A brand is a name, term, design, symbol or any other feature that distinguishes one seller's goods or service from those of other sellers.American Marketing Association Dictionary . Retrieved 2011-06-29. The Marketing Accountability Standards Board (MASB) endorses this definition as part of its ongoing Common Language in Marketing Project Brands are studied in business, marketing, and advertising and used for recognition and, importantly, to create and store value as brand equity for the object identified, to the benefit of the brand's customers, its owners and shareholders. Brand names are sometimes distinguished from generic or store brands.
The practice of branding—in the original literal sense of marking by burning—is thought to have begun with the ancient Egyptians, who are known to have engaged in livestock branding and branded slaves as early as 2,700 BCE. Branding was used to differentiate one person's cattle from another's by means of a distinctive symbol burned into the animal's skin with a hot branding iron. The etymology of the word “brand” originates from the Old Norse word "brandr" from the 10th Century, which means “to burn". The term "brand" has been extended to mean a strategic personality for a product or company, so that "brand" now suggests the values and promises that a consumer may perceive and buy into. Over time, the practice of branding objects extended to a broader range of packaging and goods offered for sale including oil, wine, cosmetics, and fish sauce and, in the 21st century, extends even further into services (such as legal, financial and medical), political parties and people's stage names. In recent years, branding has also emerged in the public sector, however, researchers in the field cautions against adopting a branding logic from the private sector. Instead, public organisations need to carefully adapt branding concepts and models to suit a public context. Not doing so risks undermining the brand.
In the modern era, the concept of branding has expanded to include deployment by a manager of the marketing and communication techniques and tools that help to distinguish a company or products from competitors, aiming to create a lasting impression in the minds of customers. The key components that form a brand's toolbox include a brand's identity, personality, product design, brand communication (such as by logos and trademarks), brand attachment, brand awareness, brand loyalty, and various branding (brand management) strategies. Many companies believe that there is often little to differentiate between several types of products in the 21st century, hence branding is among a few remaining forms of product differentiation.ranchhod, 2004
Brand equity is the measurable totality of a brand's worth and is validated by observing the effectiveness of these branding components. When a customer is familiar with a brand or favors it incomparably over its competitors, a corporation has reached a high level of brand equity. Brand owners manage their brands carefully to create shareholder value. Brand valuation is a management technique that ascribes a monetary value to a brand.
Etymology The word brand, originally meaning a burning piece of wood, comes from a Middle English brand, meaning "torch", from an Old English brand. It came to also mean the mark from burning with a branding iron.
History
Branding and labeling have an ancient history. Branding probably began with the practice of branding livestock to deter theft. Images of the branding of cattle occur in ancient Egyptian tombs dating to around 2,700 BCE. Over time, purchasers realized that the brand provided information about origin as well as about ownership, and could serve as a guide to quality. Branding was adapted by farmers, potters, and traders for use on other types of goods such as pottery and ceramics. Forms of branding or proto-branding emerged spontaneously and independently throughout Africa, Asia and Europe at different times, depending on local conditions. Seals, which acted as quasi-brands, have been found on early Chinese products of the Qin dynasty (221–206 BCE); large numbers of seals survive from the Harappan civilization of the Indus Valley (3,300–1,300 BCE) where the local community depended heavily on trade; cylinder seals came into use in Ur in Mesopotamia in around 3,000 BCE, and facilitated the labelling of goods and property; and the use of maker's marks on pottery was commonplace in both ancient Greece and Rome. Identity marks, such as stamps on ceramics, were also used in ancient Egypt.
Diana Twede has argued that the "consumer packaging functions of protection, utility and communication have been necessary whenever packages were the object of transactions". She has shown that amphorae used in Mediterranean trade between 1,500 and 500 BCE exhibited a wide variety of shapes and markings, which consumers used to glean information about the type of goods and the quality. The systematic use of stamped labels dates from around the fourth century BCE. In largely pre-literate society, the shape of the amphora and its pictorial markings conveyed information about the contents, region of origin and even the identity of the producer, which were understood to convey information about product quality. David Wengrow has argued that branding became necessary following the urban revolution in ancient Mesopotamia in the 4th century BCE, when large-scale economies started mass-producing commodities such as alcoholic drinks, cosmetics and textiles. These ancient societies imposed strict forms of quality-control over commodities, and also needed to convey value to the consumer through branding. Producers began by attaching simple stone seals to products which, over time, gave way to clay seals bearing impressed images, often associated with the producer's personal identity thus giving the product a personality. Not all historians agree that these markings are comparable with modern brands or labels, with some suggesting that the early pictorial brands or simple thumbprints used in pottery should be termed proto-brands while other historians argue that the presence of these simple markings does not imply that mature brand management practices operated.Petty, R. D., "A History of Brand Identity Protection and Brand Marketing", in The Routledge Companion to Marketing History, D. G. Brian Jones, Mark Tadajewski (eds), Oxon, Routledge, 2016, pp. 97–114.
