The How-To Guide For Product Brand Development.

Every product on the shelf has fought relentlessly to earn its place. From concept to launch, product brand development is a rigorous process that ensures each item doesn’t just exist but thrives. Whether you’re launching a new line of snacks or a premium beverage, the competition is fierce, and standing out requires strategy, innovation, and consumer insight.

Why is it a fight? Strategic brand management involves far more than designing packaging or running ads. It’s a methodical process of crafting a unique identity, building brand equity, and ensuring a brand extension that matches your ‘consumers’ needs. The best product branding requires aligning your branding strategy with customer values while leveraging insights into brand and product development to solve actual pain points.

Developing the best product brand is no small feat. From brand and product design to establishing your product’s position in the market, the process demands attention to detail and consumer understanding. Whether creating a brand as a product or using an existing brand as a product for market entry, the key lies in blending brand design and development with a thorough grasp of product development and branding.

This article explores the brand product development process and actionable strategies for helping your product thrive, whether you’re breaking into a saturated market or solidifying your place as an industry leader. Let’s explore how to create a brand that stands out and truly dominates.

What is product brand development?

Product brand development is the strategic integration of brand marketing, brand management, and product branding to craft a distinct and impactful identity for your product. Much like brand development, it’s about creating a seamless connection between your product’s attributes and your target audience’s emotions, needs, and values.

At its core, product brand development is the foundation of brand identity development. When implemented through a well-crafted brand development strategy, it ensures brand awareness and long-term brand loyalty. The goal? To make your product instantly recognizable in a crowded marketplace, instill trust and position it as the go-to choice in its category.

A strong product brand leverages key elements like brand positioning, personality, and brand value to communicate its unique story. It’s about ensuring your product resonates with consumers emotionally and practically, creating a connection that fosters brand growth and differentiation.

Focusing on a detailed brand development process allows you to create stand-out products, even in competitive markets with similar offerings. Brand development transforms an ordinary product into something consumers believe is the best choice.

Whether you’re working to strengthen brand building or refine your brand personality, product brand development ensures your strategy is aligned with your audience’s needs, setting your brand up for sustained success.

Product branding vs corporate branding.

It’s a common misconception that product branding and corporate branding are the same—but they are fundamentally different. While product branding evolves to help distinguish a new product from competitors, corporate branding focuses on building a consistent identity across the organization.

In product branding, the goal is to create a strong brand identity for individual products. This often requires unique brand guidelines, customized marketing strategies, and tailored messaging to set the product apart within its category. Companies with multiple brands within their brand portfolio often use this approach. For example, LEGO, widely known as a toy company, is also a leading tire manufacturer, and Levi’s, recognized for its clothing, produces bikes. Each product is uniquely branded to maintain clarity in the market and enhance brand perception for their distinct audiences.

On the other hand, corporate branding revolves around a unified brand promise and consistent use of brand assets across all touchpoints, from place branding to overarching product management strategies. While product branding is flexible and adapts to market needs, corporate branding remains steady. It emphasizes the organization’s core values and mission and ensures a strong and consistent message for the existing brand.

Both types of branding are crucial, but their focus and execution vary. Whether building a new product or managing an existing brand, understanding the difference between these approaches is vital to structuring an effective brand architecture that drives long-term success.

Reasons why product brand development is important.

No matter how strong a company is, people will not be interested in a product without a successful brand development plan. In 2013, Google created a wearable computer called Google Glass that allowed people to connect to the internet using hands-free voice commands. Unfortunately, due to poor product brand development, Google Glass was discontinued in 2015. Poor product development also caused the discontinuation of Amazon Fire Phone, Microsoft Zune, and Pepsi Crystal, all products from globally recognized brands.

Here are three reasons why product branding is essential for any brand looking to succeed:

1. Brand Awareness: A well-thought-out product brand development will help people become aware of your products.
2. Builds Trust: As we explained earlier, trust solidifies when people become more aware that your product aligns with their values.
3. Premium Pricing: Once you have a loyal customer base, you can command a premium price for your products. Gucci, Apple, and Tesla are prime examples of premium price charging.

Common mistakes to avoid in product brand development.

No Originality

There are already too many products in the market, and consumers would always want to avoid another replica or imitation of something trending. Therefore, create a unique product and communicate your brand values.

Forgetting the target audience

As bizarre as this may sound, some companies focus more on the product than their target audience. While ensuring your product and its features work perfectly is necessary, your target audience will decide whether your brand succeeds. So, remember your current and prospective audience throughout the product-brand development process. Create a product that appeals to their values and addresses their pain points.

Inconsistency with Branding

For people to always pick your product over others, you must be consistent across all touchpoints. Even if you have different products within the same company, each must have its unique marketing strategy. You do not want to confuse your current and prospective customers. Consistent product branding will help customers build a strong connection with your brand.

Unclear Brand Identity

A company needs to understand its brand values, messaging, and personality to attract potential customers and retain current ones.

“Without a strong brand identity, your product brand development is doomed from the start.”

Types of Product Brand Development

Companies employ two main types of product branding.

Individual Product Branding

This type is the most widely used product branding category by companies worldwide. It is a technique where your company creates a unique brand identity for each product. Unilever has different products, such as Dove, Ben and Jerry’s, and Axe; each has its unique brand strategy and positioning.

