The branding process assessment of Romanian SMEs.

Epure, Manuela ; Lianu, Costin ; Epure, Madalina 等

1. INTRODUCTION

The SMEs are the major contributors to GDP growth, not only at the EU level, but also in Romania. In 2003 over 99.8% of the EU-25 enterprises were SMEs, representing 2/3 of the total occupied labour and generating more than half (57.3%) of the accretion value. The SMEs are described as flexible, highly productive, innovative and strongly involved in R&D activities and really committed to direct their activity to the high-tech field, eco-development, new energies production.

Being active on the market means for the SMEs to be known, to be visible among the others and to become the first option for their clients in the purchase process. Having their own brand or being able to manage the brand building process are two of the most important tasks to be accomplished by the SMEs. The company's brand could be the most valuable intangible asset of an SME in the competition process, and enhancing competitiveness means being able to progress. Usually, the progress is quantified according to 5 key drivers of productivity: investment, innovation, skills, enterprise and competition. The last one, but not least important, is competition and for the SMEs, having a brand could really make the difference.

Some analysts see brands as the major asset of a company, outlasting the company's specific products and facilities. Brands communicate valuable information to the customers and understanding what the brand signifies to the customer is the essential guideline in having a good brand management. The brand is like a projected image of the product/company in the consumers' mind. It's all about perception, emotions and satisfaction. How can a small company achieve this? Is it really possible? A brand is a complex entity with multiple facets. Brands have concrete as well as intangible attributes that must be considered holistically (West et al., 2006). It is not just a logo or a name, carefully registered to assure the exclusivity on the market, it is more than that: a brand represents different things for different constituents and the key to effectively managing brand equity is to understand what goes on inside the heads of the customers. Defining the brand concept is not an easy task for the academics and it is even more difficult to understand it and put it in practice by the SMEs managers.

Blythe (2009) explains that brands can be looked at in a number of different ways, namely as a set of strategic functions for both the buyer and the seller. Brands are equally a sign of ownership, a differentiating device, a functional device, a symbolic one, a risk reducer, a legal device and also a strategic device. So, a preliminary conclusion is that a brand is much more than just a signifier.

David Aaker (2002) in his book, Building strong Brands, explains that at the basic level, the brand has a core identity, which is the essence and this remains constant, but also an extended identity, which focuses on a series of psychological and physical aspects that give it nuance and texture. The author identifies 12 dimensions of brand identity that are grouped in four distinctive brand perspectives: brand as a product, brand as an organization, brand as a person and brand as a symbol.

Knowing this theoretical approach we have investigated in our empirical research what dimensions our respondents are able to identify, from their point of view, and what is the relevant meaning of the word brand. While brand identity is a concept, which addresses the components of the brand, brand equity focuses on the measurement of brand value. Aaker defines this concept as a set of assets (and liabilities) connected to the name and symbol of the brand that adds to (or detracts from) the value of a product/service to a company or company's customers. The point is to compare brand assets to brand liabilities and maintain a strong and viable brand equity evaluation (West, et al. 2006). Looking for an understanding of brand equity, our exploratory research among SMEs managers fails to provide much information: the fact is that they do not have the knowledge to evaluate the brand equity, so, as a consequence, micro-level data on this subject is not available.

2. BRAND BUILDING PROCESS AT THE ROMANIAN SMES LEVEL

2.1 How much do Romanian SMEs know about branding?

In order to reveal the level of understanding of the brand's issues, a few important stakeholders agreed to conduct an exploratory research--a survey among SMEs, which could have pointed out the main aspects of the brand and the brand developing process in Romania. The purpose was to explain the Romanian companies' behaviour regarding the market, competitors and customers and to identify the tools that they use in order to build a market strategy, in general, and a brand strategy, in particular. Moreover, we intend to establish and to be able to demonstrate the relationship between competitiveness and branding at the SME's level.

The research objectives were divided into five major categories:

* Market knowledge in terms of: the number of competitors, the competitors' evolution on the market, the customer's buying power, buying behaviour;

* The brand building process was approached from the following points of view: creating a logo and a visual identity, whether the basic information used is the result of an organised market research activity, defining/implementing and managing a brand, brand awareness;

* Romanian brands--present situation: usefulness of having or not having a brand, ability to describe their own brand's competitive advantages, measuring brand effectiveness, understanding the consumer's attitude, making efforts to attract new customers through brand image;

* Brand management process: is it the process planned, budgeted, and controlled? Are there enough human resources provided? Is the brand communication process considered at the company level?

