Global Brands: Importance of Branding for Consumer Goods

That reach is king is well-known and affects technical and non-technical businesses alike, albeit in different but very crucial ways. For a purely technology business, being accessible and customer friendly may take precedence over perceived quality or benefits, i.e. a client is more likely to invest in systems and technologies that promise to be reliable and are easily maintainable, even if they are not as efficient as other "transient" alternatives. Efficiency and quality is good to have, but mean little in the absence of a strong support structure of distribution and maintenance. Brand management, then, becomes a function of this image: branding is both functional and perceived in almost equal measure.

For consumer goods, on the other hand, brand management is a different ball-game. Due to lack of concrete differentiating factors in general and lesser protection in terms of patents, perceived benefits may take precedence over functional ones. In fact, as the author asserts, food and drinks sector is the most "brand managed" and can have very tight margins. This is highly applicable to the Alcoholic Beverages industry as product life-cycles are larger and differentiating factors fewer. Players in this industry try to ensure survival by clubbing both Marketing knowledge and distribution networks. It is common to find consolidation and cooperation even with rival firms to build a economical and reliable distribution channel. This has been brought out very nicely in this book.