Companies spend millions on it, even though it doesn't sell a specific product. 

Consumers may not even know what it is. 

So, what is it? Brand advertising. 

Establishing a brand name and selling it to the public used to be the domain of laundry detergent makers and soda companies. But branding isn't just about consumer products anymore. 

Faced with increased competition, a variety of Connecticut companies - including those in such staid businesses as banking and insurance - are spending millions to establish their own brand identities. 

Estimates aren't readily available on the size of the brand advertising market. But a single large company can spend plenty on brand advertising, said Naseem Javed, president of ABC Namebank International, a New York City -based business that specializes in branding, particularly as it relates to creating names for new companies. 

"If you're a billion-dollar company, you can easily spend $10 million on establishing that name in people's minds," he said. 

The money spent on branding campaigns is in addition to what a company spends to establish its name in the first place. 

If a company hires a firm like ABC Namebank International to select a name, it can cost as much as $150,000, Javed said. 

The brand advertising market is lucrative enough for Greenwich-based Clarion Marketing to have recently established its own branding division.  Clarion Brand Communications' staff of 50 represents 25 percent of the parent company's total work force. 

Waterbury-based Webster Bank launched its current multimillion-dollar corporate branding campaign with a great flourish last month. The campaign, which relies heavily on television commercials, debuted during the Academy Awards broadcast on WTNH-TV. 

The average consumer is probably hard-pressed to tell the difference between a branding campaign and other types of advertising, such as product- focused promotions. 

"It's difficult for people to relate to because it deals with intangibles," Javed said of brand advertising. "People can relate to a Nike commercial because that's something you can step into, run around in and take home." 

Branding "talks about what a company is, what it does and what that means to the consumer," said Clarion Brand Communications managing director Dave Quincy. 

A good branding campaign makes a company's sales force more effective, Quincy said. 

"Without a branding campaign, if a company wants to penetrate new markets, the sales force is going to spend 30 to 50 percent of their time explaining what their company does," he said. 

Branding campaigns often carry a slogan. For Webster Bank's current campaign, the slogan is, "Webster Bank. The simpler. The better." 

One goal of Webster's branding campaign is to make the bank's name stand out in the crowded field of financial services companies, said Margaret Steeves, Webster's vice president of marketing services. 

"The whole idea is that you want your advertising to pop out of the clutter," Steeves said. 

Banks and financial services companies are battling for a bigger share of each other's markets. But at the same time, focus groups have shown that "banking is a very low interest category with people," Quincy said. 

"There's a lot of inertia when it comes to switching banks," he said. "Something really bad has to happen for someone to switch." 

The lofty, ivory-tower image that many financial services companies have with the public is also a hurdle Webster officials want to clear with the commercials, said Jeffrey Brown, Webster's executive vice president for marketing and communications. 

"We're trying to put a personality to the Webster brand," he said. "People have to know that their bank is approachable. One of the things we're trying to communicate is that we know what you're up against in everyday life." 

PSK Advertising - the Boston-based agency hired to develop the Webster campaign - has tried to make the bank stand out by using brief and simple commercials. Several of the commercials are only 10 seconds in length and feature simple visuals, said Amy Swearingen, who is in charge of strategic planning and business development for PSK. 

One such advertisement begins with the words "Simplified Banking" on a gold background. The voice-over announcer for the commercial says: "Simplifed banking means quicker loan approvals. And, of course, quicker commercials. Webster Bank. The simpler. The better." 

The brevity of that particular commercial emphasizes that Webster "isn't going to waste anybody's time," said Woody Kay, president and executive creative director for PSK. 

"Time in this age is a valuable commodity ," Kay said. 

Banks are among the last businesses to use sophisticated brand advertising campaigns because the culture within the industry has been "old-fashioned, conservative and reluctant to change," Javed said. 

"But now banking has become a cutthroat business," Javed said. "Now, it's not any different than selling soda pop. They're being pressured to offer a clearer identity because they have so many products to offer and there are so many companies that offer them." 

Repetition of a company's corporate branding campaign is key if it is to succeed, Quincy said. 

"You have to talk louder than the next guy, and if the message isn't delivered with frequency, it's not going to penetrate," he said. 

The Webster commercials are airing five times a day, 35 times a week during a 26-week run on Connecticut's major television stations, said George Mahrlig, a partner in Media First International, the New York City-based media planner and buyer that booked the air time for the spots.  If the Webster campaign had been done on a national level with the same frequency, the cost would have been $50 million, Mahrlig said. 

Brown would not say exactly what Webster's branding campaign costs, but said that the figure is "several million dollars." 

But even tremendous repetition won't make a branding campaign effective if the commercials make claims that a company can't support with its performance, Quincy said. 

"It's not good enough just to make an ad and tell people you're something that you're not," he said. "It's about focusing all the resources of a company in a certain direction." 

Focus groups done in preparation for the Webster campaign showed that people who are already customers recognize the bank has simplified the way it interacts with customers, Brown said. 

While some companies spend substantial sums on branding campaigns, persuading a company to undertake one can be difficult for an advertising agency, Quincy said. 

"It's not like these companies are dying to spend marketing dollars on this because the results aren't overnight," he said. "This is something you can't convince a company to do unless they see the need themselves."

The End