Branding And Brand Positioning For An Emerging Bubble-Milk Tea Shop On A University Campus

Brand Positioning and its Importance for Emerging Brands

The term ‘branding’ is not a new phenomenon. Since the ancient time people have been branding everything to distinguish it from other objects; be it a herd of sheep which were branded or marked to distinguish from other herds or a cup of tea in modern days to make it different and easily recognisable from other tea brands (Black & Veloutsou, 2017). A name becomes a brand when a company uses marketing strategies by targeting the demand of the product, the customer type, their requirement and preferences and many others. Brand positioning is a method by which a company finds out the consumers’ preferences and serves in the best possible manner to meet those requirements. They make a distinct place for themselves in the market with some unique techniques and services that no other company usually provides. According to Porter, one of the most significant challenges a company faces is to “achieve a competitive advantage through acts of innovation”. There are few core competencies in every company which have the strength to build a competitive advantage. Therefore, every company should focus on the core competencies, identify and use them correctly to increase the brand value in the contemporary market (Brem, Maier & Wimschneider, 2016).

The tradition of drinking tea as a beverage has been coming down through ages. It is true that the number of women preferring bubble milk tea is higher than the men. The proportion is about 60:40 (women: men). Many youngsters prefer to have coffee, wine or whiskey than tea. People over the age of 40 find satisfaction in having black tea (Coleman, de Chernatony & Christodoulides, 2015). The university students love refreshing flavoured teas, or fruit –teas including bubble tea. The brand strategy of an emerging bubble – milk tea shop outside the Griffith University is quite simple. Finding niche segments is of great importance. With a clear and straightforward niche segment, the brand strategy becomes sharper in focus. The students of the University campus need to be attracted towards the shop through various means. The quality of the tea, the pleasant ambience, the cost-friendly variety of beverages, fantastic staff service, attractive discounts and coupons are among the few minute strategies to spread the business and become a ‘branded’ tea shop easily recognisable in the competitive beverage market of Australia (Jewell & Saenger, 2014). The shop can stick printed papers of advertisement stating about their newly launched variety of teas, with its special discounts for students. Advertising via social media (Facebook, Instagram) is another process for gaining attention. An effective and unique strategy would be offering a little library time to the customers (mostly students) with an exclusive collection of books (Maarit Jalkala & Keränen, 2014). This would provide a sophisticated atmosphere to drag the customers again and again towards the shop. Quality is essential. The superiority of the product leaves a mark in the psychology of the customers so much that they cannot resist to come themselves and also recommend others to go too. Through such exclusive methods, the brand value of the shop can be increased to higher levels.

Identifying Niche Segments and Enhancing Quality to Create Brand Value Proposition for a Bubble-Milk Tea Shop

Brand attributes are also called the core values that represent the true essence of the particular brand. It is a set of characteristics or features that make it out of the ordinary. Apart from advertising the company should update itself by online interactions with the customers (Malik & Sudhakar, 2014). Feedbacks should regularly be taken from the customers for better progress. Mutual interaction would open ways of modification, for knowing customer affordability, and requirements, their choice and others. Exclusiveness can be brought by supporting NGOs and engaging in some social works. It is an excellent way for name recognition. The brand name can be spread throughout the country and abroad too. Since people have become more health conscious, the company can blend a variety of flavours to invent some new, authentic and healthy tea combination. It can be done according to the seasons (Ramaswamy & Ozcan, 2016). With the change of each season, seasonal herbs can be mixed with the tea to add a medicinal value to it. Tea is not a beverage only; it has the most anti-toxin agents which are beneficial for health. The variety and innovation are the foundations that form an authentic brand.

The market is mostly occupied by the marketing masters, the older brands who have established a stable position in the market and beating them seems next to impossible, but by adopting a systematic brand positioning strategy, an emerging brand can compete with them up to a great extent. With a perfect brand positioning strategy, a company can influence its target customers’ perception towards it. It will also help in strengthening the bonding with the customers. First of all, a company has to evaluate the current position of their brand in the market. Successful brands follow the four basic principles: Value proposition, core values, mission statement and brand persona. Once these essential pieces are well understood, the company can quickly build their brand positioning g strategy relevant to their target audiences ( Pollard et al., 2016).

The next step is identifying the top competitors. In this case of a bubble tea shop at Griffith University campus, there are three famous coffee shops running successfully through past years. Café Enternet, Café Rossa and The Pantry are the three main coffee shops near the Nathan campus. The students, the professors, prefer to have a break relaxing at these coffee shops enjoying their high quality variety of coffee and warm welcome (Wu, Chen & Dou, 2017). A visual tool called matrix is helpful in keeping an eye, compare and contrast the emerging brand with these existing successful brands. One need to analyse how the competitors are positioning themselves in the market and what better can be done to leave them behind (Resnick et al., 2016). Once the target customers are defined, the competitors are minutely analysed, the time to create the brand positioning statement comes immediately. It is different from a regular slogan or tagline, it defines the brand accurately, their commitment to quality and trust, the reasons for the customers to believe them. After finishing the brand positioning statement, the implementation of that statement is necessary. The customers should be given proper evidence of the superiority of the brand. They should be convinced by providing, reviews, testimonials, case studies, product demos to understand why they are better than their competitors (Malik & Sudhakar, 2014). The brand’s core strengths need to be highlighted to carve out an independent section of the market.

Engaging with Customers and Supporting NGOs for Better Customer Engagement

After having finished all the setups, the brand identity should be well established. Brand identity is that special sauce on the top which sets a particular brand apart from others. It gives proper shape to the company (Wu, Chen & Dou, 2017). It is a collection of elements created by a company to portray itself in a right way. Features included in the brand identity are the logo, the web design, the packaging, the serving style, the media graphics, templates, business cards and the uniforms of the employees. The logo and the brand graphics should be clean and appealing to view. A professional designer can be hired for the best outcomes. In a nutshell, brand identity and the identifiers are an essential part of the brand strategy because this is the way in which the company presents itself to the customers.

Therefore, in the above discussion, the concept of branding, the theories, brand value, brand positioning, brand attributes and identity have been well discussed. It gives a better insight into the selected methods which can be applied to make an emerging company grow fast and carve its own brand position in the competitive market. There are a number of hindrances a new-entrant might face. For the initial months, it might face difficulties, the employers might get demotivated due to low sales, but applying these strategies, the company can soar high towards success and leave a mark for others to follow.

References:

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Coleman, D. A., de Chernatony, L., & Christodoulides, G. (2015). B2B service brand identity and brand performance: an empirical investigation in the UK’s B2B IT services sector. European Journal of Marketing, 49(7/8), 1139-1162.

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Wu, J., Chen, J., & Dou, W. (2017). The Internet of Things and interaction style: the effect of smart interaction on brand attachment. Journal of Marketing Management, 33(1-2), 61-75.