The Brand and its creation
“A brand can be defined as a specific name, symbol or design – or, more usually, some combination of these – that is used to distinguish a particular seller’s product”. Doyle et al. (2006, p.164)
Brands transform experiences and provide a difference. It carries a badge of recognition, trust and a promise of performance. Paul Feldwick as cited in (Ind, 2004).
Companies have different brand messages and the process is multi faceted as it is about different perceptions about the company which is created through press, interactions with people, the advertising, the layout of the website, the quality of the product and after sales services. (Ind, 2004). A company can have many branded products and still be relatively unknown to general consumer (like P&G). For e.g., Porsche was originally a group of five companies, but had only two major brands. This indicates that a company may have numerous product lines but its consumers and their perception towards it define a brand.
Definition of branding
“The brand is the property of the corporation (as trade marks, brands are intangible assets that are legally owned by companies to be bought, sold, invested in or milked to death as the formal owner sees fit). And itspurpose is to help the corporation achieve its goals, eg to maximize profits or shareholder value.” (Ind, 2003).Thus a brand has to evolve along with the company and grow with the aided and unaided consumer preferences (Kapferer, 2004).
Branding
Strong Brand recognition is not just created by advertising but it has to deliver the value simultaneously. Advertising would only shape up the perceptions about a particular product or service but the actual challenge is to deliver consistent value to the customers.
Brand is the “personality” of the company perceived in the consumer’s mind. To create a successful brand, a company needs to create awareness and the products needs to meet the functional needs of the customers. Advertisements and promotions will help to accomplish this to some extent, but creating a preference among the consumers is a difficult task. Many suppliers create awareness but may not be liked by large groups in the market. Therefore to be a successful brand it is important to also meet the psychological needs of the consumers. This adds value and builds confidence among people to desire a particular brand of product than the competitors. (Doyle, 2006)
Brand architecture strategy
Figure 2 The Brand Architecture (source: Kapferer ,2004)
Kapferer (2004) has defined six types of brand architecture strategies on the basis of the level brands and amount of freedom to define products and services. Product brand architecture is defined as the strategy to focus on a single product. Thus, it will have a distinct advantage of whole brand name for itself. For e.g. P&G have several products that are branded individually. On the other hand, Umbrella Brand architecture encompasses entire set of products under one brand name. Also, Source brand is similar to umbrella brand with one major distinction that in a source branding strategy, every product is a brand in itself. Although a Maker’s Mark architecture is very different in its approach as it focuses on branding products by its source manufacturer. But Endorsing brand use the benefit of endorsement as the emblem to promote the brand. (Kapferer ,2004)
Section 2: Brand positioning
“Positioning a brand means emphasizing the distinctive characteristics that make it different from its competitors and appealing to the public.” (Kapferer, 2004) It will help in streamlining all the marketing activities to focus on establishing its superiority in consumers mind. It will help to superimpose its association with consumer’s preference and in turn differentiate itself from the competitive products (Keller et al. 2002).
According to Kapferer (1997), positioning doesn’t confine a brand meaning and its actual potential. It merely answers to the consumer’s comparative analysis of similar products. It may boil down to following four questions:
- Why: It talks about the promises and benefits that a brand offers to its consumer.
- For whom: It describes the target segment of the brand.
- When: It refers to the occasions that would initiate the usage of brand.
- Against whom: It defines the main competitors of the brand that it may compete to acquire market share.
The following diagram would summaries these crucial questions regarding brad positioning:
Another very important tool for brand positioning is perceptual mapping in the market place (Jobber, 2001, Fill, 2002). Perceptual mapping is defined as the diagrammatic representation of consumer perceptions of the brand and its competitors in terms of pre-specified dimensions. These dimensions are shaped by the user preferences (Jobber, 2001). The four major steps for brand positioning, according to Aaker (1996), are determining the set of value prepositions, define target audience and then actively communicate their point of superiority. The pictorial representation of identification of a brand position and its future positioning opportunities is as follows:
Thus, Positioning is a two-step process. The first step is identification of target audience and major competitors in its target category. The second step involves communicating its point of competitive advantage in comparison to other brands in the same category (Kapferer, 1997).
