Branding, or the creation of a brand identity, is becoming an increasingly common tool for gaining a competitive advantage in logistics, just as it is in other sectors of the economy. A valued brand attracts customers and makes them more loyal to the company, as they remain convinced of its uniqueness. Therefore, great importance is attached to creating their brand not only by logistics operators, shipowners, and airlines, but also by companies that design, build, and equip warehouse spaces, produce machinery and equipment for cargo handling and warehouse operations, and offer means of transport or software and communication systems for logistics.
In a situation of high market saturation with goods or services of similar characteristics, purchasing decisions are made by customers largely on the basis of the image and reputation of the companies offering them. Before a customer makes contact with the service staff at a given company, they have already carried out an initial, not always fully conscious, selection of potential candidates to handle their goods. This selection is based on subjective observations of the market, which provide an answer to the fundamental question: which company would we like to work with (and implicitly: how will this cooperation affect our image?). Consequently, the brand image that a company is able to build and maintain is often just as important in the fight for a customer as offering high-quality products and services and having highly qualified and efficient personnel. So, what is included in the concept of a “well-built brand”? It is said that a brand is the fundamental content or image of a modern organization. A created brand gives special value to the activities performed by the company. A brand defines a style of being, acting, or working, an integral part of which is the use of the specific properties of the products and services offered by the company. This image usually consists of many factors: starting from the trade name and trademark, the character of the company’s headquarters and representative offices, through the training and attitude of employees, the shape and scope of the market offer, previous experience in operations, readiness and openness to active cooperation with customers, the social activity of the organization, and finally effective marketing, which provides tools for promoting a positive company image. At the same time, the brand itself should be perceived as an integral part of the cultural, social, and personal heritage of the consumer group to which it is addressed. For each company, the hierarchy of the above factors may look different, depending on the business profile. However, the logistics industry is special in this respect because we are dealing here with companies that sell services in the vast majority, and therefore intangible goods. If it is not possible to physically view and evaluate the subject of the transaction, the company performing the service becomes all the more important, and in particular its credibility. As research indicates, when evaluating a logistics company, customers take into account primarily financial credibility, recommendations from other company clients, the credibility of the management staff, and the company’s time on the market. Also important is the organizational culture that the company can boast of, and its external manifestations, most visible to the customer, are primarily the relationships between the logistics company’s employees and customers, their professionalism, appearance, and the way the staff relates to the brand and the company for which they work. Hence the extensive training for drivers and couriers in companies such as DPD, UPS, or DHL and the enormous attention to image – color-coordinated uniforms for employees, exposing the company logo, and a modern, clean fleet marked in corporate colors, which emphasizes modernity and high quality of service. An optimally built brand appeals to specific, positive emotions experienced by potential customers in contact with the company. A brand is an element that supports the company’s strategy, and at the same time its integral part. It is worth emphasizing here that a brand does not have to, and in many situations should not, be directly related to a specific product. A modern brand is rather an image of the company’s reputation and as such can be related to many different products and services simultaneously.
An example of such an understanding of a brand is the Organika group of manufacturing and trading companies, operating successfully in the construction, chemical, furniture, and transport industries. The company Organika Trans, operating within the group, specializes in the transport of spatial goods and liquid chemical raw materials, which results from the nature of the market in which the brand is positioned. Another example is the global easy brand, under which, among 17 companies with a diverse profile, there is, among others, the low-cost airline easyJet, which also operates on the Polish market. The basis of the strategy for building this brand is the development and expansion of the brand to subsequent products that will serve broad groups of customers, ensuring satisfactory quality, ease of access and use, and great customer satisfaction.
The article comes from the magazine “Logistyka” 1/2008.