What is Branding: Finding Differences Between Theory and Practice

The paper revolves around finding differences between theoretical material about branding, opinions of experts in branding and consumers - the people for whom the branding was created. To see a full image of the definition of branding, it is vital to study it from different aspects and perspectives. The study aims to foremost find the gap between branding in practice and theory and as a result define an ultimate combined opinion on the definition of branding or prove that the beforementioned combined definition cannot be verbalized. The main part is based on the theoretical framework, including the marketing basics in relation to customer needs, the description of the value of the brand, approaches to branding, tools and methods of branding. In addition, the process of building brand equity is explained. The theoretical framework is based on academic literature written by recognized authors in the marketing sphere: study guides for marketing students on bachelor’s or master's level,, scientific journals and research papers, as well as recognized web sources. The study is based on qualitative research using the qualitative method: in-depth interviews separately with experts in the field of branding and also targeted to consumers (non-experts) explaining the concepts corresponding to the theoretical framework part. The research objectives have been met and explained in the concluding part of the thesis. The results of the literature review and the conducted in-depth interviews, as well as comparison of theory versus interview results are provided