Brand awareness is vitally important for all brands but high brand awareness without an understanding of what sets you apart from the competition does you virtually no good. Many marketers experience confusion on this point.
Strategic awareness occurs when not only does the person recognize your brand, but they also understand the distinctive qualities that make it better than the competition. Strategic awareness occurs when you have differentiated your brand in the mind of your market. This distinction as to why your brand is unique in your category is also referred to as your Unique Selling Proposition or USP. Your USP tells your target market what you do and stand for that is different from all of your competitors.
Brand preference occurs when consumers prefer your brand to competing brands. Brand preference might be considered “the holy grail” of branding because it is the result of consumers knowing your brand, understanding what is unique about your brand, connecting emotionally with your brand, making a decision that your brand is superior to others for some reason or combination of reasons, and choosing it over competing brands.
You cannot build a strong brand solely through advertising. Branding is also more than a logo, a color scheme, and a catchy tag line. While these all are important components in branding, they are simply tactical tools that help establish and build the brand.
