BRAND MANAGEMENT

BMS SEM VI
 UNIT I)
Introduction to Brand Management
a) Introduction to Brand Management:
• Meaning of Brand, Branding, Brand Management,
Importance of Branding to Consumers, Firms, Brands v/s
Products, Scope of Branding, Branding Challenges and
Opportunities, Strategic Brand Management Process,
Customer Based Brand Equity model (CBBE), Sources of
Brand Equity, Steps of Brand Building including Brand
Building Blocks,
Brand Positioning: Meaning, Importance, Basis
BRAND: DEFINITION
• “A brand is a name, term, design, symbol, or any other feature that
identifies one seller’s good or service as distinct from those of other
sellers” (American Marketing Association).
• “The intangible sum of a product's attributes: its name, packaging,
and price, its history, its reputation, and the way it's advertised.”
(David Ogilvy).
MEANING
• Decades ago branding was defined as a name, slogan, sign,
symbol or design, or a combination of these elements that
identify products or services of a company.
• The brand was identified of the elements that differentiated
the goods and or service from the competition.
• Today, It’s also the perception that a consumer has when
they hear or think of your company name, service or
product. As consumers begin to identify with you, your
brand will live within the hearts and minds of customers,
clients, and prospects. It is the sum total of their
experiences and perceptions.
WHAT IS BRANDING?
• Branding is the process of giving a meaning to specific
products by creating and shaping a brand in consumers’
minds.
• Branding is a strategy designed by companies to help
people to quickly identify their products and organization.
• Branding gives them a reason to choose their products over
the competition’s, by clarifying what this particular brand is
and is not.
• The objective is to attract and retain loyal customers by
delivering a product that is always aligned with what the
brand promises.
BRANDING HELPS IDENTIFY
• Branding has been around since 350 A.D and is
derived from the word “Brandr”, meaning “to
burn” in Ancient Norse language. By the
1500s, it had come to mean the mark that
ranchers burned on cattle to signify ownership.
Simple and easily identifiable, these symbols
bore all the hallmarks of the modern logo.
5 BRAND PERSPECTIVES
• The Brand Promise
• The Brand Perceptions
• The Brand Expectations
• The Brand Persona
• The Brand Elements
WHY DO WE CONNECT TO A BRAND?
• We might be attracted by all sorts of things, but ultimately we buy
into brands on an emotional level — an emotional connection is key
to brand engagement.
• When making a decision to purchase we consider all the logical and
rational reasons for buying something, but the purchase decision is
made on an emotional level.
BRAND & EMOTIONAL EVOKE
• The brain remembers the emotional components of an experience
better than any other aspect.” ~ John Medina, Neuroscientist
• In order to truly and deeply understand why your customers act the
way they do, you need to understand and measure emotions.
HOW DOES A BRAND MAKE U FEEL?
• More confident? Does your brand make you feel sophisticated
or sexy? Does your brand put a smile on your faces? Does it
take u back to a simpler time, a time of innocence and
playfulness? Does using your brand make consumers feel as
though they have status? Does it reinforce who they perceive
themselves to be? Does it make them feel smart? Does it
make them feel uninhibited and free? Does it amuse them?
Does it make them feel as though they have arrived in
society? Does it give them a sense of belonging? Does it take
them back to their childhood? Does it help them fanaticize
about their future? Does it make them feel romantic? Stylish?
Giddy? Does it make them want to sing or dance?
WHY DO YOU NEED BRANDING?
• Brand or be branded—if you don’t actively define your
brand, the market will do it for you.
• Branding helps you stand out from the competition. Ex: You
choose a Macbook without doing any research because it’s
your perception that there is no real competitor on the
market.
• Branding increases the value of your offering
• Branding creates a human connection with your customers
• Branding builds customer loyalty
• Products have limited life cycles, but brands—if managed
well—last forever.
IMPORTANCE OF BRANDING TO FIRMS
• Identification of the market
• Legal Protection
• Provides Information
• Unique Association
• High Market Share
• Acts as an Entry Barrier to other brands
• Branding builds Financial Value
• Branding improves Recognition
• Branding creates Trust
• Branding supports Advertising
• Branding inspires Employees
IMPORTANCE OF BRANDING TO CONSUMER
• Shopping Behavior
• Emotional Attachment
• Habitual Buying
• Easy Decision Making
• Reduces Risk
a. Time Risk
b. Social Risk
c. Financial Risk
d. Psychological Risk
• Source of Identification
BRANDS V/S PRODUCTS
Philip Kotler: “A product is anything that can be offered to a market
for attention, acquisition, use or consumption. It includes physical
objects, services, personalities, place, organizations and ideas.”
