The Essence of Brand: Brand Culture

Brand culture means that by endowing the brand with profound and rich cultural connotations, establishing a distinct brand positioning and making full use of various effective internal and external communication channels, consumers can form a high degree of spiritual identity with the brand, create brand belief and finally form a strong brand loyalty. Having brand loyalty can win customer loyalty, win a stable market, greatly enhance the competitiveness of enterprises, and provide a strong guarantee for the successful implementation of brand strategy. It is the cultural accumulation gradually formed by the brand in its operation, representing the interest cognition and emotional closeness between enterprises and consumers, and it is the sum of brand, traditional culture and corporate personality image. Different from the internal cohesion of corporate culture, brand culture highlights the advantages of external publicity and integration of enterprises, effectively transmits corporate brand concepts to consumers, and then occupies consumers' minds. Brand culture is the essence of the enterprise condensed on the brand.

The core of brand culture is cultural connotation, specifically its profound value connotation and emotional connotation, that is, the spiritual symbols such as values, life attitude, aesthetic taste, personality cultivation, fashion taste and emotional appeal that the brand embodies. The shaping of brand culture can bring consumers more high-level satisfaction, spiritual comfort and spiritual sustenance by creating a highly unified professional realm of product material utility and brand spirit, and form potential cultural identity and emotional attachment in consumers' hearts. In the eyes of consumers, their favorite brand, as a symbol of a commodity, not only represents the quality, performance and unique market positioning of the commodity, but also represents their own values, personality, taste, style, lifestyle and consumption pattern; The product they buy is not just a simple item, but a unique experience, a specific prop to express themselves and realize their self-worth; They realize that buying a commodity is not a simple purchase, but the pursuit of psychological benefits and the release of personal feelings that the brand can bring. Therefore, they have formed a strong sense of trust and dependence on their favorite brands, combining many beautiful associations and meaningful memories. Their brand choice and loyalty are not based on direct product interests, but on the profound cultural connotation and spiritual connotation of the brand. What keeps them in long-term contact with the brand is the unique brand image and emotional factors. Such customers are hard to happen? Brand change? There is no doubt that it is a loyal customer with high quality and high profit and an inexhaustible source of corporate wealth. It can be seen that the brand is like a flag flying high, and the brand culture represents a kind of values, a kind of taste, a kind of style, a kind of fashion and a way of life. Its unique charm lies in that it not only provides a certain utility for customers, but also helps customers find spiritual belonging, release their dreams of life and realize their pursuit.

Excellent brand culture is the high refinement of national cultural spirit and the sublimation of human good values, which condenses the essence of the development of civilization of the times, permeates the deep praise of family, friendship, love and true feelings, and advocates a healthy and enterprising life creed. Excellent brand culture can last forever, lead the consumption trend of the times, change the lifestyle of hundreds of millions of people, and even shape the values of generations. Excellent brand culture can transcend nationality, national boundaries and consciousness with its unique personality and elegant demeanor, make the brand deeply rooted in people's hearts and attract people all over the world to yearn for and consume together. Excellent brand culture can give the brand strong vitality and extraordinary expansion ability, make full use of the brand's reputation and popularity to extend the brand, and further improve the brand's attractiveness and competitiveness. Most importantly, excellent brand culture can also make consumers' consumption of their products become a cultural awareness and an indispensable content in life. For example, when Americans go abroad, they will involuntarily want to drink McDonald's. The main reason is not that McDonald's Big Mac is particularly suitable for their tastes, but that there is a potential external expression of cultural identity in their hearts. They think McDonald's is a symbol of American culture, which makes them see that McDonald's will be more cordial, thus subconsciously producing a desire for consumption. Just like Lawrence? When explaining the successful experience of legendary brands, Vicente pointed out that these brands? Society, culture and existing values form the basis of consumer relations? .