* SMEs' future goals: did they have a well-defined strategy? The above-mentioned research objectives were established in accordance with the national profile of the SMEs, and the field research was conducted among SMEs of different sizes, ages and from different industries. The exploratory research results entitle us to propose a new research, using a representative sample, in order to be able to extend the results at the national level of the SMEs and, if the outcome is useful, to be able to approach the brand issues of SMEs at the EU level.

The brand is a very important intangible asset of the company, whatever its size, and knowing more about how the brand management process contributes to the company's performances and profitability means that we could propose a special indicator (such as brand equity) to measure the impact of brand management on performance & profitability. So, in the future, our team intend to develop a model that expresses the correlation between: competitiveness, performance, R&D, brand and brand identity. The first step was taken: we explored the best way to gather information at micro-economic level, on a regular basis, in order to develop a database. The premises are great because the national representatives of the SME's associations and the Liberal Profession Minister have expressed their interest regarding these issues.

2.2 Brand building process?

Branding poses challenging decisions to the marketer, the major brand strategy decisions involving brand positioning, brand name selection, brand awareness and brand development. The brand management process is not an easy task to handle, especially at the SMEs' management level. Starting with the main strategic decisions, we argued that only by knowing all of the theoretical aspects of the brand management process is it possible to implement them successfully in your own business. The branding process should driven consumers to a certain brand awareness (Percy & Elliott, 2009), which is define as the consumer's ability to identify a brand within a category in sufficient detail to purchase or use it. The brand awareness does not always require identification of the brand name. For the consumers, brand awareness may be stimulated by a familiar package or an even more general stimulus such as colour. It may not need to remember beforehand the brand name or be able to describe the package or colour. Instead brand awareness may occur through simply recognizing it at the point of purchase. There are at least two ways to identify a brand: it can be recognize or it can recall it. Both are important for SME's managers and they should act constantly in order to develop such objectives in their strategic approach of the market.

No matter what kind of company size we are talking about, the management process is recognized as the most important process to be implemented in the organization. The company should communicate with the external environment throughout its brand power. Having a brand, from this perspective, it is crucial that everyone should have it in mind during the different stages of the growth process of the company or during the product's life cycle. The product manager, most of the time also known as the brand manager, has to take care of all the important aspects: developing new products, managing the existing products through all the stages of the life cycle, and mainly, branding the products with high potential on the market. A big organization has enough human resources, with the appropriate qualification and experience not only to manage the product marketing process but also to create, develop and sustain a brand: choosing a name, design, symbols or combination of these to identify its products and distinguish them from those of their competitors. But, can SMEs really afford to hire such good product managers? How can they survive on the same market with the big ones?

3. CONCLUSION

Consumers may benefit more from branding (Kerin et al., 2003). Recognizing competing products by brand allows them to be more efficient shoppers; they can recognize and avoid products that caused their dissatisfaction, while becoming loyal to other, more satisfying brands. So, we could say that brand loyalty often eases consumers' decision making by eliminating the need for a new time consuming search. The SMEs' branding activity ought to be supported by the specialized government institutions or alternatively to have their own association to deal with this issue. The branding process is expensive, but some solutions such as these should be considered: the access to funding schemes to support the costs of successfully branding their products (advantages or disadvantages); registration as a trademark--a good trademark can help sell a product and protects the company's sales from the danger of counterfeiting; conducting market research and making the findings available for all. Our study provides valuable information but there are limitations, which came up by lack of knowledge on the part of SME's representatives on the topic of brand concept, thus making our interviews longer in our willingness to explain the issues and to ensure that the answers corresponded with the facts.

4. REFERENCES

Aaker D. (2002). Building Strong Brands, The Free Press, Simon & Schuster Ltd, ISBN-978-0743232135, New York

Blythe J. (2009). Key Concepts in Marketing, SAGE Publications ltd, ISBN 978-1-84787-498-6, London

Kerin, Berkowitz & Hartley, Rudelius (2003). Marketing, 7th Edition, McGraw-Hill, ISBN 0-07-241075-2, New York

Percy, L. & Elliott, R. (2009). Strategic Advertising Management, third edition, Oxford University Press Inc. ,ISBN 978-0-19-953257-5, New York

West D.; Ford J. & Ibrahim, E.(2006). Strategic Marketing, Oxford University Press Inc., ISBN 978-0-19-927398-0, New York