Marketing Ch. 11

The American Marketing Association defines a brand as

"a name, term, sign, symbol, or design, or a combination of them, intended to identify the goods or services of one seller or group of sellers and to differentiate them from those of competitors."

Brand audits measure

"where the brand has been," and tracking studies measure "where the brand is at now," and whether marketing programs are having the intended effects.

When a firm uses an established brand to introduce a new product, it is called a

brand extension.

The different components of a brand

brand names, logos, symbols, package designs, etc.—are brand elements.

Differentiation and relevance combine to determine

brand strength.

Esteem and knowledge combine to create

brand structure.

Research has shown that bonded consumers

build stronger relationships with the brand, and spend more of their category expenditures on the brand than those at lower levels of the pyramid.

brand contact

can be defined as any information-bearing experience a customer or prospect has with the brand, the product category, or the market that relates to the marketer's product or service.

Branding

can be seen as a powerful means to secure a competitive advantage To firms, brands thus represent enormously valuable pieces of legal property that can influence consumer behavior, be bought and sold, and provide the security of sustained future revenues to their owner.

If the parent brand is already associated with multiple products through brand extensions, then it may also be called a

family brand.

Brand judgments

focus on customers' own personal opinions and evaluations.

A branding strategy

for a firm identifies which brand elements a firm chooses to apply across the various products it sells.

Tracking studies

involve information collected from consumers on a routine basis over time and provide valuable tactical insights into the short-term effectiveness of marketing programs and activities.

From the perspective of the firm

it is necessary to understand exactly what product and services are currently being offered to consumers and how each are being marketing and branded.

If a firm launches extensions consumers deem inappropriate,

it may question the integrity and competence of the brand. Different varieties of line extensions may confuse and perhaps even frustrate consumers.

Consumers

learn about brands through past experiences with the product and its marketing program.

Brand equity should be defined in terms of

marketing effects uniquely attributable to a brand.

These differences

may be functional, rational, or tangible-related to the product performance of the brand. They may also be more symbolic, emotional, or intangible-related to what the brand represents.

brand building

memorable, meaningful, and likeable

A potential new product extension for a brand

must be judged by how effectively it leverages existing brand equity from the parent brand to the new product, as well as how effectively the extension, contributes to the equity of the parent brand.

Potential extensions

must be judged by how effectively they leverage existing brand equity to a new product, as well as how effectively the extension, in turn, contributes to the equity of the existing parent brand

Brand equity

needs to be distinguished from brand valuation that is the job of estimating the total financial value of the brand.

Brand equity

needs to be measured in order to be managed well.

Brand bonding

occurs when customers experience the company as delivering on its brand promise. The brand promise will not be delivered unless everyone in the company lives the brand.

licensed product

one whose brand name has been licensed to other manufacturers who actually make the product.

An existing brand that gives birth to a brand extension is referred to as the

parent brand.

Brands can

play a number of different roles within the brand portfolio. Brands may expand coverage, provide protection, extend an image, or fulfill a variety of other roles for the firm. Each brand name product must have a well-defined positioning. In that way, brands can maximize coverage and minimize overlap thus optimize the portfolio.

Brand loyalty

provides predictability and security of demand for the firm and creates barriers to entry for other firms.

Brand resonance

refers to the nature of the relationship that customers have with the brand and the extent to which customers feel that they are "in sync" with the brand. Resonance is characterized in terms of the intensity or depth of the psychological bond customers have with the brand, as well as the level of activity engendered by this loyalty.

A brand is

thus a product or service that adds dimensions that differentiate it in some way from other products or services designed to satisfy the same need.

defensive

transferable, adaptable, and protectable

Brands are

valuable intangible assets that need to be managed carefully

cannibalizing the parent brand.

will have resulted from consumers switching to the extension from existing product offerings of the parent brand-

When a firm introduces a new product, it has three main choices:

It can develop new brand elements for the new product. It can apply some of its existing brand elements. It can use a combination of new and existing brand elements.

Devising a Brand Strategy

The branding strategy for a firm reflects the number and nature of common and distinctive brand elements applied to the different products sold by the firm.

High-End Prestige

The role of a relatively high-priced brand in the brand family often is to add prestige and credibility to the entire portfolio.

