Brand Awareness In Ikea

The retail marketing world contains many different elements that managers and executives must consider when they are making the complex forms of decisions that are critical to advancing strategic advantage in their industries. Branding, of course, is among the most important elements for all businesses and corporations. Even businesses that do not engage in directly selling products to customers must have a strong brand presence as it is this presence that influences partnerships and business opportunities, as well as consumer confidence in the organization. Even while branding has a number of universal characteristics, it is particularly important for the retail environment. This is because it is in this environment that consumers are directly

Subsequently, one major question then is how can company’s improve brand awareness. An interesting consideration within this field is the different strategies that companies have engaged in within in different countries to reach consumers and promote company’s brand. Bridson, Evans, Mavondo, and Minkiewicz (2013) examined Ikea in relation to the way that this company approached different consumer markets across different countries. Even as a weakness of this study to the present discussion is that it did not specifically examine brand awareness, the study is relevant in that it considered the different approaches the company took in different countries in promoting the Ikea brand and selling its products. In a significant amount of instances, company’s different approaches to the products around the world were the same in different countries; however, research found that in China the company was forced to change many of its supply chain elements. Additionally, company was required to provide customers with home delivery and assembly of products. Importantly, the researchers argued that traditionally the brand focus in retailing, “particularly in the globalisation debate, is often on the customer facing “front” end of the retail operation in isolation” but that this argument was something that was disproved such that, “the contribution of “back room” functions and activities in retailing, which are perhaps taken for granted at home, is magnified when trying to do business in more distant markets on a different continent” (Bridson, Evans, Mavondo, & Minkiewicz, 2013, p. 27). As such, these findings were very important as they showed that to some degree the strategy for improving a company’s brand position depends on the specific country in which one is