When a person thinks of a brand, they think of its branding. That branding could represent a logo or a symbol – something that differentiates it from its competitors in the market. But what about different levels of brands within an individual company? It’s something that Dr. C.W Park says forms the basis of his ground-breaking brand admiration concept.
The ex-director of the Global Branding Center at the University of Southern California, Dr. C.W Park, explains that within one company, there can be two, three, four, or more levels of secondary brands. For example, General Motors. Within General Motors, there’s what he calls the company-level brand – GM itself. Then, there’s Chevrolet – one of GM’s various business unit brands.
However, it’s possible to go much deeper still. According to Dr. Park, under the General Motors umbrella and within Chevrolet, you’ll also find many other so-called product brands forming the broader GM name.
One example is the Chevy Volt. And within the Chevy Volt product brand, product variants like the Chevy Volt Hybrid exist. The result is that when you think of a brand, you’re thinking about and envisioning a whole host of other entities, too.
Conceptualizing how businesses build brands
The realization that brands exist within brands at all levels has led C.W Park to discover an entirely new way of thinking. When it comes to branding, it’s a ground-breaking concept that he calls brand admiration.
Dr. Park has collaborated with various peers on his brand admiration concept. Together, they’ve spent considerable time conceptualizing how businesses can, do, and will build brands in the future. Using his brand admiration concept, the Global Branding Center at the University of Southern California ex-director says the process is much the same no matter where a brand sits in a company’s hierarchy.
The same is true of company-level brands, business unit brands, and product brands alike, according to the expert. Dr. Park says the brand admiration concept ultimately involves defining any company’s brand or brands on three key fronts: products, places, and people.
Products, places, and people
A successful brand and one that’s likely to draw brand admiration provides value across the board. C.W Park says that this value should serve not just to benefit the customer but also the business itself.
By studying Dr. Park’s brand admiration concept, it’s possible to quickly ascertain how a given brand provides value to the business or organization it represents. In essence, what the expert calls brand admiration adds intrinsic value to that business or organization as soon as it’s established through a focus on products, places, and people.
C.W Park believes that brand admiration is a psychological state, a state that reflects how a particular customer feels about an organization and its business. The outcome is that these individuals are conscious of a given brand and its products even when they’re not directly exposed to advertising.
With that, brand admiration generates a connection at every level. It’s on that basis that Dr. Park ranks his ground-breaking brand admiration concept among the most valuable approaches to traditional and more contemporary brand marketing.
Connect with Dr. C.W Park on LinkedIn for more information.
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