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What Are the Different Types of Corporate Branding?

Geri Terzo
Geri Terzo

A company's corporate brand is a form of marketing. It can be a logo, picture, or a name, for instance, and ideally a company's brand becomes ubiquitous with its products or services. The downside to this is that, when a product does not perform as expected, the brand can also become tarnished. Companies apply different types of corporate branding under specific scenarios. The kind of marketing could be defensive and in approach to competition, practical and designed to resonate with members of a struggling economy, or high-end in nature to appeal to a lofty lifestyle, to name a few.

Businesses are often engaged with attempting to grow market share. This can occur through the merits of one's own brand, an attack on a rival company, or a combination of the two. A fighter brand is designed to do both.

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When competition becomes heated, especially during times when consumers are opting for the most economical solutions, a company with a high-end brand can suffer. Given that it may not be prudent to take a hit and market the luxury item at lower prices, a company might opt for a fighter brand. This involves launching a cheaper version of a similar product that caters to the discount customer but more or less fills the same need as the expensive item.

The fighter brand is designed to lure customers away from rival brands and attract them to the new offering. In a best-case scenario, the consumer remains with the brand even when economic times turn. A worst-case situation might be that the customer permanently downsizes from the luxury product to the discount item.

Another type of corporate branding is to focus solely on driving the price of an item lower to beat competition. Unlike fighter brand marketing, this approach merely initiates a pricing war with products already on the market. This is an economic approach to corporate branding. Separately, when a company uses its brand to market a number of different products, it's known as umbrella branding.

Corporate branding might also involve the marketing of premium products. While price may not be the message in this type of corporate branding, it may still be a factor. The true theme of this type of marketing is in the quality of the product or the service. It is essential for a corporation to use premium branding in a way that reaches the appropriate demographic. Otherwise, the marketing is likely to be ineffective.

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