CH.4/ Lecture #4: CHOOSING BRAND ELEMENTS TO BUILD BRAND EQUITY

Experiential Names (type of brand name)

▪ These names are like positioning statements. These are names that map to the experience of using a product or service, or to what a company does, or to an aspect of human experience. Ex: Caterpillar, Virgin, Oracle

Five Characteristics to Test Your Brand Name

▪Distinctive: How does the name stand out amongst the competition? ▪ Sound: Say the name out loud. How does it sound? Is it easy to say? Is it poetic? ▪ Stickiness: Is the name easy to remember? How many times do you have to hear it before you remember it? ▪ Expression: Does the name demonstrate what your brand is all about? Does it fit your brand's personality? ▪ Appearance: What does the word look like in print? Does it look as good as it sounds?

Four types of Brand Names

-Descriptive Name -Acronyms -Invented Names -Experiential Names

Types of Brand Elements

-brand names -URLs -logos and symbols -characters -slogans -jingles -packaging

Transferability (Criteria for Choosing Brand Elements)

-is the extent to which brand elements can add brand equity to new products of the brand in the line extensions. -Another point, a marketer needs to keep in mind is that the brand element should be able to add brand equity across geographical boundaries and market segments. ▪How useful is the brand element for line or category extensions? EX: brand names like "Apple", "Blackberry" represent fruits the world over, thus as a brand name it doesn't restrict brands and product extensions.

Criteria for Choosing Brand Elements

1. Memorable 2. Meaningful 3. Likable 4. Transferable 5. Adaptable 6. Protectable

choosing a positioning statement

1. identify competitive advantages 2. choose right competitive advantages 3. articulate overall positioning strategy Ex: For upscale American families who think road traffic safety is important, Volvo is the family automobile that offers maximum protection.

Acronyms (type of brand name)

An abbreviation formed from the initial letters of other words and pronounced as a word ▪Quick to say, easy to remember, and easier to trademark. ▪ Lack a soul. ▪ Not much meaning. Grouping of letters. EX: ▪ AFLAC American Family Life Assurance Company ▪ GEICO Government Employees Insurance Company.

Positioning

Arranging for a product to occupy a clear, distinctive, and desirable place relative to competing products in the minds of target consumers

Brand Naming Guidelines

Brand Awareness ▪Simplicity and ease of pronunciation and spelling ▪ Familiarity and meaningfulness ▪ Differentiated, distinctive, and uniqueness Brand Associations ▪ The explicit and implicit meanings consumers extract from it are important. In particular, the brand name can reinforce an important attribute or benefit association that makes up its product positioning.

Meaningfulness (Criteria for Choosing Brand Elements)

Brand elements may take on all kinds of meaning, with either descriptive or persuasive content. ▪ General information about the nature of the product category ▪ Specific information about particular attributes and benefits of the brand EX: Activia, digestive help was their meaningfulness angle

Slogans

Clever sayings that are easily remembered and the meanings are rarely challenged *are short phrases that communicate descriptive or persuasive information about the brand. *powerful branding devices because, like brand names, they are an extremely efficient, shorthand means to build brand equity EX: "I'm Loving It"

Likability (Criteria for Choosing Brand Elements)

Do customers find the brand element aesthetically appealing? -the level to which the audience perceives the speaker as pleasing and enjoyable EX: Frozen fish food brand changing their man on packaging from an older man to a hotter younger man in order to increase likability

Protectability

Marketers should: 1. Choose brand elements that can be legally protected internationally 2. Formally register chosen brand elements with the appropriate legal bodies 3. Vigorously defend trademarks from unauthorized competitive infringement

Packaging Can Influence Taste

Our sense of taste and touch is very suggestible, and what we see on a package can lead us to taste what we think we are going to taste. EX: Figi Water vs. arrowhead water (we think figi will taste better even though they are both tap water)

Brand elements purpose

Purpose: ▪ Identify & differentiate the brand ▪ Helping to form strong, positive and unique brand associations ▪ should help enhance brand awareness (recognition and recall)

Packaging Can Influence Consumption

Studies of 48 different types of foods and personal care products have shown that people pour and consume between 18% and 32% more of a product as the size of the container doubles. EX: buy a normal size cereal it will last 5 days, buy a family size cereal (twice as big) but it will only last 7 days cause we consume more

Packaging Can Influence Value

long after we have bought a product, a package can still lead us to believe we bought it because it was a good value (EX: nice storage for spices everytime we look at it we think we got a good deal)

Logos and Symbols

▪ Play a critical role in building brand equity and especially brand awareness ▪ Logos range from corporate names or trademarks (word marks with text only) written in a distinctive form, to entirely abstract designs that may be completely unrelated to the word mark, corporate name, or corporate activities

Anthropomorphism

is the attribution of human traits, emotions, or intentions to non-human entities. EX: think of the sloth at the DMV clip

Jingles

original words and music written specifically for advertising executions - are perhaps most valuable in enhancing brand awareness.

Semiotics

the study of signs and symbols and their use or interpretation. ▪ is an investigation into how meaning is created and how meaning is communicated, how signs and symbols (visual and linguistic) create meaning.

Invented Names (type of brand name)

▪ Some of the most iconic brands are invented words: Kodak, Xerox, Acura, and Google. ▪ Created specifically to represent a brand.

Memorability (Criteria for Choosing Brand Elements)

the ability of an experience to remain an intense and enduring memory -Brand elements should inherently be memorable and attention-getting, and therefore facilitate recall or recognition.

Packaging

the activities of designing and producing the container or wrapper for a product Objectives: ▪ Identify the brand ▪ Convey descriptive and persuasive information ▪ Facilitate product transportation and protection ▪ Assist at-home storage ▪ Aid product consumption

Brand Names (types of brand elements)

the portion of brands that can be expressed orally, including letters, words, or numbers ▪ Captures the central theme or key associations of a product in a very compact and economical fashion ▪ Most difficult element for marketers to change ▪ Closely tied to the product in the minds of consumers Ex: Hydroflask

URLs

uniform resource locators, addresses of web pages -specify locations of pages on the web and are also commonly referred to as domain names.

Characters/Mascots

▪ A special type of brand symbol—one that takes on human or real-life characteristics EX: M&M characters

Descriptive Name (type of brand name)

▪ Indicates what the company, product, or service is or does. ▪ The pitfall of this is it can be constraining EX: PayPal, Toys R US, John Deere

Packaging Can Influence How a Person Uses a Product

▪One strategy to increase use of mature products has been to encourage people to use the brand in new situations, like soup for breakfast, or new uses, like baking soda as a refrigerator deodorizer. ▪ An analysis of 26 products and 402 consumers showed that twice as many people learned about the new use from the package than from television ads. EX:Baking soda has many uses but sells the same product in different packaging to encourage different uses (example fridge fresh container)

Adaptability (Criteria for Choosing Brand Elements)

▪The more adaptable and flexible the brand element, the easier it is to update it to changes in consumer values and opinions. ▪ For example, logos and characters can be given a new look or a new design to make them appear more modern and relevant. (For example, Coca -Cola has been updating it's logo over the years to keep up with the latest trends, fashions and opinions.) EX: Betty Crocker has changed their branding looking from the women to now just the spoon with "betty crocker" written on it