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The American Marketing Association (AMA) defines a brand as a "name, term, sign, symbol or design, or a combination of them intended to identify the goods and services of one seller or group of sellers and to differentiate them from those of other sellers.
Therefore it makes sense to understand that branding is not about getting your target market to choose you over the competition, but it is about getting your prospects to see you as the only one that provides a solution to their problem
Brand Strategies are definitive long-term plans to achieve specific objectives of a brand in a defined set of parameters. The brand strategy is created by understanding what the needs of the brand are - whether it is the launch of a new brand, or the rebirth of a dying brand, or simply a paradigm shift in communication approach to adapt to changing consumer needs.
Think of a brand strategy as a pathway that integrates itself and runs with other pathways, like the company vision/mission, marketing strategy and5-year plans. All of these pathways come together to build success for the company, while ensuring a match and co-ordination that helps create an all-round strategy to stay focused.
Popular examples of failure that might help understand the importance better:
- Atari in the80s, by building a massive brand around games that failed to live up to the hype
- Marketing the Hummer brand in the early2000s to a market that did not want inefficient, environment-harming cars
- Polaroid, when they strategized the need for having permanent physical photos even as the market was going digital. Kodak fell prey to a wrongly-planned strategy too
A good brand strategy is highly important to management because it defines a clear pathway to achive company goals. The marketing strategy and brand strategy have to move in tandem, otherwise the worth of management efforts is compromised and valuable resources are lost. If the brand strategy fails or is myopic, it creates a downward spiral that forces a company to suffer losses, leaving the brand no other option but to be bought over or die off.
If I understood your question, the importances come from the value you are going to create to the brand.
Brand strategies and management enhances high brand recognition and association that drives increase market share, sales growth and marketing leadership.