First, the proposed brand culture

Today, with the progress of society and the improvement of material living standards, the public's demand for culture is increasingly strong. As social people, consumers' abstract culture is profoundly affecting the specific purchase behavior. For example, values and lifestyles will affect whether consumers choose high-end clothes or use a certain brand of shampoo. Conversely, consumers may also obtain cultural satisfaction through specific purchase behaviors. Because in a commercialized society, an important way to pursue cultural satisfaction is consumption. Through consumption, we try to find a sense of belonging to a certain group and pursue reputation, self-esteem and status. And even associated with self-worth.

If we look at products and brands independently, we can easily find that in many cases, a brand name can bring more cultural value to consumers than a specific product. Cultural value (or a consumer's psychological utility) is not created by the product itself, but by the abstract brand, and the product is just a concrete carrier. This phenomenon is particularly obvious in clothing, daily necessities and other industries.

Brand culture is a cultural phenomenon that embodies brand personalization. Like Maybelline (a brand of beauty care products)? Beauty comes from the heart? Cultural concept; The proposal of Li Ning brand? Keep the excitement to yourself? Personality proposition. Once a certain brand culture has been established in consumers' minds, choosing this brand has become a way for consumers to understand and approach this culture. Shaping brand culture means treating a pure brand as a thoughtful brand? Consumers? . This? Consumers? It is a typical representative of the brand target market, and understands the mentality of the target market, or is an idol in the pursuit of this target market.

Second, the role of brand culture in brand power building

1. Strengthening brand power through brand culture can not only better achieve the commercial purpose of enterprise promotion, but also effectively carry the social function of enterprises.

The behavior of shaping brand culture is fundamentally dominated by commercial motives: to strengthen brand power through brand culture, so as to seek more commercial profits. The reason why brand culture is emphasized is that consumers are social people with complex personality characteristics, but due to the influence of the same economic and cultural background, their value orientation and lifestyle are the same. This cultural consistency provides an objective basis for shaping brand culture.

After establishing the target market on the basis of market segmentation, it is necessary to conduct in-depth research on the cultural mentality of consumers in the target market, and link it with the utility of goods, so as to shape a typical cultural personality for the brand and achieve the purpose of promotion.

On the other hand, the concept of social marketing holds that enterprises need to consider the long-term overall interests of society while meeting the needs of consumers and making profits. This requires enterprises to promote excellent culture, advocate correct values and promote social progress while improving the efficacy and quality of products. American economist W.C. Flederick believes that enterprises, as the core organizations of the present era, are facing the social challenge of finding a way to unify economy and morality? . By shaping excellent brand culture, it shows that enterprises adhere to positive cultural concepts, which is also a manifestation of promoting social interests.

2. Brand culture meets the cultural needs of target consumers other than material.

Mayo, the representative of behavioral science? Rotlisburg proposed? Social man? This concept holds that people not only pursue material things, but also have various social needs. The establishment of brand culture can make consumers enjoy the material benefits brought by goods, and also have a sense of cultural satisfaction. In this case, sometimes the criteria of market segmentation are based on culture. ? In this world, I found my own flavor, many flavors, but few flavors, my mocha coffee. ? This is a radio advertisement for mocha coffee, which has a clear target market based on cultural segmentation: a small number of people who are not fashionable and have their own tastes, and implies that their choice of mocha coffee is the embodiment of adhering to this lifestyle.

3. The shaping of brand culture helps to cultivate brand loyalty groups and is an important brand barrier.

According to the types of consumer loyalty, the market can be divided into fixed, unstable, mobile and variable types. Among them, the firm brand loyalty group is the most valuable to the enterprise. The ideal is to cultivate a market, and the firm loyalty of a brand accounts for a high proportion of buyers, but the fact can't be so professional. Due to fierce market competition, a large number of consumers often change from manufacturers to unstable and transferers. Therefore, it is very important to maintain and expand the loyal group of the brand. It is undoubtedly the most critical that the brand can maintain its strong commodity power. On the other hand, in the process of brand establishment and expansion, while appealing to the utility of goods, we should always instill a positive life concept into the target consumers, so that consumers can obtain material and spiritual satisfaction by using brand products.

