Morton, established 1910. Crisco, established 1911. A brand name can have a significant strategic impact on long-term brand performance. It is a basic element of a firm's market offering that aids consumers' understanding of the offering's characteristics. It serves as an encoding and retrieval cue for brand-related information, signals the often intangible product properties that must otherwise be learned through experience or taken on faith, and serves as powerful cue for evaluation and choice decisions.
Brand names are expensive to create and sustain in terms of both money and manhours.
But I argue that even the above companies, with brand names that have existed for 100 years, have not made full use of this tremendous asset. Once a brand name is established, it becomes very resilient, and I am encouraging companies with strong brand names to be more bold in leveraging the exceedingly powerful asset they have. Indeed, relatively little attention has been paid to branding strategies that may afford cost efficiency and competitive advantage. As an example, let's say that Slim-fast wished to introduce a new cake mix. Slim-Fast, however, wants people to think that the product is not only low calorie but also good tasting.