According to the process of brand planning, the content of brand planning can be divided into brand planning, brand user planning, brand quantity planning, brand construction planning and brand development planning, among which brand construction planning and brand development planning will be discussed separately in the next two sections. 1. Brand Planning In brand planning, the first problem is whether to adopt a brand. In the current fierce market competition, brand is one of the important means for enterprises to gain competitive advantage, which can earn huge profits for enterprises. However, building a brand often requires enterprises to invest a lot of manpower, material resources and financial resources, thus increasing the cost of enterprises. In other words, enterprises bear certain risks in the process of building brands. Once the brand management fails, it will often greatly weaken the strength of the enterprise and even bring down an enterprise. At the same time, some products have little significance in using brands, and the effect of not using brands is better than adopting brands. Generally speaking, enterprises should tend not to adopt brands in the following situations. (1) homogeneous product. The varieties and specifications are the same, and the products will not be different because of different manufacturers. (2) People are not used to products purchased through authorization. Such as sugar, salt, some agricultural and sideline products and spare parts. (3) Products with simple production and no certain technical standards, such as homemade paper and small farm tools. (4) People are used to the brand of a dealer and are willing to buy goods with simple packaging and no brand here. Because the product does not adopt the brand name, it will save a lot of money, so it will have a great advantage in the price. For example, in the early 1970s, Carrefour, a giant supermarket in France, launched a series of "brand-free" products in its stores, such as thin solid noodles, facial tissues and canned peaches. These products basically belong to daily consumer goods and medicines, and at the same time they are up to standard in quality. However, due to the reduction of product labels, packaging costs and advertising costs, its price is 20%~40% lower than the advertised brand products, which is deeply influenced by the more sensitive person price. However, because branding is an effective marketing strategy, at present, more and more non-traditional brand products are also adopting brands, such as rice, edible oil and fruit. Most products that used to adopt brands have increased their investment in brands. The reason is that the adoption of brand names can bring a series of benefits to enterprises, including: (1) it is conducive to establishing the image of products in the market and reducing the cost of new products entering the market. If an enterprise has a product line of one or several brands, it is easier to add new products to the product mix, and new products are more easily accepted by consumers when they enter the market. (2) Branding helps enterprises to segment the market. Consumers can be naturally divided into different groups through the specific information spread by brands, that is, market segmentation for consumers. For example, P&G has launched many brands of products such as Rejoice and Head & Shoulders in the shampoo market, and each brand has targeted solutions for consumers' requirements on a certain aspect of hair, so as to better serve consumers. Therefore, P&G has won most of the market share of shampoo products in the market. (3) Brands can effectively reduce consumers' price sensitivity. Enterprises can establish good popularity, reputation and loyalty through brands, which increase the value of products and help to formulate higher-value products. Consumers are much less sensitive to the price of products with high brand awareness than products with no brand awareness or low brand awareness, and they are willing to pay higher prices for products with famous brands, although in fact, these famous brands are not much higher in quality than other similar products. (4) Brand helps to establish the corporate image. A strong brand helps to establish a good image of the company in the eyes of the public, thus making it easier for the company to launch new products and gain the trust and acceptance of dealers and consumers. Enterprises should decide whether to brand their products according to the characteristics of their own products, internal resources and external market conditions, and must not blindly make brand decisions, otherwise it is likely to cause huge economic losses. However, for most products, branding has become an unavoidable reality. When the enterprise decides to brand the product, the next step will be to enter the stage of brand user planning, that is, to determine whose brand the enterprise uses. 2. Brand user planning When an enterprise decides that its products need a brand, it needs to further decide whose brand to use. In this regard, producers can have three choices: first, use their own brands, that is, manufacturer brands; The second is to use other people's brands, such as middleman brands or other manufacturers' brands, that is, dealer brands or licensed brands; The third is to use brands owned by yourself and others. The key to brand user planning is to confirm which way is more beneficial to the enterprise and its products. (1) Use manufacturer brand. Most manufacturers use their own brands, and manufacturer brand has long dominated the market. Although it costs producers some money to use their own brands, brands, as intangible assets that cannot be ignored by enterprises, can bring huge benefits to enterprises. Producers can get all the benefits of brand arrival by using their own brands. Reputable manufacturers can rent their brands to others for use, thus collecting a certain royalty. For example, the brand of Tsingtao Brewery in China is associated with many enterprises to use its brand, so that the products of associated enterprises can quickly open the market with the help of Tsingtao Brewery's famous brand effect, and Tsingtao Brewery Company can also charge a certain