Especially in today's fierce competition, the differences between similar products of different brands are narrowing. An effective way for consumers to clearly identify a brand psychologically among many brands is to make this brand have a unique culture. This can be called the cultural difference strategy of the brand. Benetton is a world-famous clothing brand. In order to let Benetton establish its own characteristics, operators have shaped Benetton? Love nature, love others and care about society? Brand culture. Benetton's advertisements are all about environmental pollution, racial discrimination, war disasters and so on. , far beyond the general concept of advertising, and then become the characteristics of the times, with strong impact, making Benetton's brand image stand out.

Once this cultural difference is accepted by the target consumers, it is very beneficial to improve the brand power. Because of a cultural identity, consumers will not change easily. At this time, brand culture has become an important means to fight against competitive brands and prevent new brands from entering. This kind of competition barrier exists for a long time and is not easy to be broken.

Third, how to shape the brand culture.

1. Create a suitable culture for the brand.

There are usually two criteria for the appropriateness of the culture created for the brand. First, this culture should be suitable for product characteristics. Products have their own characteristics, such as what kind of environment they are used in and what benefits they can bring to consumers. Hundred times better (toothpaste brand) promotion? The morning of the world begins with Baibeijia? ; Nestle always conveys a kind of warmth and care to people. Brand culture should be matched with product characteristics in order to make consumers feel natural and easy to accept. Sometimes, brand operators will adopt brand extension strategy, that is, there are many varieties of products under a brand, so we must grasp the * * * nature of the products. For example, the brand Siemens involves many industries, such as household appliances, electric power, medical equipment and communication. However, Siemens has always adhered to a reliable and rigorous brand culture, making the public think that Siemens represents Germany's meticulous national tradition. Second, this culture should conform to the characteristics of the target market consumer groups. Brand culture should be found from the consumer groups in the target market and obtained by fully investigating their mentality and behavior. Only in this way can this brand culture be easily recognized by consumers in the target market and enhance brand power.

2. Brand culture and fashion culture

For some products, it is very suitable to introduce fashionable content into brand culture, such as clothing and sports products. Fashion refers to the following or pursuit of a considerable number of people for certain tastes, languages, thoughts, behaviors and other patterns in a period of time. How to advocate a brand fashion, in short, is to analyze the current mentality of consumers, release consumers' emotions through commodities, and encourage the public to participate.

An important way to advocate brand fashion is to use the effect of celebrities and authority. Because celebrities and authorities are the focus of public attention and imitation, it is conducive to rapidly enhancing public confidence in the brand. For example, Lux soap has always adhered to the strategy of letting famous movie stars be its witnesses, and through continuous accumulation, it has successfully linked Lux brand culture with fashion. Of course, when choosing celebrities to advertise, we need to be cautious and appropriate. Generally, we should consider the relationship among celebrities, authorities and brands.

In addition, efforts should be made to turn fashion into a part of people's stable lifestyle. Because fashion is a social and cultural phenomenon in a specific period. As time goes on, the content of fashion will change. Therefore, while using and creating fashion, we should also consider the decline of fashion. An effective measure is to consciously change the marketing strategy when the fashion reaches its climax, and guide consumers to turn this fashion into a part of their daily life. Take Nestle Coffee as an example, since it entered the mainland, it has set off the fashion of drinking coffee. Nowadays, drinking coffee has become a habit of many people.

3. Brand culture and national traditional culture

Brand culture is closely linked with national traditional culture. Integrating excellent national traditional culture into brand culture is more likely to make the public swear.

China's national traditional culture pays attention to family values; Pay attention to respecting teachers and caring for young and filial parents; Pay attention to ceremony, morality, rank, moderation and kindness; Pursuing perfection and professionalism; Advocating implication, moderation and order.