Design and positioning statement
When a company decides to design its positioning strategies to streamline its marketing communications and brand attributes, it first needs to identify its brand meaning in its prospective consumer’s mind (Blythe, 2003). This means that consumers have their own set of perceptions towards any brand and the company should always take their consumer’s perception into account in order to design best positioning strategies. Theses in-depth analysis of consumer’s perception can lead the way to develop the positioning map or perceptual map for any competitive scenario (Kotler et al., 2001). These maps provide an aggregate view of complete segment highlighting the competitive positions of various market players (Hooley and Saunders, 1993).As pointed out by Blythe (2003), it must be mentioned that positions assigned to each brand “are based on average responses fromconsumers in the target groups.” There are two major frameworks for positioning:-
- According to De Pelsmacker et al (2007), the analysis of environment is mandatory to find out the desired position and feasibility of reaching that position. The framework to analyse this environment is based on 6 questions that assess the market position regarding actual and desired position, competitors, and available resources.
- Kapferer (2004) proposed more extensive framework that includes 10 questions that might as well help in verifying the usage of current strategies.
Let’s take the example the perceptual map of the American car market described as one of the first used perceptual map in marketing (Churchill, 1991).
Above map includes the major player in automotive industry of the American market. It shows the differentiation of all the major brands and how they affect the consumer’s perspective about the brand. This analysis could help to design the overall branding strategies of a brand. As shown above, Porsche scores high on the scale of consumer preference in terms of status, social class and sports brand.
Brand positioning of Porsche:
“Positioning a brand means emphasizing the distinctive characteristics that make it different from its competitors and appealing to the public.” (Kapferer, 2004) It will help in streamlining all the marketing activities to focus on establishing its superiority in consumers mind. It will help to superimpose its association with consumer’s preference and in turn differentiate itself from the competitive products (Keller et al. 2002).
According to Kapferer (1997), positioning doesn’t confine a brand meaning and its actual potential. It merely answers to the consumer’s comparative analysis of similar products. It may boil down to following four questions:
- Why: It talks about the promises and benefits that a brand offers to its consumer.
- For whom: It describes the target segment of the brand.
- When: It refers to the occasions that would initiate the usage of brand.
- Against whom: It defines the main competitors of the brand that it may compete to acquire market share.
The following diagram would summaries these crucial questions regarding brad positioning:
positioning is perceptual mapping in the market place (Jobber, 2001, Fill, 2002). Perceptual mapping is defined as the diagrammatic representation of consumer perceptions of the brand and its competitors in terms of pre-specified dimensions. These dimensions are shaped by the user preferences (Jobber, 2001). The four major steps for brand positioning, according to Aaker (1996), are determining the set of value prepositions, define target audience and then actively communicate their point of superiority. The pictorial representation of identification of a brand position and its future positioning opportunities is as follows:
Thus, Positioning is a two-step process. The first step is identification of target audience and major competitors in its target category. The second step involves communicating its point of competitive advantage in comparison to other brands in the same category (Kapferer, 1997).
Design and positioning statement
When a company decides to design its positioning strategies to streamline its marketing communications and brand attributes, it first needs to identify its brand meaning in its prospective consumer’s mind (Blythe, 2003). This means that consumers have their own set of perceptions towards any brand and the company should always take their consumer’s perception into account in order to design best positioning strategies. Theses in-depth analysis of consumer’s perception can lead the way to develop the positioning map or perceptual map for any competitive scenario (Kotler et al., 2001). These maps provide an aggregate view of complete segment highlighting the competitive positions of various market players (Hooley and Saunders, 1993).As pointed out by Blythe (2003), it must be mentioned that positions assigned to each brand “are based on average responses fromconsumers in the target groups.” There are two major frameworks for positioning:-
- According to De Pelsmacker et al (2007), the analysis of environment is mandatory to find out the desired position and feasibility of reaching that position. The framework to analyse this environment is based on 6 questions that assess the market position regarding actual and desired position, competitors, and available resources.
- Kapferer (2004) proposed more extensive framework that includes 10 questions that might as well help in verifying the usage of current strategies.
Let’s take the example the perceptual map of the American car market described as one of the first used perceptual map in marketing (Churchill, 1991).
Above map includes the major player in automotive industry of the American market. It shows the differentiation of all the major brands and how they affect the consumer’s perspective about the brand. This analysis could help to design the overall branding strategies of a brand. As shown above, Porsche scores high on the scale of consumer preference in terms of status, social class and sports brand.
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