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Successful marketers must excel in strategic brand management. The strategic brand management process has four steps:

1.Identifying and establishing brand positioning

2.Planning and implementing brand marketing

3.Measuring and interpreting brand performance

4.Growing and sustaining brand value deals with brand positioning.

The American Marketing Association defines a brand as “a name… from those of competitors.”

A brand is thus a product or service whose dimensions differentiate it in some way from other products or services designed to satisfy the same need. These differences may be functional, rational, or tangible—related to product performance of the brand. They may also be more symbolic, emotional, or intangible—related to what the brand represents or means in a more abstract sense.

Medieval guilds require that craftspeople put trademarks on their products to protect themselves and their customers against inferior quality. In the fine arts, artists sign their works. 

By being able to identify a product to a manufacturer, consumers can determine the products relative performance. The ability to evaluate a product based on its functional merits, the use of branding allows the consumer to build connections and develop loyalty.

A firm has a variety of benefits from branding its products. Branding can be a powerful means to secure a competitive advantage. Sometimes marketers don’t see the real importance of brand loyalty until they change a crucial element of the brand, as the now-classic tale of New Coke illustrates.

Branding effects are pervasive. In one study, preschoolers felt identical McDonald’s food items—even carrots, milk, and apple juice—tasted better when wrapped in McDonald’s familiar packaging than in unmarked wrappers.

Branding is endowing products and services with the power of a brand. Its about creating differences between products.

Ultimately though, a brand resides in the minds of consumers.

Brand equity is the added value endowed on products and services. It may be reflected in the way consumers think, feel, and act with respect to the brand, as well as in the prices, market share, and profitability the brand commands.

Customer-based brand equity is the differential effect brand knowledge has on consumer response to the marketing of the brand. Can be positive and negative. Three key ingredients of customer-based brand equity are:

1.Brand equity arises from differences in consumer response.

2.Differences in response are a result of consumers’ brand knowledge (thoughts, feelings, images, experiences, and beliefs).

3.Reflected in perceptions, preferences, and behavior related to the marketing of a brand.

A brand promise is the marketers vision of what the brand must be and do for consumers. Customers will decide, based on what they think and feel about the brand, if they will accept any marketing action or program.

Next we’ll introduce three more-established models that offer some differing perspectives on brand equity.

BrandAsset Valuator (BAV) compares the brand equity of thousands of brands across hundreds of different categories. There are four key components of brand equity, according to BAV (see Figure 9.1):

•Energized differentiation measures the degree to which a brand is seen as different from others, and its perceived momentum and leadership.

•Relevance measures the appropriateness and breadth of a brand’s appeal.

•Esteem measures perceptions of quality and loyalty, or how well the brand is regarded and respected.

•Knowledge measures how aware and familiar consumers are with the brand.

Based on the BrandAsset Valuator Model, a brand’s “pillar pattern” reveals much about a brand’s current and future status. Energized brand strength and brand stature combine to form the power grid, depicting stages in the cycle of brand development in successive quadrants (see Figure 9.2). Strong new brands show higher levels of differentiation and energy than relevance, whereas both esteem and knowledge are lower still. Leadership brands show high levels on all pillars. Finally, declining brands show high knowledge—evidence of past performance— a lower level of esteem, and even lower relevance, energy, and differentiation.

At the heart of BrandZ model of brand strength is the BrandDynamics pyramid. According to this model, brand building follows a series of steps (see Figure 9.3). For any one brand, each person interviewed is assigned to one level of the pyramid depending on their responses to a set of questions. The BrandDynamics Pyramid shows the number of consumers who have reached each level.

•Bonding. Rational and emotional attachments to the brand to the exclusion of most other brands

•Advantage. Belief that the brand has an emotional or rational advantage over other brands in the category

•Performance. Belief that it delivers acceptable product performance and is on the consumer’s short-list

•Relevance. Relevance to consumer’s needs, in the right price range or in the consideration set

•Presence. Active familiarity based on past trial, saliency, or knowledge of brand promise

The brand resonance model views brand building as an ascending series of steps, from bottom to top:

1.ensuring customers identify the brand and associate it with a specific product class or need

2.firmly establishing the brand meaning in customers’ minds by strategically linking a host of tangible and intangible brand associations

3. eliciting the proper customer responses in terms of brand-related judgment and feelings

4.converting customers’ brand response to an intense, active loyalty.