For example, one in Taiwan Province Province? North? Brand dumplings are written from the brand name, and their unique national traditional culture is integrated into the brand culture, which has touched the hearts of consumers. Its advertising copy is:? Apart from the Temple of Heaven and Yuanmingyuan, the ancient capital Beijing is most praised and missed for its human touch and jiaozi, which symbolizes reunion. Today, in Taiwan Province Province, a treasure island, you miss Beijing and look forward to the old flavor. Only northern jiaozi can make you memorable. ? The culture of this brand naturally links it with the complex of caring about the reunification of the motherland and the reunion of relatives in traditional culture.

Inheriting national traditional culture in brand culture needs to conform to national aesthetic taste and also take into account national acceptance psychology. At the same time, we should pay attention to substance. If we excessively pursue the form without connotation, it will only be counterproductive. Generally speaking, a brand culture should be recognized or pursued by most target consumers at present, and should be as close to their lives as possible, even a part of their lives.

Fourth, brand culture and corporate culture.

The concept of management can be said to be endless, and brand culture is a concept that has been talked about a lot in the industry recently. Brand culture and corporate culture? Culture? But that doesn't mean they're both the same?

Culture is the belief, value and behavior pattern formed by a society and a group, and it has three elements: spirit, carrier and group. There are three cultural circles in the world: Confucian cultural circle, Christian cultural circle and Islamic cultural circle. These three cultural circles have a long history, with a population of more than 654.38+0 billion, which has far-reaching influence. Christian culture emphasizes? Atonement? You have to work hard to alleviate your sin, so why western countries (America, Germany, Israel) have very standardized laws, high professional ethics and more dedication, which are inseparable from traditional culture. What does Islam mean? Peace and obedience? Only by living and working according to God's will can we ascend to heaven, so people in these countries are very devout, which also leads to the backward economy and conservative thinking in most of these countries.

In addition, culture needs carriers. For example, Spring Festival, Dragon Boat Festival and many other festivals are representatives of Confucian affection and family culture. Many customs and ceremonies such as people's weddings, funerals, clothing, food, housing and transportation also reflect the spiritual connotation of culture. In addition, many stories, allusions, fables and heroes also reflect and inherit culture from different levels. Yue Fei stands for loyalty to the country and Guan Yu stands for loyalty. The third element of culture is group. Without groups, culture can't be formed naturally. Moreover, this group can form a unique national culture according to the nationalities (Han, Hui, Manchu, etc.). ) and regional culture by region (south, north and northwest). These are all subcultures under culture. These spirits, customs, rituals and groups combine to form a culture from the deep to the surface.

Corporate culture and brand culture are inseparable from culture, and their forms and contents are closely related to culture. Is the shaping of corporate culture divided into three levels: core concept (spirit), system and behavior (carrier) and cultural groups (different functional departments)? Does brand culture also include brand spirit, brand communication (carrier) and target consumers (groups)?

Brand culture and corporate culture are both a manifestation of culture and a sub-cultural phenomenon.

First of all, there are similarities between corporate culture and brand culture.

Corporate culture is the embodiment of corporate values, beliefs and behaviors. To make an image metaphor, if you regard a business as a person, when you meet this person for the first time, then his clothes will give you an impression. This is the company's VI (visual identification), including the company's buildings, office environment, office equipment, LOGO and other tangible entities with intuitive surfaces; Through his words and deeds, you can know his style of doing things, which is the concrete embodiment of corporate culture, but what determines this person's words and deeds? It depends on his deep-rooted values and beliefs. Similarly, for an enterprise, it is culture that determines its system and behavior. The core of this culture is the corporate philosophy and core values that are often said. So what is brand culture? For an enterprise, the psychological feeling and recognition that this enterprise gives consumers is the brand culture or brand connotation. It is a platform to connect consumers' psychological needs with enterprises and the highest stage of brand building. The purpose is to make consumers feel psychological and emotional sense of belonging and form brand loyalty when consuming the company's products and services. For example, McDonald's will think of his amiable uncle McDonald, his quiet dining environment, and the sentence full of personality? I like it? Advertising language, these are the concrete embodiment of McDonald's brand culture, the representative of convenient, clean, comfortable and energetic American culture, and the embodiment of its corporate culture. KFC is also a fast food, but the brand connotation is slightly different. What is the taste of life when you come to KFC? ,? Stand firm and integrate into life? Positioning shows that KFC pays more attention to products and life. Besides, HP? HP Technology, Achieving the Future? Its brand connotation is also the embodiment of its corporate culture.

