Hi everybody, welcome to www.engvid.com, I'm
Adam. In today's video, we're going to have a bit
of a business English lesson, and we're going to focus on marketing. But marketing is a very broad area of business. So, we're going to focus more specifically
on a couple of things. We're going to look at brand and branding,
and we're going to look at little bit at promotion after a couple of minutes. So, let's start talking about what is a brand,
what is a product, what is the relationship between these things. What's the relationship between companies
and consumers, etc. So, first of all, what is a brand? For most people, if you ask most marketers,
they will give you very different answers, but all of them work more or less in the same
area. A brand is an image or an identity. It's the image that a company wants the consumers
to have, or it's the image that consumers do have, for better or worse. Sometimes, the image that the company wants
the consumers to have is not the image that they actually do have. In which case, they need to do a lot of work,
which is called branding. Which we'll talk about in a second. Now, a product is the actual thing that the
company is selling. It could be an actual physical thing, like
a product directly. It could be a service; it could be a combination
of these things. And it's very important to understand that
brand and product are not the same thing. So, I'm going to mention a bunch of companies
as examples, but let's start with a brand. I think most people know what Porsche is,
or Porsche, depending how you want to say it. And the most famous product that Porsche sells
is the 911, or the Boxer, whatever you want to call it. Different times, different names. The 911 is the car. It's the type - the particular model of car. But when somebody thinks of Porsche, of course
they may think of the 911, but they also might think of other things. So, the brand is the full identity, in terms
of what the company sells - the 911, plus a few other models. What the company stands for. So, when people think "Porsche", they think
rich people. They think luxury. They think unaffordable to most people, right? So, something that makes you a little bit
special. But that's exactly the image that the company
wants you to have, right? That's what their brand is all about. And these days, branding is extremely important,
especially with the new generations. The Millennials and, soon enough, the Gen
Zs, who care about different things than the Gen Xers and the Baby Boomers, the older members
of society. So, companies are now struggling to understand
the new generation and they're trying to rebrand. So, I'm actually going to put this here. Rebrand means change the way the way they
brand themselves. They change the image they're trying to portray. Because young people care more about the environment
and climate change. And they care more about ethical business
practices. And they care more about sharing the wealth
and things like that. They don't want luxury items. They don't want diamonds, they don't want
Porsches. They want everybody to be happy and health
and peaceful. Which is a good thing. Not so good for companies that are trying
to sell a particular product. So, brand and product, two different things. Think of another example. Let's think about McDonald's. McDonald's is a brand, and Big Mac is a product. When I think - or when most people think of
McDonald's, everybody will have a different idea. And when they think of products, everybody
will choose a different product. So, some people will think "Big Mac", some
people will think "McChicken", some people will think the sundae, the ice cream sundae
that they sell. Everybody has a different favorite product,
but most people will have a very similar idea of McDonald's itself. Fast food, hot, cheap, delicious, or disgusting. There's really not much of a middle ground. Some people will think of Ronald McDonald,
you know, the clown that is the mascot of McDonald's. Because Ronald McDonald houses, at least in
Canada, they do a lot of charity work. So, people have a very good image of McDonald's
here. Of course, they make a lot of money, but they
also help people with that money. And they provide jobs, etc. So, brand and product. Now, branding means thinking a lot about how
to create that image. So, one of the things they need to think about
is the logo, because the first association that people make with a company is the logo. So, if you think of McDonald's, the first
thing you think of is the golden arches. Or, as you're driving along the street and
you're a little bit hungry and you see the two arches, the golden arches, right away
you know there's' food there. There's McDonald's, there's hamburgers or
whatever else you like. Starbucks. When you think of Starbucks, you think of
that green circle with the lady inside and the weird fish hair. But then you think of Exxon. Exxon, again, I'm not sure everybody knows
this company. It's a big oil company. But in North America, when people think "Exxon",
they don't necessarily have a very good image. Why? Because however many years ago, there was
a big accident. One of the tankers carrying their oil crashed
into an iceberg and spilled all the oil in the ocean. So, people might think that Exxon is an irresponsible
company, or that it - they just care about money. They don't care about nature or the animals
or whatever, right? So, branding is very important. Obviously, the name is very important. McDonald's, this was the family name of the