According to this model, enacting the four steps means establishing a pyramid of six “brand building blocks” as illustrated in Figure 9.4. The model emphasizes the duality of brands—the rational route to brand building is on the left side of the pyramid and the emotional route is on the right side.

Brand equity is developed by creating the right brand knowledge structures with the right consumers. Depends on all brand-related contact with these customers, whether marketer-initiated or not. The three main brand equity drivers are:

1.Initial choice of brand elements – brand name, URL, logos, symbols, characters, spokespeople, slogans, jingles, packages, and signage.

2.Marketing Activities - Product and service and all accompanying marketing activities and supporting programs.

3.Secondary Associations - indirectly transferring the brand by linking it to some other entity, such as a person, place, or thing.

Brand elements are devices, which can be trademarked, that identify and differentiate the brand. Most strong brands employ multiple brand elements. Nike has the distinctive “swoosh” logo, the empowering “Just Do It” slogan, and the “Nike” name from the Greek winged goddess of victory.

Marketers must select brand elements that allow for brand building. To do so, brand elements should be memorable, meaningful, and likable. Brand elements must also be defendable that help leverage and preserve brand equity against challenges. To do  so marketers must ensure that brand elements are also transferable, adaptable, and protectable.

Good brand elements play a role in brand-building. For low involvement products, good which are purchased often and with little thought, brand elements should be easy to recall, descriptive, and persuasive. The Keebler elves reinforce home-style baking and a sense of magic and fun.

Likable brand elements, such as a slogan or character, can lead to increased awareness and can capture intangible characteristics.

Brands are not built by advertising alone. Customers learn about brands from a variety of contacts and touch points: Personal observation and use, word of mouth, interactions with company personnel, online or telephone experiences, and payment transactions.

Brand Contact – Any information0bearing experience, whether positive or negative, a customer or prospect has with the brand, its product category, or its market.

Integrated marketing is about mixing and matching these marketing activities to maximize their individual and collective effects. To achieve it, marketers need a variety of different marketing activities that consistently reinforce the brand promise. The Olive Garden has become the second- largest casual dining restaurant chain in the United States, with more than $3 billion in sales in 2010 from its more than 700 North American restaurants, in part through establishing a fully integrated marketing program.

Brands can often build brand equity by borrowing it from others. They can link their brand to other information contained in customers memories. Figure 9.5 (next slide) outlines how consumers gain brand knowledge from secondary sources.

These “secondary” brand associations can link the brand to sources, such as the company itself (through branding strategies), to countries or other geographical regions (through identification of product origin), and to channels of distribution (through channel strategy); as well as to other brands (through ingredient or co-branding), characters (through licensing), spokespeople (through endorsements), sporting or cultural events (through sponsorship), or some other third party sources (through awards or reviews).

Marketers must now “walk the walk” to deliver the brand promise. They must adopt an internal perspective to be sure employees and marketing partners appreciate and understand basic branding notions and how they can help—or hurt—brand equity.

Internal branding consists of activities and processes that help inform and inspire Employees. Brand bonding occurs when customers experience the company as delivering on its brand promise. All the customers’ contacts with company employees and communications must be positive. The brand promise will not be delivered unless everyone in the company lives the brand. Disney is so successful at internal branding that it holds seminars on the “Disney Style” for employees from other companies.

A brand community is a specialized community of consumers and employees whose identification and activities focus around the brand. Three characteristics identify brand communities.

1.Connection to the brand, company, product, or other community members.

2.Shared rituals, stories, and traditions that help to convey the meaning of the community,

3.Shared moral responsibility or duty to both the community and to individual community members.

Indirect approach assesses potential sources of brand equity by identifying and tracking consumer brand knowledge structures.

Direct approach assesses the actual impact of brand knowledge on consumer response to different aspects of the marketing.

