Information Services & Use 24 (2004) 93–98 93IOS Press

Branding in library and information context:the role of marketing culture

Rajesh SinghDepartment of Information Studies, Åbo Akademi University, Tavastagatan 13, Åbo-20500, FinlandTel.: +358 2 215 4825; Fax: +358 2 215 4581; E-mail: rajesh.singh@abo.fi

Abstract. Branding is seen as one of the canons of the marketing doctrine. Although, there is extensive literature on services thatdeals measuring or delivering customer satisfaction in library and information settings, but not much of it addresses the issueof branding services. Branding culture has yet to be embedded in information service organizations. Internet is so trendy nowa days that a growing number of non-industry players, like banks, insurance companies and trade associations, want to becomeInternet service providers (ISPs)-sort of. And, they have plenty of reasons to get involved. Developing a deeper relationshipwith customers is one. Then why information service providing organizations should be lagging behind than their other servicecounter-parts. But, the branding in library and information context involves a lot of challenging issues, as there are importantdifferences between the execution of product and service brands. These differences revolve partly, at least around the fact thatwithin a service profession the staff’s relationships and interactions with customers play a pivotal role in influencing brandquality and brand values. Before going for branding of information products and services, organizations need to know theirmarketing culture as it assumes a paramount importance in defining consumer satisfaction and developing brand loyalty. Thisbrings in forefront the issue of leadership and the awareness of staff about marketing theories and practices as brands just don’treflect the products/services but also creation of images and expectations in the minds of the consumer and most importantlyrepresent the organization’s promise to deliver consistently a specific set of benefits and services. Hence, information serviceorganizations need to be very careful in designing their web sites and beware of over promising. The paper attempts to addresswhat relevance does branding have in the marketing of library and information services. It further pinpoints the importance ofmarketing culture in branding. It also narrates briefly what Finnish library directors think about the role of their library websites.

1. Introduction

Branding is considered as one of the important tools of the marketing discipline. Kotler et al. [5]have suggested “that perhaps the most distinctive skill of professional marketers is their ability to create,maintain, protect, reinforce and enhance brands” and Doyle [4] argues that “brands are at the heart of themarketing and business strategy”. It has been one of the hottest business topics over the past few years.Add to that the Internet’s explosive growth, and we begin to identify new business challenges arisingout of the intersection of these two forces. Determining the right role and strategy for Internet brandrequires careful consideration. Organizations of all types are recognizing the value and importance ofusing their brands to improve performance and build deep relationships with their customers. The rea-son for this rush to branding is straightforward. With the proliferation of competitors and products andservices that are easily duplicated or replaceable, brands become an important means of simplifyingthe decision-making process for buyers. If managed properly, brands create difference, relevance andaffinity. Although a significant amount of literature on services deals with measuring or delivering cus-tomer satisfaction in library and information settings, but not much of it addresses the issue of brandingservices. Branding has yet to receive its due consideration in LIS (library and information services).

0167-5265/04/$17.00 2004 – IOS Press and the authors. All rights reserved

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2. Branding and its relevance in LIS

Within marketing, branding has a more specific meaning and is typically defined as “a name, term,sign, symbol, design or a combination of these, which is used to identify the goods or services of oneseller or group of sellers and to differentiate them from those of competitors” [5]. The process of brand-ing is generally seen to offer a range of perceived advantages and benefits for both buyers and sellers andincluding providing images and information on quality; offering recognition, reassurance, security andexclusivity; contributing to brand image and identity; market segmentation; the mutual development andstrengthening of trading relationships; and legal protection. While brands have long been close to theheart of marketing the principal focus has traditionally been on “product” rather than “services” brands.Until recently work on services brands and the branding of services seems to have attracted relativelyless attention in the LIS literature.

The evolution of branding and recognition that the brand is a personification of the total offering ofan organization or product and its value and contribution, to both the organization and the customer,makes it a key issue for library and information providing sector. The brand requires careful and judicialmanagement. The library is a brand. It carries all the associated issues from service quality and cost,through to positioning and growth; it is a real business issue, which requires senior management atten-tion. Branding the library can be used as a signal to the rest of the organization of a change in attitude, anew philosophy, and a different approach towards business.

As more libraries embark on providing their services externally, it is a concern to see weak librarystrategies, unclear understanding of competitive positioning, personal selling, marketing or even pricingservices. At the same time it is also worthwhile for libraries to pay more attention to satisfy their “internalcustomers” – the core business before focusing too heavily on external customers.

The timing behind such a move demands good business judgement, and a fine blend of marketingskill. Branding will be a critical success factor in the equation for success, making it a key issue forsenior library management as it is for general management.

Branding the library is not just a simple process of thinking up a good name and putting it on all yourlibrary’s literature. Effective branding calls for both “the science” and “the art” of marketing manage-ment. Those organizations, which ignore one aspect do so at their peril; branding demands a degree ofcreative spirit, underpinned by solid business practice.