two brothers who started the company and it just grew and stayed. Starbucks - very deliberate thinking. Exxon - very deliberate thinking. The name is what's going to stick in the mind. It has to roll off the tongue, so very, very
important. Colors. Certain colors are associated with certain
emotions or reactions, right? For example, red - again, this is also very
cultural. Red, in some cultures, is a very good color
for business. In some cultures, it's a very bad color. Green - very like, nature and calm and clean. All these things are very important. And of course, juxtapositions. Juxtaposition means how you place items next
to each other. Do you put the name on the top, on the bottom,
on the side? Do you put the two images facing each other,
if that's what you have? Do they look up and down? How you place things in your logo, in your
brochures, in your advertising things, all of these things are very, very important in
terms of branding. Now, what you want to create is brand loyalty. So, not only do you want brand recognition,
which is what branding does. It makes it easy to recognize - I'll just
do it like that, a little bit mixed caps, but that's okay. They want you not only to recognize the company,
but they want you to stay with that company. They want you to like the company and, of
course, the product. So, brand loyalty. The best way to measure brand loyalty is word
of mouth. How many people are telling their friends
about this company? And they're telling their friends, and their
friends. Not only is word of mouth the best advertising,
it's also the best measure of brand loyalty. It means also that the customer or consumer
is not going to the competition. They come back to the same brand every time. This is especially common in food items. Like, if you go to a supermarket, you can
go to the shelf and you want milk, let's say. If you go to a Canadian supermarket, for example,
you will see six different brands, six different companies selling milk. Most people will buy the exact same one every
single time. Because they like the milk, and they like
the company. They trust the company. And that's what brand loyalty is mostly about
- trust. Then, you also have to think about positioning. So, part of branding is actually positioning. Where - which part of the market do you want
your company to be associated with? Or your product associated with? Do you want people to think of your company
or your product as budget items? Or do you want them to think of them as luxury
items? So, let's look at Louis Vuitton, for example. I can go and buy a bag anywhere, even a leather
bag, for $20, let's say. But, if I go to Louis Vuitton, I can spend
maybe $2000 on a bag. But if I'm thinking of Louis Vuitton bag as
a luxury item that I can be proud of and walk in the street and people will look at me,
maybe I will spend that money. If all I need is something to carry my groceries
home from the supermarket, then budget is all I need. So, what do you want your product to represent? What do you want your company to represent? That's positioning. You can be premium. Premium means like, a little bit better quality. So, people automatically think "better quality". You can be niche, so this pronunciation "niche",
like "ee" sound. Niche means very, very specialized, right? So, you have a very particular part of the
market that not many people are filling. Not many companies are trying to be there. So, you have very little competition. And you can be exclusive. To position yourself as being exclusive means
that not everybody can have your product. Either it's too expensive or it's just not
accessible. Very, very few people have it and those people
somehow feel proud because they were able to buy this product, right? And then they will come back and buy more
of this product. Again, they can show off to other people. And especially in the day of the internet
and social media, people like to show the things they buy. It's just things, but it has a certain image
and it creates a certain image of a person. And the companies understand this, and they
want the person to feel that they're exclusive, that they're in the luxury market. And they manufacture or they promote their
products as such. Okay? So, these are just some of the things we're
going to look at. And now, we're going to think about how these
companies promote themselves and their products. Okay, so now, we're going to look a little
bit more at how they promote, how companies promote themselves in order to build a brand
image and, of course, make money. That's what it's all about. So, the first thing they need to do is do
some market research. They need to study the demographics of an
area. Now, demographics is a measure of the types
of people in a particular area, including race, ethnicity, nationalities if there's
a lot of immigrants. They need to think about ages, what's the
most common age? What's the mobility? Are they people moving in, are people moving
out? They need to think about the median income. What is the average person in this area make,
in terms of salary or income? And how much disposable income do they have? So, disposable income is the income that is
left after you've paid all of your bills. So, you get a certain amount of money every
month from your employer. You have to pay your mortgage or your rent. Buy some food, pay for electricity, internet,
all these things. And then you have a little bit of money left
over. That money you can buy things with. You can dispose of, so that's why it's called
