Branding In Marketing

Many organizations in the global market have realized that branding is an important initiative

that they can put in place to ensure survival in the market. The sugar industry especially in

Kenya has increasingly become saturated, attracting new and retaining old customers has not

only become difficult but also costly in terms of marketing. The purpose of the study was to

establish the effect of branding strategies namely, brand awareness and personality on

performance of public sugar manufacturing firms in Western Kenya. The target populations of

the study were members of the four (Muhoroni, Nzoia, South Nyanza and Chemilil) public sugar

manufacturing firms in Western Kenya. Purposive sampling technique was used to select the 12

managers

Aaker (1991) observes that branding has a history that goes back to medieval

Europe whereby, Craftsmen and artists used to put unique identity marks on their work.

Customers could seek these marks as they associated them with quality. Branding in this era was

associated with commerce. However, Aaker says that it was in the twentieth century that

branding became central to competition. Kotler (2000) recognizes that in the latter part of the

20th century, the growth of competition forced companies to shift from the production and

selling concept to the marketing concept which necessitates that companies be better than

competitors in creating, delivering and communicating value to its target markets in order to win

buyer preference. This led to the increase of brands and branding activities as companies were

aggressively looking for mechanisms to emerge and stay on top of the competition ‘game’.

Kotler (2000) quotes the American Marketing Association definition of a brand as ‘a name, term,

sign, symbol or design or a combination of them intended to identify goods and services of

Brands have become one of the most discussed phenomena of market research in recent years.

An important part of brand is its image. It is the way a brand is perceived by the public, which is

based on and closely linked with another important part of a brand and that is its identity. Brand

identity reflects the company’ attempts to develop a desired brand image. The process of

developing a brand identity revolves around interacting with the target customers with the aim of

achieving a lasting competitive advantage (Urde, 1999).

The cheap sugar imports under the COMESA protocol have significantly affected the sales

performance of the local sugar. Thus, sales turnover have significantly remained below the

production level in spite of the domestic sugar market being in permanent deficit. Local sugar

manufacturing firms in Kenya for example, experienced closing sugar stocks estimated at

28,113.3 Metric tonnes per annum for the period 1996-2005, which according to Kenya Sugar

Board, a national body mandated to manage sugar issues in the country, largely attributed to high

pricing of domestic sugar against cheaper imports. The trend has persisted, thus the need