Secondly, the connotation of corporate culture and brand culture must be consistent.

For example, the Coca-Cola Company is full of energetic passion and personalized brand culture, so the corporate culture of the Coca-Cola Company is bound to be inseparable from passion and innovation. It is hard to imagine that a group of conservative and calm people can lead the Coca-Cola Company. Haier brand gives people the impression of high quality, sincerity and responsibility, and its corporate culture is also based on sincerity and innovation. Lenovo's acquisition of IBM notebook department can be said to be a professional embodiment of its entrepreneurial spirit. At the same time, does this have anything to do with its brand? As long as you want? The cultural connotation is the same. Hongta group's original brand slogan is? Behind the scenes, hongta group? , now changed to? Mountains are high? This is in line with the connotation of corporate culture and highlights the humanistic atmosphere.

Through analysis, it is found that both corporate culture and brand culture can not be separated from the company's products and operations, and should serve the development of enterprises. Therefore, their core meanings should be consistent or interlinked. However, corporate culture and brand culture are obviously different in concept, function, emphasis and construction mode.

5. Corporate culture is different from brand culture.

1. Corporate culture and brand culture have different core meanings.

Corporate culture is the sum of values, beliefs and behavior patterns formed by enterprises, focusing on the shaping of corporate values, corporate ideas and behavior patterns, and is the guiding ideology of enterprise production and development. Brand culture focuses on shaping and promoting brand personality and spirit, so that the brand has cultural characteristics and humanistic connotation. The key point is to make these consumers agree with the spirit embodied by the brand through various strategies and activities, and then form a loyal brand consumer group.

What are the cultural characteristics of a brand? To understand this concept, we first need to understand what culture is. Similarly, the cultural characteristics of the brand also have these three elements, which should not only have spiritual connotation, but also be integrated from the aspects of marketing planning, promotion activities, advertising, customer relations, etc., so that consumers can appreciate the spirit, personality and cultural connotation of the brand, and there should be cultural carriers such as allusions, stories, ceremonies and characters to spread, such as the birth legend of Coca-Cola, Lenovo's entrepreneurial story, Haier's story of smashing the refrigerator and sending it to the refrigerator, etc.

Brand culture can only form its own cultural group with the help of popular culture and consumer psychological characteristics. Different industries may perform differently. For example, commercial vehicles, for business people, basically reflect the demeanor, temperament and unyielding spirit of a successful person; McDonald's and KFC aim at children and sell American fast food culture. Starbucks, on the other hand, has created a nervous, casual, emotional and tasteful coffee culture for urban white-collar workers.

2. Corporate culture and brand culture have different functions.

Corporate culture is intrinsic, mainly to clarify the guiding principles of enterprise survival and development, and form a set of systems and norms with values and ideas as the core, thus improving the management level of enterprises. However, excellent corporate culture not only contributes to enterprise management, but also has brand effect. Those successful enterprises increasingly attribute their success to the company's culture, and reports on the excellent culture of these enterprises are endless. The way of HP? How much brand promotion expenses have been saved for HP, how much intangible value has Haier's corporate culture brought to Haier, and how much brand awareness and reputation has Huawei been enhanced by Huawei's Basic Law? No one has done statistics, but if you ask someone to make an evaluation, I believe it will be a great gain. Therefore, it cannot be denied that corporate culture can enhance corporate image and reputation. On the one hand, it can do a lot of free promotion for the company, and invisibly attract more outstanding talents for the company. Why does Haier attract so many outstanding graduates despite its low salary and modular work? Culture and corporate image play a very important role.

