Branding - Definition & Types

Published in Marketing and Strategy Terms by MBA Skool Team

What is Branding?

Branding is a process of creating a unique image, name, logo, symbol for a specific product in consumer’s mind which differentiates it from competitor’s products. Branding is the perceived emotional image of a company and is effective way for communication between two parties-buyers and sellers. Branding is a bit complicated and represents the corporate image.


The following pyramid represents the sequential series of steps in branding, each contingent upon successfully accomplishing the preceding one:


Types of Branding

There are several types of ways of creating a brand. Some of the different ways are:

1. Corporate branding: This type involves using company’s name as product brand name. Here, several products of the company are marketed under the single brand name and such practice is referred as family or umbrella branding.

2. Personal Branding: In this type, individuals and their careers are considered as brands. Athletes, musicians, political leaders etc. promote the products under their name.

3. Ingredient Branding: This type involves creating a component of certain product in order to project high performance and quality of that particular component.

4. Community Branding: Here, a company looks for taking care of an entire community by helping the needy, supporting the elderly, contributing to public education, or providing emergency relief and jobs for the unemployed. Thus company keeps a promise in the community that it will take care of them and stands as beneficiary.

5. Rebranding: This type involves designing new symbol or logo or sort of, to already existing brand in order to create a differentiation among the customers. Aimed at repositioning the brand or company’s name, it is applied to new products or products still under development.

6. Co-Branding: In this type, two or more brands of different products are promoted at a time. This can give consumer a choice of one-stop shopping of his/her favorite brands.

7. Cultural Branding: This type involves making promises to workers about improvement in their work environment and relationships with higher management officials.


Example: Consider Apple Company. As a well-known brand, Apple projects a humanistic corporate culture and a strong corporate ethic that supports for good causes. These values are evident from their innovative products and best customer service. An emotional attachment between customer and company do exist which boosts up its brand value.

Hence, this concludes the definition of Branding along with its overview.

This article has been researched & authored by the Business Concepts Team. It has been reviewed & published by the MBA Skool Team. The content on MBA Skool has been created for educational & academic purpose only.

Browse the definition and meaning of more similar terms. The Management Dictionary covers over 1800 business concepts from 5 categories.

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