Low-End Entry-Level

The role of a relatively low-price brand in the brand portfolio often may be as a means of attracting customers to the brand franchise.

The Scope Of Branding

A brand is a perceptual entity that is rooted in reality but reflects the perceptions and perhaps even the idiosyncrasies of consumers.

Brand elements

Brand elements should be easily recognized, recalled, inherently descriptive, and persuasive. Memorable or meaningful brand elements can reduce the burden on marketing communications to build awareness and link brand associations.

Advantages of brand extensions:

Brand extensions have two main advantages: Facilitate new product acceptance. Provide positive feedback to the parent brand and company.

Aaker sees brand identity as consisting of twelve dimensions organized around four perspectives:

Brand-as-product (product scope and attributes, quality/value, use, users, country of origin). Brand-as-organization (organizational attributes, local versus global). Brand-as-person (brand personality, brand-customer relationships). Brand-as-symbol (visual imagery/metaphors and brand heritage).

Building Brand Equity

Creating the right brand knowledge structures with the right consumers. There are three main sets of brand equity drivers:

Brand Asset Valuator (BAV). The four key components of brand equity according to BAV are:

Differentiation. Relevance. Esteem. Knowledge.

All brands have boundaries.

Any one brand is not viewed equally favorable by all the different market segments that the firm would like to target.

Name-research procedures include:

Association tests. Learning tests. Memory tests. Preference tests.

Defining Brand Equity

Brand equity arises from differences in consumer response. As a result of consumer's knowledge about the brand. The challenge for marketers is building a strong brand is in ensuring that customers have the right type of experiences with products and services and that their marketing programs create the desired brand knowledge structures for the brand.

These categories of brand assets are:

Brand loyalty. Brand awareness. Perceived quality. Brand associations. Other proprietary assets such a patents, trademarks, and channel relationships.

The Role of Brands

Brands identify the source or maker of a product and allow consumers to assign responsibility to a particular manufacturer or distributor.

Brand Revitalization

Changes in consumer tastes and preferences, the emergence of new competitors or new technology, or any new development in the marketing environment could potentially affect the fortunes of a brand.

Brand extensions improve the odds of new product success in a number of ways:

Consumers can make inferences and form expectations as to the likely composition and performance of a new product based on what they already know about the parent brand itself. Extensions reduce risk. Extension can result in reduced costs of the introductory launch campaign. They can avoid the difficulty of coming up with a new name. Extensions allow for packaging and labeling efficiencies.

Aaker also conceptualizes brand identity as including a core and an extended identity.

Core identity—the central, timeless essence of the brand. Extended identity—includes various brand identity elements, organized into cohesive and meaningful groups.

Aaker Model

David Aaker views brand equity as a set of five categories of brand assets and liabilities linked to a brand that add to or subtract from the value provided by a product or service to a firm and/or to that firm's customers.

Brand Resonance

Enduring identification of the brand with customers and an association of the brand in customers' minds with a specific product class or customer need. Firmly establishing the totality of brand meaning in the minds of customers by strategically linking a host of tangible and intangible brand associations.

The strategic brand management process involves four main steps:

Identifying and establishing brand positioning. Planning and implementing brand marketing. Measuring and interpreting brand performance. Growing and sustaining brand value.

Brand Names

Individual names Blanket family names Separate family names for all products Corporate name combined with individual product names

"line-extension trap."

Line extensions may cause the brand name to not be as strongly identified with any one product:

Integration

Marketers need a variety of different marketing activities that reinforce the brand promise. Integration is especially critical with marketing communications.

Brand Crisis

Marketing managers must assume that at some point in time, some kind of brand crisis will arise.

brand elements

Memorable. Meaningful. Likeability. Transferable. Adaptable. Protectable.

Customers come to know a brand through a range of contacts and touch points:

Personal observations. Personal use. Word of mouth. Interactions with company personnel. On-line or telephone experiences. Payment transactions.

Brand strength and brand structure can be combined to form a

Powergrid that depicts the stages in the cycle of brand development in successive quadrants.

Brandz: each step is contingent upon successfully accomplishing the previous step.

Presence. Relevance. Performance. Advantage. Bonding.