Scholarly studies have found evidence of branding, packaging, and labeling in antiquity.Maran, J. and Stockhammer, P. W. (eds.). Materiality and Social Practice: Transformative Capacities of Intercultural Encounters, Oxford, UK, Oxbow, 2012Demirdjian, Z. S. (2005). "Rise and Fall of Marketing in Mesopotamia: A Conundrum in the Cradle of Civilization", in The Future of Marketing's Past: Proceedings of the 12th Annual Conference on Historical Analysis and Research in Marketing, Leighton Neilson (ed.), CA, Longman, Association for Analysis and Research in Marketing. Archaeological evidence of potters' stamps has been found across the breadth of the Roman Empire and in ancient Greece. Stamps were used on bricks, pottery, and storage containers as well as on fine ceramics.Peacock, D. C. S., Pottery in the Roman World: An Ethnoarchaeological Approach, Longman, 1982, pp. 121–25. Pottery marking had become commonplace in ancient Greece by the 6th century BCE. A vase manufactured around 490 BCE bears the inscription "Sophilos painted me", indicating that the object was both fabricated and painted by a single potter. Branding may have been necessary to support the extensive trade in such pots. For example, 3rd-century Gaulish pots bearing the names of well-known potters and the place of manufacture (such as Attianus of Lezoux, Tetturo of Lezoux and Cinnamus of Vichy) have been found as far away as Essex and Hadrian's Wall in England.Fox, A. Roman Exeter (Isca Dumnoniorum): Excavations in the War-damaged Areas, 1945–1947, Manchester University Press, 1952, p. 70.Wilmott, T., Hadrian's Wall: Archaeological research by English Heritage 1976-2000, English Heritage, 2013, p. 433.Fox, A., Roman Exeter (Isca Dumnoniorum): Excavations in the War-damaged Areas, 1945–1947, Manchester University Press, 1952, p. 70. English potters based at Colchester and Chichester used stamps on their ceramic wares by the 1st century CE.Dannell, G and Mees, A., "Getting Samian Ware to Britain", Journal of Roman Pottery Studies, vol. 16, 2016, pp. 77–92. The use of hallmarks, a type of brand, on precious metals dates to around the 4th century CE. A series of five marks occurs on Byzantine silver dating from this period.
Some of the earliest use of maker's marks, dating to about 1,300 BCE, have been found in India. The oldest generic brand in continuous use, known in India since the Vedic period ( to 500 BCE), is the herbal paste known as chyawanprash, consumed for its purported health benefits and attributed to a revered rishi (or seer) named Chyawan.Sanskrit Epic Mahabharat, Van Parva, p. 3000, Shalok 15–22 One well-documented early example of a highly developed brand is that of White Rabbit sewing needles, dating from China's Song dynasty (960 to 1127 CE). A copper printing plate used to print posters contained a message which roughly translates as: "Jinan Liu's Fine Needle Shop: We buy high-quality steel rods and make fine-quality needles, to be ready for use at home in no time."Zonggghuo lish bowu guan (ed.), Zonggghuo godai shi cako tulu: song yuan shi qi, Shanghai, Shanghai jiao yu chubashe, 1991, p. 109. The plate also includes a trademark in the form of a "White Rabbit", which signified good luck and was particularly relevant to women, who were the primary purchasers. Details in the image show a white rabbit crushing herbs, and text includes advice to shoppers to look for the stone white rabbit in front of the maker's shop.Petty, R. D., "A History of Brand Identity Protection and Brand Marketing", in The Routledge Companion to Marketing History, D. G. Brian Jones, Mark Tadajewski (eds), Oxon, Routledge, 2016, p. 99.
In ancient Rome, a commercial brand or inscription applied to objects offered for sale was known as a titulus pictus. The inscription typically specified information such as place of origin, destination, type of product and occasionally quality claims or the name of the manufacturer. Roman marks or inscriptions were applied to a very wide variety of goods, including, pots, ceramics, amphorae (storage/shipping containers) and on factory-produced oil-lamps. Carbonized loaves of bread, found at Herculaneum, indicate that some bakers stamped their bread with the producer's name.Beard, M., The Fires of Vesuvius: Pompeii Lost and Found, Harvard University Press, 2008; See Chapter 5, "Earning a Living: Baker, Banker and Garum Maker". Roman glassmakers branded their works, with the name of Ennion appearing most prominently.
One merchant that made good use of the titulus pictus was Umbricius Scaurus, a manufacturer of fish sauce (also known as garum) in Pompeii, . Mosaic patterns in the atrium of his house feature images of amphorae bearing his personal brand and quality claims. The mosaic depicts four different amphora, one at each corner of the atrium, and bearing labels as follows: 1. G(ari) F(los) SCO[m]/ SCAURI/ EX OFFI[ci]/NA SCAU/RI (translated as: "The flower of garum, made of the mackerel, a product of Scaurus, from the shop of Scaurus") 2. LIQU[minis]/ FLOS (translated as: "The flower of Liquamen") 3. G[ari] F[los] SCOM[bri]/ SCAURI (translated as: "The flower of garum, made of the mackerel, a product of Scaurus") 4. LIQUAMEN/ OPTIMUM/ EX OFFICI[n]/A SCAURI (translated as: "The best liquamen, from the shop of Scaurus")