target groups.

What makes a good brand?

A brand or trademark is created when companies, products and services are anchored in people’s minds over the long term through positive experiences and associations. Successful strong brands are often characterized by the fact that they are unique, and stand out from other brands through positive distinguishing features. For the brand to succeed, the brand characteristics must be clearly and unmistakably profiled.

• For brand authority, the brand is charged with competence and performance.
• Brand integrity ensures a harmonized image of all forms of a brand’s appearance.
• The brand relevance includes problem-solving and benefit-oriented statements.
• With the help of brand continuity, the brand continues to develop harmoniously and logically in the future.

How does digital brand management succeed?

Digital brand management comprises the definition, creation, development and communication of a brand in the digital context with the goal to achieve the company’s marketing goals. Many design elements are based on classic brand management, but new mechanisms of action from the digital space are added, e.g. the independence of communication from space, time, device, communication channels etc.

Companies must learn to deal with the accelerated pace, to react much faster to changes than was the case in the past. Speed is virtually demanded by customers. This is why the challenge here is agile brand management, i.e. brand management that can react faster to these changes. At the same time, however, it is still necessary to ensure the strategic positioning of a brand in the long term in order not to jeopardize the credibility, trust and reliability of the brand.

In order to manage brands successfully in the digital environment, digital design fields must be used. Today, a digital brand can act much more quickly, innovatively and personally. It is important to take up suggestions, wishes and ideas from the personas in the online community and integrate them into corporate decision-making processes.

Digital brand management requires a convincing strategy and know-how as well as budget for implementation. It is important that digital brand management is not pursued in isolation. The goal is to achieve a comprehensive brand management that combines online- and offline-based measures into a consistent overall picture. Digital brand management mostly deals with the challenge of conveying the brand story to the target persons via the online touchpoints in a consistent form and providing exciting content on the customer journey. These measures will ensure a positive encounter with the brand.