This is the beginning of an online course for the American marketing and sales staff of a global medical devices company, shown here as XYZ.

Why learn about branding?

When a patient or influencer looks for a [medical device], what do they see? A bewildering crowd of products that differ only in small details. How can we make XYZ products stand out from the crowd? With a strong brand.

This course will explain how a brand works and how we can make the XYZ brand work for us. As we move to a more powerful branding position, we'll leave our competitors behind.

Your role is crucial

Every employee shapes our brand—it's not just a brand manager's job. No matter what job title you have, you affect our brand. Use this course to identify how you can strengthen both the XYZ brand and our market position.

Scenario: "Branding Schmanding"

"Branding is just another buzzword," long-time employee Pete Klein says. "We don't need to change a thing."

You're Pete's manager. In this module, you'll find ways to answer Pete's questions and learn how his view could change.

First, hear him out in this audio clip.

Clip plays: This branding thing is just the flavor of the week. No one can even tell me what a brand is. Just another tagline? Or do you mean something like Coke? We're not selling pop. We're selling medical devices. So why waste energy on a brand? We just need to keep making great products and showing people that they're great, and then they'll buy them.

Pete seems to have the following questions:

• What does "brand" mean?
• What's an example of a strong brand?
• Why is branding important in today's market?
• Why is our approach to the XYZ brand changing?