Author Stephen King argues in this article that it is time to consider how to apply marketing principles and practice in an increasingly competitive and rapidly changing environment. His thesis is that as it becomes more difficult to sustain an objective advantage over competitors, it will also become more important to position organizations as "brands" in the minds of actual and potential customers.
King sees new pressures all around us, but he also seeds retailers learning to get better at using the power of the data they gather on turnover, stocks, and profits. More innovative retailers are using this information to develop more tailor-made services for customers. Corporations are also in a bout of restructuring, with many companies being taken over and others trying to decide what their corporate culture may be. In times like these, companies should work at brand-building, or using all the assets of the company to create unique entities that certain consumers really want, entities with a lasting personality based on a combination of physical, functional, and psychological values. Brand-building is considered the only way to accomplish a number of things, such as building a stable and long-term demand, adding values that entice customers and consumers, and protecting the company against the growing power of intermediaries.
King sees the need to escape from old habits about brands and brand-building in favor of making the company itself a brand by designing and controlling all aspects of the company. The idea of branding in services is relatively new. A company brand is different for several reasons: its customers are different, most service-based products can be readily copied, the points of contact for a company brand are more diverse, and discriminators are based on people and not things.
Building the company brand begins with the use of the staff as brand-builders, and King discusses specifically the role of the p...