commission. (2) Use the middleman brand. With the development of business, the brand of middlemen is developing strongly. In the past ten years, big retailers and wholesalers in the United States and other western countries have been developing their own brands. For example, Sears roebuck, a famous American commercial company, manages more than 90% of its products under its own brand. The development of middleman brand mainly benefits from two aspects: on the one hand, some enterprises with weak funds and insufficient market experience tend to adopt middleman brand in order to concentrate on using their limited resources more effectively; On the other hand, customers are not all experts in the products they need, and may not have enough knowledge in purchasing. Therefore, in addition to the manufacturer's brand as the basis for purchase, customers often prefer to buy in reputable stores according to the brand of middlemen. The establishment of their own brands by middlemen will bring some problems, such as having to spend more promotion expenses to promote their own brands; To take greater risks, once consumers are dissatisfied with the products of a certain middleman brand, it will often affect the sales of other brands; Intermediaries themselves are not engaged in production, so they must place orders with manufacturers, which will make a lot of money used for the inventory of goods and reduce the capital flow rate. At the same time, there are many advantages for middlemen to use their own brands, including: middlemen with their own brands can not only strengthen their ability to control prices, but also control manufacturers as suppliers to a certain extent; Middlemen can find some manufacturers with overcapacity, unable to establish brands or unwilling to establish their own brands, so that they can manufacture products with their own brands, which can reduce some unnecessary expenses, lower the price of products, improve the market competitiveness of products and ensure more profits. As a producer, whether to use their own brand or the brand of middlemen depends mainly on the reputation of the brand in the market. If the enterprise is unfamiliar with the market or the brand reputation is far worse than that of the middleman, it can consider using the middleman brand in order to concentrate limited resources to do something more beneficial to the enterprise. (3) Use mixed brands. Brand mixing is a strategy of using both manufacturer's brand and dealer's brand. There are three ways of this strategy: first, some manufacturers use their own brands, some sell them to dealers in bulk, and some use the brands of dealers. This can not only maintain the brand characteristics of this enterprise, but also expand the market. Second, in order to enter the new market, enterprises first use the brand of middlemen and then use their own brands after gaining a certain market position. Third, two brands are used together, that is, a manufacturer's brand and a middleman's brand or another manufacturer's brand are used for a product at the same time to achieve the advantages of the two brands or explain some different characteristics. For example, Japan's General Electric Company and Hitachi's fluorescent lamps, as well as Citibank AAA credit cards issued by Citibank and American Airlines. 3. Brand quantity planning For those enterprises that decide to use their own brands and produce non-single products, the next step is to decide how many brands to use. Enterprises can choose to use the following strategies according to their own specific conditions. (1) Use a unified brand. This practice is that all products of an enterprise are marketed under the same brand. For example, all products of General Electric Company of the United States only use one brand-"GE". The advantages of using this strategy are: it can save the time and cost of developing too many new brands; A large number of products * * * A brand can show the strength of an enterprise and improve its reputation; New products are easier to enter the market under the influence of existing brands; In terms of market communication, enterprises can concentrate on highlighting brand image, and at the same time, they can save promotion expenses. When using a unified brand, it should be noted that the quality level of various products should be roughly similar. If the quality level is uneven, it will inevitably affect the brand's reputation. At the same time, under the unified brand, if one product has problems, other products will also be negatively affected to a certain extent. (2) Use personal brand. Under this strategy, different products of enterprises use different brands. Its main advantage is that it can effectively avoid the close relationship between the reputation of the enterprise and individual products, and at the same time, it can seek the most suitable brand positioning for each product, which is conducive to attracting customers to buy. However, this practice requires enterprises to invest a lot of time and expenses, and enterprises with average strength cannot afford a lot of resources needed for brand development and market communication. (3) Use individual unified brands. Enterprises classify products according to certain standards and use different brands respectively. This strategy can be regarded as a compromise between the above two strategies, which can combine the advantages of unified brands and individual brands. For example, Jianlibao Group uses Jianlibao brand for beverage products and Li Ning brand for sportswear products. (4) Use a unified personal brand. This is another strategy with the advantages of unified brand and individual brand. Usually, the trade name and logo of the enterprise are regarded as a unified brand, which is combined with the single brand of each product. In this way, if there is a unified brand of enterprises in front of a single brand of products, new products can be legalized and the existing reputation of enterprises can be shared; Following closely the individual brand of products behind the unified brand of enterprises, new products can also be personalized. For example, Toyota cars in Japan use Toyota Kalim, Toyota Dengfeng and Toyota Crown.