disposable income. So, all of this makes up your target audience. The company needs to decide who do they want
to target. Who do they want to try to sell to, and whether
that fits within the demographics of an area. So, that's your market research. Then, you have to basically start or figure
out how to get market penetration. This is especially if you're going into a
place where you don't already have basically a visibility or a standing. So, penetration, to penetrate means to enter. So, and another thing they want to do. If they're already in the market, they want
to try to corner the market. They want to basically take out the competition
and have the strongest presence for their product or for their industry. So, I'm just going to give you a whole bunch
of vocabulary here. If they're in a market, and part of cornering
the market is increasing market share. So, for example, if you think about a market
as a pie chart like this - that's not the clearest, but let's say this is my company. These are my competitors. I want a bigger piece of the pie. So, what I need to do is figure out how to
go from there to - and then make these guys smaller and now this is me. I've increased my market share. And the more I do it, now I'm starting to
corner the market. Okay? So, that's the mission, that's the goal of
any marketing department. Now, how do they do this? Obviously, there's advertising - TV commercials,
radio commercials, newspaper ads, magazine ads. But then there's also something called product
placement. Now, if you go to any sporting event - let's
say you go to a hockey game. Around the boards of the ice, you'll see companies
advertising their products. That's one way to place a product. If you think about - carefully think about
TV shows that you like. Let's take the TV show "Friends". If you look very carefully, you will sometimes
see particular products. These companies that own these products paid
the studio that makes the show a lot of money to put their product there so that people
watching the TV show think that these characters, who they have a sort of relationship with,
are using this product. And then the consumers, the people watching
the show, want to go buy that product. They want to be like the characters on TV. So, this is called product placement and it's
very expensive. Another thing you can - another thing companies
do is they get celebrity endorsements. And these days, with social media and all
these, they get influencer endorsements. So, a celebrity is somebody who is very famous,
like actor, musician, athletes. An influencer is somebody who has many followers
on social media, like Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, etc. If these people - celebrities or influencers
- recommend a product to all the people watching them, then a lot of people will buy this product
because they trust celebrities. They trust the influencers and companies understand
this. They pay these people a lot of money to endorse
their product, to say that their products are good and that a lot of people buy them. Another way to grow market share is through
organic growth. Organic means just natural. You have a very good product; you don't need
to promote it. People will find that it's a good product. Word of mouth - they will tell each other
about this product, and more and more people will start to buy it. But this is very, very difficult to achieve. Because, again, if you go into a supermarket,
you will see shelves - rows and rows and aisles of shelves with so many different products. It's very difficult for any one product to
stand out. That's why they need to go through all of
these steps in order to become the market leader. Okay? So, there you go. A whole bunch of different things for branding
and promotion. And another thing I forgot to mention before,
I wanted to mention. Remember, I mentioned positioning? How you're a luxury product or a budget product? In the 1980s, I think it was late 80s or early
90s, Porsche, I'm going to go back to Porsche, everybody thinks 911. Porsche decided to produce a model - I think
it was the 944, if I'm not mistaken. And this was supposed to be like, the budget
version of a Porsche car. Because they thought maybe more people will
buy Porches if it's more affordable. But this was almost a disaster. Not only did they not increase their market
share, they actually lost market share. Why? Because the brand image of Porsche was luxury. It's supposed to be unaffordable. It's supposed to be for the rich people. So, the rich people stopped buying Porsches
because they saw poor people driving - not poor people, but middle-class people driving
a Porsche. So, if I'm a very rich person and I'm driving
a Porsche and here's a middle-class person driving a Porsche next to me, I don't really
feel very special anymore. So, they stopped buying. The company had a big problem. They got rid of the 944 and now they're a
luxury brand again. So, that's a lot to think about. Know your target audience. What are they going to think? How are they going to feel? How are you going to make them feel special
and associate with your brand? That's the key. So, that's it for now. If you have any questions about any of these
vocab terms or expressions or points, feel free to ask me in the www.engvid.com comment
section. There's also a quiz there. You can check your understanding of all of
these expressions. And give me a like if you like the video. Don't forget to subscribe to my channel and
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