A branding agency is a firm that specializes in creating and launching

brands A brand is a name, term, design, symbol or any other feature that distinguishes one seller's goods or service from those of other sellers. Brands are used in business, marketing, and advertising for recognition and, importantly, to create and ...

and

rebranding Rebranding is a marketing strategy in which a new name, term, symbol, design, concept or combination thereof is created for an established brand with the intention of developing a new, differentiated identity in the minds of consumers, investors ...

. The role of a branding agency is to create, plan, measure, and manage branding strategies for clients, including support in

advertising Advertising is the practice and techniques employed to bring attention to a Product (business), product or Service (economics), service. Advertising aims to present a product or service in terms of utility, advantages, and qualities of int ...

and other forms of promotion. Branding is the process of developing a company's brand, including name, identity system, brand architecture, and messaging platform. These aspects will lead to the development of a "brand message", applied to marketing campaigns. A brand represents a promise to the customer, reflecting the expectations they can have from the products and services offered, as well as the offering difference amongst the competitors. A branding agency allows organizations to gain a competitive advantage, to define a coherent brand communication strategy, and to reach the target market and expand it.

Branding agencies vs advertising agencies

Although branding agencies and

advertising agencies An advertising agency, often referred to as a creative agency or an ad agency, is a business dedicated to creating, planning, and handling advertising and sometimes other forms of promotion and marketing for its clients. An ad agency is generall ...

overlap in some aspects, they have different scopes and focus. Celebrity endorsement benefits both branding and advertising agencies, promoting them on social media, such as

Instagram Instagram is an American photo sharing, photo and Short-form content, short-form video sharing social networking service owned by Meta Platforms. It allows users to upload media that can be edited with Social media camera filter, filters, be ...

and

Facebook Facebook is a social media and social networking service owned by the American technology conglomerate Meta Platforms, Meta. Created in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with four other Harvard College students and roommates, Eduardo Saverin, Andre ...

. 'Firms invest significant monies in just a posting brands and organizations with endorser qualities such as attractiveness, likeability, and trustworthiness. They trust that these qualities operate in a transferable way, and, will generate desirable campaign outcomes' (Journal of marketing management, volume 15 1999). Examples of celebrities that act as ambassadors for obtaining " likes" for

Coca-Cola Coca-Cola, or Coke, is a cola soft drink manufactured by the Coca-Cola Company. In 2013, Coke products were sold in over 200 countries and territories worldwide, with consumers drinking more than 1.8 billion company beverage servings ...

and L'Oreal are

Selena Gomez Selena Marie Gomez ( ; born July 22, 1992) is an American actress, singer, songwriter, producer, and businesswoman. Gomez began her career as a child actress, appearing on the children's television series ''Barney & Friends'' (2002–2004), a ...

and

Cheryl Cole Cheryl Ann Tweedy (born 30 June 1983) is an English singer and television personality. She rose to fame as a member of Girls Aloud, a Pop music, pop girl group created through ITV (TV network), ITV's reality competition show ''Popstars: The R ...

Leading brands and the role of branding agencies

The evolving economy with increasingly competitive markets is creating a greater stress on developing brands that aim at being widely recognized by the public.

Leading brands: Coca-Cola

is globally considered as one of the most successful and recognized brand. A survey conducted by Interbrand, an American branding consultancy, found that Coca-Cola's

brand equity Brand equity, in marketing, is the worth of a brand in and of itself – i.e., the social value of a well-known brand name. The owner of a well-known brand name can generate more revenue simply from brand recognition, as consumers perceive the pro ...

was valued at $63.5 billion, representing just under half of the company's true market value. An executive at Coca-Cola stated, "If Coca-Cola were to lose all of its production-related assets in a disaster, the company would survive. By contrast, if all consumers were to have a sudden lapse of memory and forget everything related to Coca-Cola, the company would go out of business." Coca-Cola has collaborated with a number of branding agencies over the years. Most recently, in the light of a new global campaign, Coca-Cola has partnered with ten agencies (including WPP, Wieden+Kennedy and McCann) with the aim, as a Coca-Cola spokesperson stated, "of uncovering the best ideas and marrying those to executional excellence". The spokesperson added, "this approach allows us to harness thinking from some of the best agency minds in the industry and see the great work that comes from collaborating". The statement acknowledges the collaborative and creative process involved in brand management, which is generally an integral concept involved in branding. Even the most successful brands will seek branding support. This will often be more focused on specific areas, and in particular those related to reaching, attracting and retaining the target market.

Changing trends: Apple

Despite having headed Interbrand's list of the 100 most valuable brands for 13 consecutive years, Coca-Cola has now been replaced by

Apple An apple is a round, edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus'' spp.). Fruit trees of the orchard or domestic apple (''Malus domestica''), the most widely grown in the genus, are agriculture, cultivated worldwide. The tree originated ...

, whose surge to the top highlights the dominance of technology today. Three of the top five most valuable brands are technology companies. This data stresses another key element that must be addressed by branding agencies: the value of innovation and the need to exploit trends. The rise of the technology domain has resulted in the emergence of new channels, such as

Google Google LLC (, ) is an American multinational corporation and technology company focusing on online advertising, search engine technology, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, consumer electronics, and artificial ...

and

Twitter Twitter, officially known as X since 2023, is an American microblogging and social networking service. It is one of the world's largest social media platforms and one of the most-visited websites. Users can share short text messages, image ...

. This change in trends results in new approaches to branding. Agencies must be naturally innovative and flexible in order to survive a fast-paced environment. With branding becoming an increasingly vital element to a firm's success, many organizations believe it is in their best interest to seek external support.

Interbrand's Ranking of the 5 Most Valuable Brands (2015)

References

{{Cite web , last=Admin , date=2025-01-08 , title=Types of Branding , url=https://upclues.com/types-of-branding/ , access-date=2025-03-12 , website=Upclues , language=en-US Branding organizations