It is one of the most important strategic variables of a company since every day he acquires a major leading role. It is not necessary to forget that we live at present through a stage under the prism of the marketing of perceptions and therefore it highlights the mark opposite to the product. To be well posicionados in the mind of the consumer and in the leaders of opinion, the mark of our company must enjoy the biggest and best recognition on his market and sector.

According to the American Association of Marketing, mark is a name, a term, a sign, a symbol, a design, or a combination of some of them that identifies products and services of a company and separates them from the competitors. But, the mark is not a mere name and a symbol, since, as he was commenting previously, it has turned into a strategic tool inside the current economic environment. This is due, to a great extent, to the fact that it has passed of commercializing products to sell sensations and solutions, what it spends inevitably for selling not only the final attributes of the product, but the intangible and emotional ones of the same one.

Every time the products look alike more between themselves and it is more difficult for the consumers to distinguish his attributes. The mark is, in addition to the Home identifier of the product, a guarantee that guarantees it placing it in a top plane, on having constructed a real identity and emotional relation with the consumers. We might say that the mark forms for the union of two factors:

14.1. The corporate identity and the corporate image

The difference between one and other one is that the first one is located in the plane of the issuer and the second one in that of the recipient. The design of the corporate identity remains gathered in a manual after a pondered process of analysis, development and study of the set of values and beliefs that shape the personality of the company. All this taken shape of a logo-symbol, that is to say, in a certain typography (logotype) and in the image or graphic resources that her accompany (anagram).

For the making of the manual of corporate identity it is convenient to appear:

• What wants to be transmitted? The first thing, it is necessary to determine what are the values with which it is wished that the company should be identified. For it, it is necessary to analyze factors as the sector in which it acts, the competition, the strong points that the clients value, etc.
• How does it go to transmit? This implies choosing the name and the symbols that they will accompany to the mark. Bearing in mind that this one will represent the company along his life, his attraction will have to last over the course of time.

The logotype or name is perhaps the most important thing because, in the end, it is by what the company is going to be recognized and differentiated. This one must be brief, simple, easy to pronounce and with good tone. Also, it has to contribute big doses of association and evocation.

Since it refers to the mark image, it is the value that perceives her market and forms like accumulative result of all the messages that the company expresses. To obtain a good position and a positive image is fundamental that all the messages expressed across the company and his products are controlled, are coherent between themselves, and communicate an idea of company previously formulated according to his strategic targets.

On a correct management of both elements it depends to a great extent to obtain the fame and the differentiation that is claimed. Namely to prevent from being one more, and to be located inside the marks recognized and preferred by the consumer. At present Coca-Cola is, according to the report Interbrand, the mark most recognized and valued on the market with a value superior to 65.000 million dollars, the Spanish mark Zara is, in principle, the only one of our country that is inside the ranking of the 100 first ones.

To construct a powerful mark, not only it is necessary to have a good product and creative capacity, but there will be that:

• To create a name easy to memorize, although sometimes the reality demonstrates the opposite to us.
• To reach a high level of visual identity.
• To express emotions and sensations that symbolize for what the market expects from the mark.
• To have adaptability to all the elements of the company and different markets.
• To emphasize only one designs of the product or the company in all the communication areas.
• Not to develop a complicated advertizing campaign that makes difficult to the consumer to memorize the mark.
• To organize an effective commercial system and an effective department of attention to the client.

Advantages of creating a strong and consolidated mark:

• Differentiation opposite to the competition.
• The marketing costs diminish since the mark is already known.
• Major facility in the sale of the products to the distribution because the consumers hope to find this mark.
• It allows to raise the prices over the competition because the consumers perceive the mark of major quality.
• The company can grow more easily because the name of the mark shuts big credibility up.
• The mark offers a defense opposite to the prices competition.

14.2. Keys to obtain the supported success of the mark

• Contribution of identical values to the expectations of the consumer. Traditionally the quality of the product was collaborating to the technical processes, to the engineering or to the best prime matters. Nevertheless, today, the expectations of the consumers go much further of the quality of the product. The design, for example, has turned into something fundamental, not only from the functional point of view, but for his esthetic and original value.
• To keep on being excellent for every hearing in every moment. The companies must keep on being employed at the segmentation of his products and marks. To offer the only one directed to a very wide target, or there are faced different publics of the same way, there are obsolete things. The number of companies grows with a wide variety of products and that is employed at his segmentation so that the offer is customizable, more to measurement.
• To maximize the perception of the value. The price captures the perception of the value. For defect, between two seemingly equal marks, a frequent reaction on the market is to think that that of major price is better, justifying somehow the difference of the amount. But other forms exist so that the client perceives a product better than that of the competition.
• To insist on differing: to be the only and believable. A strategic and creative position is fundamental for the success of the mark. Also, it is necessary to be always alert to achieve that this position is consolidated. A very amusing case has been the water throwing of flavors of Font Vella Sensation, a product that has offered to Font Vella another dimension to differ, and even to establish the mark. He supposes the fulfillment with the consumer: made promise, complete promise. In a society replete with deceitful publicities, the value of the honesty is really valued and been grateful for the consumer.
• To balance the binomial consistency / flexibility. To work supposes realizing but electric cord at the same time. In a moment of changes and avalanche of new permanent offers, it is essential to show the consistency of the mark. Of course, it is necessary to know with the tendencies, but without stopping being a believer to one himself.
• Optimization of the architecture of mark. The companies check constantly his mark architecture. He supposes a way of optimizing the marks that belong to the same company or of making sure that synergies exist between different marks linked by merger, acquisition, creation or division. The synergies between marks or products can diminish greatly the costs and help to throw a common message to the consumer. From the perspective of use of elements together for the manufacture, distribution, sale, promotion and even publicity, also can suppose a cost saving.
• The strategy of the mark must be understood and assumed by the personnel. Every member of the company represents to the mark, and this has to be the essential part of the organization, his beginning. Hence there stems the intense link that must exist between the values of the mark and the members of the company, which participants have to feel and implied. For this, there is fundamental an internal plan of communication constant, informative and bidirectional, capable of receiving ideas and proposals.
• To manage the marks as long-term sure value. The management of the long-term mark implies analyzing the value direccionadores and measuring them, always supposes knowing on the new technologies, markets, forms and tendencies; it consists of measuring and handling.
• To integrate the consumer in the development of the marks. To ask the consumer on his needs is different of the tendencies of the current marketing. The integration of the consumer acquires every time a more important role. The needs change and also the preferences of the people. That's why, the Zara personnel pays so much attention to what it values or his public begins in absence on having seen and to his clothes try on. They consider this very valuable information and use it to design products according to the needs of the consumer.
• To support social worries compatible with the mark adds value to him. The companies must be more intelligent at the time of answering to the ethical values: to turn into patron of social worries is, undoubtedly, an extra cost and a category for the mark.

14.3. The mark of the distributor

This phenomenon of the consumption and of the distributor initiated his journey in the 80s with the denomination of white mark, but it is at present when this one has acquired a big leading role accentuated by the phenomenon of Mercadona and his marks Landowner and Delyplus. The positive evolution of the distribution marks is one of the keys of the vertical competition between manufacturers and big surfaces, since commercialized the product with the name of the establishment, offers in general a highly competitive value for money.