Cash Cows

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

Building brand equity depends on three factors:

The initial choices for the brand elements or identities making up the brand; The way the brand is integrated into the supporting marketing programs; The associations indirectly transferred to the brand by linking the brand to some other entity (e.g., the company, country of origin, channel of distribution, or another brand).

A powerful brand element is slogans.

They are extremely efficient to build brand equity. They help consumers grasp what the brand is and what makes it special

Choosing Brand Elements

Trademarkable devices that serve to identify and differentiate the brand. Brand elements can be chosen to build as much brand equity as possible. The test of the brand-building ability of these elements is what consumers would think or feel about the product if they only knew about the brand element.

A brand is essentially

a marketer's promise to deliver predictable product or service performance. Brand promise is the marketer's vision of what the brand must be and do for consumers. Understanding consumer brand knowledge is thus of paramount importance because it is the foundation of brand equity.

A brand is

a name, term, sign, symbol, or design, or some combination of these elements, intended to identify the goods and services of one seller or group of sellers and to differentiate them from those of competitors.

Brands offer

a number of benefits to customers and the firms.

According to Aaker

a particularly important concept is brand identity, the unique set of brand associations that represent what the brand stands for and promises to customers.

Brand feelings

are customers' emotional responses and reactions with respect to the brand.

Brand audits

are in-depth examinations of the health of a brand and can be used to set strategic direction for the brand.

Flanker or "fighter" brands

are positioned with respect to competitors' brands so that more important (and more profitable) flagship brands can retain their desired positioning.

Measuring Brand Equity An indirect approach

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

Measuring Brand Equity a direct approach

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

Brand extensions

can help clarify the meaning of a brand and its core brand values or improve consumer perceptions of the credibility of the company behind the extension.

Tracking studies

collect information from consumers on a routine basis over time.

For branding strategies to be successful and brand value to be created,

consumers must be convinced that there are meaningful differences among brands in the product or service category.

A brand is said to have negative customer-based equity if

consumers react less favorable to marketing activity for the brand under the same circumstances.

A brand is said to have positive customer-based brand equity when

consumers. react more favorable to a product and the way it is marketed when the brand is identified as compared to when it is not.

Branding involves

creating mental structures and helping consumers organize their knowledge about products and services in a way that clarifies their decision-making and provides value to the firm.

Brand imagery

deals with the extrinsic properties of the product or service, including the ways in which the brand attempts to meet customers' psychological or social needs.

Strategic brand management

involves the design and implementation of marketing activities and programs to build, measure, and manage brands to maximize their value.

A brand audit

is a consumer-focused exercise that involves a series of procedures to assess the health of the brand, uncover its sources of brand equity, and suggest ways to improve and leverage its equity.

At the heart of a successful brand

is a great product or service, backed by creatively designed and executed marketing. Perhaps the most distinctive shill of professional marketers is their ability to create, maintain, enhance, and protect brands.

Personalizing marketing

is about making sure that the brand and its marketing is as relevant as possible to as many customers as possible.

Internal branding

is activities and processes that help to inform and inspire employees.

Branding

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

The brand exploratory

is research activity conducted to understand what consumers think and feel about the brand and its corresponding product category to identify sources of brand equity. Several preliminary activities are useful for the brand exploratory.

The key to branding

is that consumer must not think that all brands in the category are the same.

The key to branding

is that consumers perceive differences among brands in a product category.

Brand awareness

is the consumers' ability to identify the brand under different conditions, as reflected by their brand recognition or recall performance.

Brand image

is the perceptions and beliefs held by consumers, as reflected in the associations held in consumer memory.

The brand portfolio

is the set of all brands and brand lines a particular form offers for sale to buyers in a particular category.

The purpose of the brand inventory

is to provide a current, comprehensive profile of how all the products and services sold by a company are marketed and branded.

From the perspective of the consumer

it is necessary to dig deeply into the minds of consumers and uncover the true meaning of brands and products.

To brand a product

it is necessary to teach consumers "who" the product is, "what" the product does, and "why" consumers should care.

Brand salience

relates to how often and easily the brand is evoked under various purchase or consumption situations.

Brand performance

relates to how the product or service meets customers' functional needs

branded variants

specific brand lines supplied to specific retailers or distribution channels.

When a new brand is combined with an existing brand, the brand extension can also be called a

sub-brand.