Chapter 11 Designing and Implementing Brand Architecture Strategies

brand awareness

Improve consumer understanding and communicate similarity and differences between individual products and services.

Family Brand

also called a range brand or umbrella brand, is used in more than one product category but is not necessarily the name of the company or corporation

Brand portfolio

includes all brands sold by a company in a product category. We judge a brand portfolio by its ability to maximize brand equity: Any one brand in the portfolio should not harm or decrease the equity of the others

Corporate or Company Brand level

interchangeably, recognizing that consumers may not necessarily draw a distinction between the two or know that corporations may subsume multiple companies.

principle of clarity

logic and relationship of all brand elements employed must be obvious and transparent

Brand potential: Brand Vision

management's view of the brand's long-term potential. It is influenced by how well the firm is able to recognize the current and possible future brand equity.

brand hierarchy

means of graphically portraying a firm's branding strategy by displaying the number and nature of common and distinctive brand elements across the firm's products, revealing their explicit ordering. It's based on the realization that we can brand a product in different ways depending on how many new and existing brand elements we use and how we combine them for any one product.

Modifier

means to designate a specific item or model type or a particular version or configuration of the product

Levels of Brand Hierarchy

1. Corporate or company brand (General Motors) 2 2. Family brand (Buick) 3. Individual brand (Regal) 4. Modifier (designating item or model) (GS) 5. Product description (midsize luxury sport sedan automobile)

Brand Potential: Brand boundaries

Based on the brand vision and positioning—identifying the products or services the brand should offer, the benefits it should supply, and the needs it should satisfy.

Brand architecture strategy: Defining Brand Potential Step 1

By considering three important characteristics: (1) the brand vision, (2) the brand boundaries, and (3) the brand positioning.

Flankers

Certain brands act as protective brands, The purpose typically is to create stronger points-of-parity with competitors' brands so that more important (and more profitable) flagship brands can retain their desired positioning

Brand Architecture Strategy: Branding New Products and Services Step 3

Decide on the specific brand elements to use for any particular new product or service associated with the brand. New products and services must be branded in a way to maximize the brand's overall clarity and understanding to consumers and customers. What names, looks, and other branding elements are to be applied to the new and existing products for any one brand?

Brand Architecture Strategy: Identifying Brand Extension Opportunities Step 2

Identify new products and services to achieve that potential through a well-designed and implemented brand extension strategy.

Low-End, Entry-Level or High-End, Prestige Brands

Many brands introduce line extensions or brand variants in a certain product category that vary in price and quality. These sub-brands leverage associations from other brands while distinguishing themselves on price and quality

improve brand image

Maximize transfer of equity between the brand and individual products and services to improve trial and repeat purchase.

category extensions

New product introductions outside existing categories

Line Extension

New product introductions within existing categories

Cash Cows

Some brands may be kept around despite dwindling sales because they still manage to hold on to a sufficient number of customers and maintain their profitability with virtually no marketing support

Brand Potential: Brand Positioning

Specificity into a brand vision, (1) competitive frame of reference, (2) points-of-difference, (3) points-of-parity, and (4) brand mantra

principle of relevance

create global associations that are relevant across as many individual items as possible

Corporate brand equity

differential response by consumers, customers, employees, other firms, or any relevant constituency to the words, actions, communications, products, or services provided by an identified corporate brand entity. In other words, positive corporate brand equity occurs when a relevant constituency responds more favourably to a corporate ad campaign, a corporate-branded product or service, a corporate-issued PR release, and so on than if the same offering were attributed to an unknown or fictitious company.

Product description

helps consumers understand what the product is and does and also helps define the relevant competition in consumers' minds.

Brand architecture strategy

helps marketers determine which products and services to introduce, and which brand names, logos, symbols, and so forth to apply to new and existing products.

Individual Brand

restricted to essentially one product category, although multiple product types may differ on the basis of model, package size, flavor, and so forth

principle of commonality

the more common elements shared by products, the stronger the linkages

principle of prominence

the prominence of brand elects affects perceptions of product distance and the type of image created for new products