Marketers need to fully understand (1) the sources of brand equity and how they affect outcomes of interest, and (2) how these sources and outcomes change, if at all, over time.

The Brand Value Chain in the next slide shows how to link the two approaches

The brand value chain is a structured approach to assessing the sources and outcomes of brand equity and the way marketing activities create brand value (Figure 9.6).

First, firm targets actual or potential customers by investing in a marketing program to develop the brand.

Next, assume customers’ mind-sets, buying behavior, and response to price will change as a result of the marketing program; the question is how.

Finally, the investment community will consider market performance, replacement cost, and purchase price in acquisitions (among other factors) to assess shareholder value in general and the value of a brand in particular.

Three multipliers moderate the transfer between the marketing program and the subsequent three value stages.

• The program multiplier determines the marketing program’s ability to affect the customer mind-set and is a function of the quality of the program investment.

• The customer multiplier determines the extent to which value created in the minds of customers affects market performance.

• The market multiplier determines the extent to which the value shown by the market performance of a brand is manifested in shareholder value.

Interbrand Brand Valuation  model estimate the dollar value of a brand. It defines brand value as the net present value of the future earnings that can be attributed to the brand alone. The firm believes marketing and financial analyses are equally important in determining the value of a brand. Its process follows five steps

Brand Reinforcement – consistently conveying the brand’s meaning in terms of: (1) What products it represents, what core benefits it supplies, and what needs it satisfies, and (2) how the brand makes products superior, and which strong, favorable, and unique brand associations should exist in consumers’ minds.

Brand Revitalization – First, understand what the sources of brand equity were to begin with. Are positive associations losing their strength or uniqueness? Have negative associations become linked to the brand? Second, decide whether to retain the same positioning or create a new one, and if so, which new one.

Branding strategy reflects the number and nature of both common and distinctive brand elements. 

A line extension uses the parent brand name in the product category currently being served.  For example, in the laundry detergent category, the Tide brand name is used with multiple line extension (Tide w/Bleach, w/Fabreze, etc).

The parent brand can also be used to reach into a new category. For example, the Parent brand Honda was used as the company entered separate categories (Lawn, snow blowers, marine, etc.).

Individual or separate family brand name: use different brand names for different quality lines within the same product class. Do not affect company reputation if a product fails. E.g., consumer packaged-goods

Corporate umbrella or company brand name: use corporate brand as an umbrella brand across entire range of products. Development costs are lower. Introduce new products with simplicity and achieve instant recognition. Can also lead to greater intangible value for the firm.

Sub-brand name: combine two or more of the corporate brand, family brand, or individual product brand names. Company name legitimizes, and the individual name individualizes, the new product.

House of Brands vs. a Branded House: two ends of a brand relationship continuum

•“house of brands” strategy: use of individual or separate family brand names

•“branded house” strategy: use of an corporate umbrella  or company brand name

•A sub-brand strategy falls somewhere between

Marketers introduce multiple brands in a category for many reasons:

1.Pursue multiple segments.

2.Increase shelf presence and retailer dependence

3.Attract consumers who seek variety

4.Increase internal competition

5.Gain economies of scale

Low-end Entry Level: a relatively low-priced brand in the portfolio can attract customers to the brand franchise. BMW’s 3 Series automobiles.

High-end Prestige: a relatively high-priced brand can add prestige and credibility to the entire portfolio. Chevolet’s Corvette sports car.

Flanker: brands are positioned with respect to competitors’ brands so that more important (and more profitable) flagship brands can retain their desired positioning. Anheuser-Busch’s Busch Bavarian, Intel’s Celeron.

Cash Cows: Companies capitalize on their reservoir of brand equity. Gillette’s older Trac II, Atra, Sensor, and Mach III.

80 – 90 percent of all new brands introduced are line extensions. One reason is that it is less expensive to introduce a line extension than it is to launch a new brand. Consumers are already familiar with the brand name.

Advantages:

•Improved odds of new-product success

•Positive feedback effects

Disadvantages:

•Brand dilution

•Brand confusion

•Damage to parent brand

•Cannibalization