What is brand culture? Brand? With what? Culture? Organic integration. What do you mean? The function of brand culture is to build the brand of enterprises, mainly the function of marketing management. In a sense, brand culture itself is a way to build a brand. There was no such concept before, but aren't there many excellent brands? So now more and more enterprises put forward the concept of brand culture, because the concept of culture has attracted more and more attention. The process of globalization has exposed a series of cultural conflicts (the localization of multinational corporations). The failure of M&A of different enterprises mostly stems from different cultures. The merger of HP and Compaq did not succeed. The key issue of Lenovo's acquisition of IBMPC division is cultural integration, and TCL's acquisition of Thomson is also such a problem. Nowadays, world-class excellent brands are often born in those western developed countries. The entry of these enterprises has itself brought cultural shock. The competition between foreign brands and local brands is a deep cultural competition.

3. The construction methods of corporate culture and brand culture are different.

Although both corporate culture and brand culture have cultural elements, their construction methods are quite different.

First of all, it is difficult to communicate and coordinate with different authorities. However, in enterprises, the departments responsible for corporate culture construction and brand building are often two departments, so there is often a lot of communication and coordination here. Marketers think that corporate culture has little to do with brand culture, so it is difficult to accept some of the ideas and methods.

Thirdly, brand culture is like love, and corporate culture is like marriage.

When you are in love, you want to show your excellent side as much as possible and try to attract each other's attention and goodwill. First of all, you should choose the right person. Before you choose to meet him or her, you should inquire through various channels to understand this person's height, appearance, personality, personality, income and so on. This is comparison and choice. When you see all kinds of shampoo brands, who will you choose? You must choose according to the different feelings you have received from these brands before. For example, if you want to choose a dandruff remover, there are many choices, different brands and different prices, including Head & Shoulders, Sassoon, Le Cai and so on. Then why did you choose this brand? The function is similar, and the price is not much different. The key is how the brand makes you feel. Sometimes it is difficult for you to say why you chose this brand, but this brand has a subtle influence on you. The personality and taste embodied in this brand are very in line with your emotions and feelings. So you have a good impression, you choose this brand and start a relationship. When you use this brand for a period of time, if the function is not good, you will be disappointed and refuse to continue to associate with it. If you meet your expectations, then you will fall into? Love? , thus gradually forming brand loyalty.

However, the shaping of corporate culture is more like a marriage, which is aptly described by a Buddhist saying, called? For example, drink water, warm and cold? . Every employee has his own understanding of corporate culture. If he agrees, it may stimulate his enthusiasm for work. If he doesn't agree, then culture is just a form for him. When employees join the enterprise, they value nothing more than three aspects, one is material, the other is spirit, and the third is work. First of all, how much income this position can bring me, which is both a material basis and an economic basis; Secondly, whether I like the atmosphere of this enterprise and how my relationship with leading colleagues is spiritual; Finally, whether my work skills can be improved, whether I can be reused by the company, what my future career is, and whether there is a future, this is the work level. The relationship between employees and the company, just like husband and wife, is actually not looking forward to the future and exchanging visions every day, but daily necessities and trivial matters. Employees' feelings about corporate culture mainly depend on their experience in practical work, and some small things form his views on corporate culture, such as interpersonal relationship, company atmosphere, reward and punishment measures, respect and development, innovation and vitality.

The shaping of corporate culture and brand culture is rooted in the understanding of culture. The deeper and more thorough the understanding of culture, the easier it is to grasp the true meaning and key.