Types of Brands
According to ownership: on the basis of the ownership, brand may of two types:
Manufacturer brand: when brand is named after the name of the manufacturer of the product. It is known as manufacturer, brand. Use of the Phillips on all the product of Phillip's company like Phillips radio, Phillips radio, T.V, transistor, bulbs, etc. is an example of manufacturer brand.
Middlemen's brand: under this type of brand, manufacturer does not use any brand for this product. Instead, distributes like wholesalers, retailers, etc. sell the product under have own brand. Actually, this type of brand is not popular in our country because we do not have large distributors like U.S.A and U.K., etc.
According to the marketing area: according to the marketing area, the brand may be of the following five types:
a. Local brand: when brands are used for the local market, it is called local brand. Under these types of brand, different brands are used in the different markets.
b. Provincial brand: when one brand is used for a particular province or state it is called provincial brand. Different brands are used in the different states for the same products.
c. Regional brand: under this type of brand, manufacturer uses his brand name only in a particular region. Different names for the different regions are used. Under this, the whole market is divided into different regions such as East, West, North, South, and central regions etc.
d. National brand: when the manufacturer uses his product's brand for selling his product throughout the country, it is called national brand.
e. International brand: when the same brand is used for selling the product in all the countries of the world it is called international brand.
According to the number of the products: a brand may be of the following three types of on the basis of number of the products:
Family brand: when the manufacturer uses a single brand for all his products and in all market segments, it is known as family brand. For example, all the products of Bajaj group are marketer with the brand name of Bajaj such as bulbs, tube lights, scooter, pin, toaster, table, and ceiling fan, geyser etc.
Product line brand: when the business or industrial houses use different brand names for the different products lines it is called product line brand. For example 'Dalda' is used for the Vanaspati Ghee product line and super Surf for detergent powder line by the same manufacturer is the example of the product line brand.
Individual brand: when individual product is marked different brands names for the products. Produced by the same manufacturer, is called individual brand. For example, toilet soaps produced by the Hindustan Lever Limited bear brands for the different products in the same product line, for example, lifebuoy, lux, lux, supreme, Rexona, etc.
According to use: under this category, brand may be of two types:
Fight brand: when there is very tough competition in the market and the producer wants to introduce a new product which has quite a different characteristic from that of the competitors brand and which gives an impression of such a difference, it is called a fighting brand. For example, ITC ltd has recently introduced 'Now' brand cigarette.
Competitive brand: when the brand introduced in the market is almost similar to those of competitions, such a brand is known as competitive brand. For example, Modi Soap, Nirma Soap, 555 Soap etc. are all having similar charactistics.