Corporate product branding

Some of the most successful companies, such as Apple and Amazon, use this product branding. In this approach, you create a single brand for all your company’s products and allow your brand to speak for you.

Pros and Cons of Individual Product Branding

Pros and Cons of Corporate Product Branding

Other types of product brand development include:

1. Co-branding: is when your company partners with another to create a product. The essence of this type of product is to leverage each brand’s reputation and reach to stand out. Nike and Apple collaborated to release a product line of wearables and sports shoes.
2. Personal Branding: Companies strategize to stand out by associating a product with a celebrity or an expert. Here, you are leveraging the prominence of an individual to gain a larger market share.

Steps to developing a strong Product brand.

Here are seven critical steps for you to take to become a successful brand:

Step 1: Understand your target audience.

The first step in developing a strong product brand is analyzing your audience. In audience analysis, you research the needs and wants of the people you sell your products to. What are their pain points? You can define your brand identity once you understand your target audience’s values.

Step 2: Define your brand identity.

Now that you know your target audience’s values, you can create an identity that meets their needs. Your brand promise and personality are all geared toward addressing their pain points.

Step 3: Develop your brand messaging.

Every successful brand has a clear and concise way of communicating its brand values to the public. You aim to create a unique and genuine messaging that profoundly resonates with your audience. Ensure that the brand messaging is persuasive enough to show that your product is the most suitable for your target audience.

Step 4: Create a strong visual identity.

Your brand logo, color schemes, and typography should be easily recognizable. Ensure that they are visually appealing and align with the core band values.

Step 5: craft a compelling brand story.

Every brand has a story of how it came to be. Your brand story must show why your brand is unique. You should use this powerful tool to tell people what your brand stands for. Integrate your brand story into your messaging and let people be constantly reminded of why you are manufacturing a particular product.

Read more: How To Create A Winning Brand Development Strategy.

Step 6: Develop consistent branding elements.

Consistent branding is essential for brand recognition. When you create branding elements that are the same across different platforms, people find it easier to distinguish your products from others. So, whether marketing materials, radio jingles, or TV commercials, let your product have the same brand voice and identity.

Step 7: Monitor and adapt.

A strong product brand continues to evolve with time. Always stay abreast on top market trends, customer feedback, and technological innovations to redefine your product. Monitor your product performance and make adjustments where necessary.

The importance of brand storytelling.

Product brand storytelling is a strategic way brands use persuasion and relatable scenarios to connect to their audience emotionally with their audience story highlighting your target audience’s life.

The goal is for people to see themselves as a part of that product brand through an emotional bond. Successful brand storytelling also helps to build trust and credibility. Once your product brand values resonate with your prospective customers, it becomes easy to build brand loyalty.

You can also use brand storytelling to communicate your value proposition to your target audience. Your brand story is also a great way of building a community of like-minded individuals whose stories resonate with your brand.

How to create a brand community.

We have established throughout this guide that your target audience determines whether your product becomes a success. Therefore, you need to constantly engage your audience even after you have attracted them with your brand story.

A brand community is a unique set of people passionate about your brand. These people are your “die-hard” fans if you were a rockstar. They are the ones who will most likely buy and talk about your product. Most product referrals come from a product brand community. They are crucial in your product brand development phase, especially if you have a new brand.

Here are some steps to create a brand community:

1. Create a place for your community to gather: You could have a physical location or an online group where everyone talks about your brand.
2. Share valuable content with your community: Let them be the first to know about product features and new releases. You can use blog posts and e-books to share content with your community.
3. Engage the community: Regularly respond to the comments and questions. Ensure you participate in the group. Also, engage your community by running contests and giveaways.

Brand crisis management.

Companies would hate to run into a crisis after creating a product that aligns with their values and addresses the target audience’s pain points. Even the best plans can sometimes go askew. It only takes a push of a button for a product to gain a negative reputation. To develop a formidable product brand, crisis management must be implemented.

Let’s look at some tips for brand crisis management :

• Identify your stakeholders and find out what triggers them. Your stakeholders include customers, the media, employees, and investors. Let your product brand development align with the needs of the stakeholders.
• Examine possible crisis scenarios: Look at situations that could put your brand in a bad light in the public.
• Develop a detailed response for each scenario: No matter how many scenarios you come up with, ensure that you create solutions that would mitigate the damage to your brand.
• Test your response regularly: You and your team should test the responses and correct any weaknesses.

Brand Testing in the Product Brand Development Phase

A product brand strategy is incomplete without being tested. Brand testing is the way companies evaluate the effectiveness of their brand development strategy. You must examine the brand strategy in real time for solid product brand development.

This guide covers only the right way to test your product. You can read more about brand testing here.

The Right way to test your product

• Hire a brand testing agency backed with enough experience and a solid reputation.
• Use the correct representation of the target audience for consumer testing. You must follow a detailed testing template to select members from your target audience who will be the best candidates.
• Ask straightforward questions. Avoid making your questions ambiguous. Use clear statements that lead respondents down a clear path.
• Analyze the results carefully and take action based on your findings.

Data-Driven Brand Development That Can Guarantee Sales Performance.

If you need a complete product branding blueprint to ensure your brand’s success., we can help. SmashBrand is a brand development agency that researches, designs, and tests all products to ensure peak shelf performance. Book a time to discuss your project with our team.