The brand management process consists 5 steps which are: market analysis, brand situation analysis, targeted positioning, testing the new opportunities, and evaluation. In order to make a successful online education programme brand, all these steps must be carried out and the programme must be positioned positively in the consumers’ minds. In order to create a successful brand of online education programme, the programme should follow the brand management stages for placing a positive meaning on the consumer mindset.
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The brand concept has been evaluated in a two different ways which are consumer stage and company stage. A traditional definition of a brand was: “the name, associated with one or more items in the product line that is used to identify the source of character of the item” (Kotler, 2000: 396). According to the American Marketing Association (AMA), a brand is “a name, term, sign, symbol or design, or a combination of them intended to identify the goods and services of one seller or group of sellers and to differentiate them from those of competitors” (Schroeder, et al, 2006: 804). Once the brand concept has been evaluated according to consumer stage, it has been seen that the brand “is a set of mental associations held by consumer which add to the perceived value or service” (Kapferer, 2004: 10).
In this context, the online education programs who wants to be strong brand in the market which are in the heavy competition environment has to have a strong name, a logo, a symbol; with another words must have strong brand components to be in the market.
Brand concept definition has been identified in different ways and stages as declared before to find out following general definition and basics by considering the results of more than hindered studies which are in the brand literature to make all these different definitions for a single part and unique. In the following Table 1 shows that the basics of brand by betraying and taking lots of studies which are covering brand definitions. In these basic contexts, the necessity of taking trademark for the online education program brand could be mentioned. An online education program that has its own trademark could have also its intellectual property.
Table 1. The Fundamentals of Brand Structure
| Definition of Brand | Fundamentals |
| 1. Legal instrument | Ownership sign. Name, Logo, design “Trademark”. |
| 2. Logo | Name, term, sign, symbol, design, product characteristic |
| 3.Company | Well-known company name and image. Culture, people, organization program, corporate identity definition. |
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| 4. Risk depresser | Subject to the trust to meet expectations. |
| 5. Identity System | The stages build in complete concept away from a name. |
| 6. Image | Consumer centered. The brad realization in the consumer mind |
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| 7. Value System | Consumer values area reflex of brand |
| 8. Personality | Psychological value, brand personality which described by advertisement and package |
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| 9. Relation | Consumer has a policy towards to the brand. Brand has a policy towards to consumer just like a human. |
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| 10. Something which evolves | In the process of development |
Source: “Defining A Brand: Beyond The Literature With Experts Interpretations” cited in Uztuğ. F. Markan Kadar Konuş: Marka İletişim Stratejileri [In Enlşish title, please], Mediacat, 2003.