How brands become Icons

How Brand become Icons: the Principal of Cultural Branding

Douglas B. Holt

What is a brand?

A brand is a name, term, design, or other feature that distinguishes one seller's product from those of others. Marketers use the brand as a prop in advertisements, films and sporting events. The brand comes in the mind of the customers and they talk about it, this is how brand is formed and sustains in the minds of the customers.

What is an Iconic Brand?

Iconic Brands can be defined as a person or things regarded as a representative symbol, especially of a culture or a movement; a person or an institution considered worthy of admiration or respect. These are also called cultural icons because these brands are imbued with stories that a customer finds it valuable in constructing their identities. Customers flock to brands that embody the ideals they admire, brands that help them express who they want to be becomes the successful iconic brands.  Some of the iconic brands are Coke, Budweiser, Nike, Corona beer, Harley Davidson etc.

                             

How brands become Icons?

Brand icons are not built by the conventional branding strategies which focus on benefits, brand personalities and emotional relationships but brand becomes icons because of deeper cultural perspective on traditional marketing themes like targeting, positioning, brand equity, and brand loyalty, which outlines a distinctive set of "cultural branding" principles that will radically alter how companies approach everything from marketing strategy to market research to hiring and training managers.

There is a systematic cultural branding model which helps brands to become Icons. The model consists of Mind-share Branding, Emotional Branding and Viral Branding. The brand which became an icon with mind share branding is Corona beer. The question is how it became a successful brand icon? So here is the answer, the Mexican beer corona was one of the cheapest beer in Mexico, it had a distinctive package design with all the connotations and an attractive logo on its bottle, this is what it distinguishes from other brands. Instead of all these characteristics they reached the minds of customers by owning a beer category partying association and attendant user imagery. They also held a campaign called “official party animal”.  This invoked in people that party without a beer is useless and with its advertisements and its better taste it became customer’s favorite beer brand. This is how it became an iconic brand which people remember and identify because of some history associated with it.

Tag Line: Relax and chill out with a cold beer.

 

Another story of an Iconic Brand

Coke as we all know today and it’s the most popular brand among youngsters has a successful story of an Iconic Brand. It is one of the best examples of Emotional branding. But how Coke became an Iconic Brand is a thing to wonder? So here is an interesting fact during the world war Coca Cola Company shipped coke to the troops on the front lines and celebrated the war effort in a blizzard of print ads, the troops used to treat the scarce bottles of coke with religious zeal, drinking in the ritual confirmation of their national pride.  The coke symbolized social and cultural integrity when people drank coke. It used a symbol as humanistic plea for understanding and tolerance. Coke has such a wonderful history associated with it and till now it has come up with lot of new products and have changed the design of its bottles and its emotional advertisements, popular brand ambassadors all of this has contributed in Coke being and Iconic Brand. People love to drink as it refreshes them and creates happiness for them.

  

So there is a long history that defines how brands become an Icon and how he culture revolves around in making them the same. These were the two successful stories of Iconic brand which are admired by the customers. The author also says that brand is made more by intuition and serendipity than its design and customers and brands are both interrelated to each other.

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