The effective branding of the library is therefore a complex subject. However, there are some fun-damental steps that library directors should consider when both developing a brand for their libraries,managing it and of course positioning the brand or brand(s) within the organization or market place.

The first step is to establish the existing image and perception of the library. Surprisingly, even inthis day and age, there may be some libraries, which do not truly understand their image in the marketplace, and strength or weaknesses of their brand. Without this understanding, libraries will continue towaste money on advertising, direct mail, brochures and many other forms of marketing communicationas they arrogantly assume they know more than their customers, and assume they know what they think,but without the facts.

Thus, the following require to be established as a starting point [2]:

– The customer’s perception of the library;– The library’s attributes recognized by the customers;– Your own perception of the library;– What customer attributes you feel the library has to offer;

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– What attributes the customer(s) seeks;– The customer’s image preference.

This information is best captured through traditional market research techniques. Apart from quality andanonymity, a researcher will ensure you ask the right questions at the right time and ensure the resultsare interpreted correctly.

This, the first phase of a branding strategy, will provide the backbone for all future brand activities.The output will provide the information required regarding the existing positioning of the library versusthe various customer groupings it is serving; it presents a candid picture of the real image of the libraryand compares it to the ideal library/information services; it will highlight the top attributes sought bycustomers and how these compares with the library’s capabilities and indeed those which the libraryfeels are important. Brand/service mismatches will be highlighted as the customers compare the libraryimage with that of the different services delivered. Indeed, it is perhaps this final point that presents someof the strongest messages for the library as it finds that individual services are well regarded, yet overallimage of the library/brand is weak.

The weak brand loyalty clearly signifies quality problems of one form or another, satisfaction concernsand of course a propensity for change. All in all, this signals a weak library. From a positive standpoint,however satisfied customers indicate good quality service processes, which signify you have brand eq-uity, which in turn implies you have brand loyalty, which leads directly to future guaranteed business.Future guaranteed business is a corporate asset with a value and a corporate asset needs to be recognized,managed and positioned for competitive advantage.

Developing a brand name is another important part of the branding process. It can be approachedfrom several angles – from team brainstorming suitable names through to using external agencies toresearch and develop suitable names. The brand names can also be tested with customers to establishtheir understanding of its imagery, prior to any investment or positioning.

3. Marketing culture vis-à-vis branding

Every organization has some features, which makes its culture different from others. Day (1994)mentions in this respect the capabilities of market-driven organizations: market sensing, market relatingand strategic thinking as fundamental and very operational issues in defining and implementing marketorientation. These capabilities and conditions are linked to the underlying “values” of the company: itsculture. Webster [1] defines marketing culture as that component of a firm’s overall culture that refersto the pattern of shared values and beliefs that help employees understand and “feel” the marketing andthereby provide them with norms for behavior in the firm. It refers to the importance the firm as a wholeplaces on marketing and to the way in which marketing activities are executed in the firm.

Thus, by taking the lead from the above definitions, it can be said that marketing culture is a thinkingthat permeates in the whole environment of a library or information service organization which developsand uses its understanding of customer requirements to shape its activities and strategies to fulfill thesame on continual basis by sensitizing everyone in the system to ‘feel’ the marketing values from top tobottom. It refers to the key function of library managers for articulating a compelling “marketing” visionand making it “shared” throughout the entire activities of library and information services. Moreover,this is a philosophy that places customers and their needs at the heart of everything what the library does.In other words, marketing culture is nothing more than the recognizable core of the modern concept ofmarketing, whose basic elements are: “product” (observed through elements of “classic marketing”,

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and these are product policy, price policy, promotion policy and place policy), people who create theprocesses, which they manage, supervise and constantly upgrade (progress). This modern approach tomarketing implies that marketing culture is something, which can be managed. This is one of the basic“values” of a company which, just with any other basic value, must be actively managed [6]. Leadershipseems to be very important to formulate those values and “translate them into daily practices”. It is onlyvery recently that leadership issue has come up in research in marketing [3]. The marketing culture of alibrary or information providing organizations serves as a vehicle for making, nurturing and promotingits brand. Branding is the thing that does not work unless everyone believes in it and to make it happen,a right kind of marketing culture must be prevailed in the library. Customers must be the top priority andresponsibility of everyone working in library.

Branding can play a special role in information service organizations because strong brands increasecustomers’ trust of the invisible, enable them to better visualize and understand the intangible benefitsof the services which very much depend upon the employees’ actions and attitudes as services brandsare particularly different in that service characteristics are different from those of physical good. Thesedifferences revolve partly, at least around the fact that within a service profession the staff’s relationshipsand interactions with customers play a pivotal role in influencing brand quality and brand values. And,it is in this context that the role of marketing culture assumes paramount importance that further bringsin forefront the issue of leadership and the awareness of staff about marketing theories and practicesas brands just don’t reflect the products/services but also creation of images and expectations in theminds of the consumer and most importantly represent the organization’s promise to deliver consistentlya specific set of benefits and services.

