Service marketing: Image, branding, and competition

Creating a proper image is even more critical for service marketing than for product marketing. Branding assures buyers of uniform service quality and can provide service marketers with a greater degree of pricing freedom. Service providers should try to become "power branders" with brands that are distinctive and relevant, have a tangible quality, and are linked to other brands the company offers. There are 2 distinct levels of service: service form and service brand. Credit cards have several service forms that vary in the degree of prestige. For each service form, there are normally a number of service brands. The hotel industry is an example of multiple-brand strategy. Service marketers should enhance the specific reality and differentiate it from other realities by the use of tangible clues. The service image can be repositioned through structural change; the process involves changes in complexity and divergence. The images of service form and service brand often interact, but consumers still tend to evaluate each of these elements independently.