4. A look at some online marketing efforts of Finnish libraries

At the moment, a doctoral research is being pursued by me that aims to investigate the marketingculture of Finnish libraries and seeks to understand the awareness of the knowledge base of librarymanagement about modern marketing theories and practices. The scope of the research is confined tothe different thirty-three academic and special libraries of south Finland. The research data has beencollected with the help of half-structured interviews (chief librarians) and questionnaires (users). As apart of research, besides other crucial issues, following questions were also asked that concerns with themarketing efforts of libraries’ websites and therefore comes into the purview of present paper:

– Do you think Internet is an effective tool for marketing of information products/services?– What is the main objective of the website of your library?– Which kinds of marketing goals are associated with the website, if any?– Do you attempt to build an online relationship with your customers? If yes, how?

The findings reveal that all the library directors consider Internet a very effective and potent tool formarketing of their products and services. The opinions vary about the objective of the website of theirlibraries, but all in all it indicates to make library, its facilities, databases, resources and services morevisible in the eyes of their users. Some of the comments are:

– It is portal of our services and we use it as user education tool.– Improve the customer service, [to provide] 24-hour customer service.– To give the knowledge [to customers] about the different units of the library, its location, staff, kinds

of services offered and contact details.

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– Dissemination of information.– Deep documentation of services and core functions, but it should be developed more. . .– To inform people about databases, services and collections and to tell how to access them.– It is an important gateway to libraries.

But, it was interesting to find out their comments when asked about the marketing goals associated withthe website:

– To inform people who use our library and services and make it easier for them to use.– Accessibility of information resources and information about library.– What’s new in library?– All marketing goals.– Making people aware about library to use its website for quick information, new information, old

information, contact information, and history, etc.– Giving information to the users about our services.– Too general [marketing goals].– Just giving information!

As it can be noticed from the above statements that they range from those who saw a great relationshipof marketing with their websites to those who were not satisfied with it and wish to improve and developmore their websites so that it could become more visible like other consumer brands. At the same time,among thirty per cent of the library directors, some said that no marketing goals were associated withthe website; and some couldn’t trace out the marketing goals associated with their websites. All the li-braries establish relationship via e-mails; but not all libraries have created a suggestion/complaint boxon their websites for getting online customers feedback; only one library was found which has devel-oped My Library concept and attempting to go more beyond it to satisfy customers’ information needsindividually based on the philosophy of customer relationship management; and some other libraries areseriously considering to move into the direction of My Library concept. The following comment of alibrary director reflects the importance of library’s website as a brand:

It is [library’s website] is like a visiting card that gives the picture of the library in first instance.

Another library director’s remark addresses the need to give more serious consideration to the issue ofbranding:

In general libraries enjoy a good reputation in society but branding of library is quite low. Eightyper cent of the population does not know about library’s all facilities and services. . . it is not veryeasy task. . .

5. Conclusion

The foregoing discussion reveals that there is an urgent need to address the issue of marketing culturein libraries if we want them to turn into the successful brands. Libraries need to put more efforts inmaking their website more attractive which could capture the customers’ attention. Branding is tied torelationships and perceptions. We must remember that one of our key successes lies in the interpersonalrelationships we form in our libraries; however the name of the organization does not reflect that fact.

Branding is not a black art, nor is it marketing jargon; it is about capturing and securing customersand, to do this effectively, the quality of the library’s work, its image across the organization or market

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place, and its ability to market its capabilities, are fundamental to success. In pursuing this approachtowards business, library directors must develop and nurture an appropriate marketing culture in theirlibraries to understand the meaning of their brand, how to manage the brand, how to measure their brandand, of course, how to position their brand in the “market”. The effective management of this processwill establish brand equity, and turn the library from a corporate overhead into a corporate asset. It is ahigh time for libraries to give more serious consideration to branding their business and its services.

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to my mentor Professor Mariam Ginman for her regular guidance and encouragement,to all library directors and users for their time and discussion. I also wish to give special thanks toIrja Laamanen, Director, Information Service Centre of Finnish Occupational Health, Helsinki, whoinformed me about this conference.

References

[1] C. Webster, Marketing culture and marketing effectiveness in service firms, Journal of Services Marketing 9(2) (1995),6–21.

[2] G. Melville, From DP department to EDS – it is time for IT departments to consider branding, Managing Service Quality5(6) (1995), 6–8.

[3] H. Kasper, Culture and leadership in market-oriented service organizations, European Journal of Marketing 36(1/2) (2002),1047–1057.

[4] P. Doyle, Marketing Management and Strategy, Prentice-Hall, London, 1998, p. 165.[5] P. Kotler, G. Armstrong, J. Saunders and V. Wong, Principles of Marketing, Prentice-Hall, Hemel Hempstead, 1999, p. 571.[6] T. Vranesevic, C. Vignali and D. Vignali, Culture in defining consumer satisfaction in marketing, European Business Review

14(5) (2002), 364–374.

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