Brand is “Unique design, sign, symbol, words, or a combination of
these, employed in creating an image that identifies a product and
differentiates it from its competitors. Brand value depends heavily on
the perception of the consumers. ”
BRANDS V/S PRODUCTS
• Companies Make Products and Consumers Make Brands: A product is
made by a company and can be purchased by a consumer in exchange for
money while brands are built through consumer perceptions, expectations,
and experiences with all products or services under a brand umbrella.
• Products Can Be Copied and Replaced but Brands Are Unique: A product
can be copied by competitors at anytime. When Amazon launched the
Kindle e-reader device, it didn’t take long for competitors to come out with
their own branded versions of an e-reader product. However, the brand
associated with each e-reader device offers unique value based on the
perceptions, expectations, and emotions that consumers develop for those
brands through previous experiences with them.
• A product can be replaced with a competitor’s product if consumers
believe the two products offer the same features and benefits. Products
with low emotional involvement are typically easily replaced.
BRANDS V/S PRODUCTS
• Products Can Become Obsolete but Brands Can Be Timeless: With
the introduction on DVD players, VHS became obsolete. And DVD
became obsolete after pen drives & online viewing came. However,
Lata Mangeshkar or Elvis Presley are timeless brands which remain
popular.
• Products Are Instantly Meaningful but Brands Become Meaningful
over Time: When you launch a new product, it’s easy to make that
product instantly meaningful and useful to consumers because it
serves a specific function for them. However, a brand is meaningless
until consumers have a chance to experience it, build trust with it,
and believe in it.
• Product=Commodity Brand=Mindset
• Products are bundles of attributes. Brands are bundles of
expectations & self-expressive benefits.
SCOPE OF BRANDING
• The scope of branding extends to-
1) Physical goods – commodities, high-tech products, etc.
• 2) Services – Hilton hotels, British airways, etc.
• 3) Distributors (brick mortar – Distributors with physical location – as
well as e-commerce) – Walmart, Shoppers Stop, Big Bazaar, Amazon,
Flipkart, etc.
• 4) Places – tourist spots, destinations. For example, countries like
Australia, Indonesia have their own tag lines and promotion
strategies to attract tourists. Nation building- Incredible !ndia
• 5) People – Roger Federer, Sachin Tendulkar, Amitabh Bacchan
• 6) Ideas and causes– red cross, UNICEF, Pulse Polio drive etc.
• 7) Sports, events, arts and entertainment – English Premier League,
Disney parks, Miss Universe, etc.
IMPORTANCE & SCOPE OF BRANDING
1)Means of identification – Branding helps position a product in terms
of price, quality, status, etc. Customers look for certain brands basis its
value and prestige. The branding done on cartons (packaging) helps
simplify handling and tracing as well.
2) Trademark – It also protects company’s efforts for which huge
expenditures have be made in promotional activities. A brand serves
as a source of a company’s image, and by legalising it, brand protects
the image. Competitors cannot copy the same brand image or name
once it is patented or trademarked.
3) Easy launching of new products or product lines – An organisation
with a successful brand image in a market can rely heavily on its brand
for launching new products or entering new markets.
4) Customers influence demand of successful brands – Customers do
influence distributors by inquiring about a successful brand. This helps
the manufacturers as distributors are asked to deliver brands with high
demand. This strengthens company’s influence in the distribution
network to a large extent.
IMPORTANCE & SCOPE OF BRANDING
5) Customer loyalty – Branding becomes a means of creating
customer loyalty. A customer impressed with a product from
a brand, will be inclined to buy a different product from the
same brand.
6) Competitive advantage – A successful brand in the market
poses a big challenge for competitors to capture its market
share. It also serves as a deterrent for new entrants in the
market.
7) Helps in segmenting the market – for example, different
detergent brands are marketed for different segments.
8) Customer benefits
CUSTOMER BENEFITS
• 8) Customer’s perspective- a customer benefits in the following ways
identification of the source of the product.
• Symbol of quality – Mercedes is associated with well-built and
engineered vehicle of highest quality.
• Easy comparison among same kind of products from different
manufacturers.
• Assignment of responsibility to the manufacturer – warranties,
guarantees, after sales service, returns.
• Status symbol – various psychographic variables influence a person’s
buying of certain brands. Customers many times choose a brand that
serves as an extension to their personality, status in the society. For most
of the customers, buying a Jaguar car not only serves the need of
travelling but also a status symbol in the society. Buying a Royal Enfield
or a Harley Davidson fulfils the macho and rugged image of buyers.
BRANDING CHALLENGES
• Treating brands as assets: The ongoing pressure to deliver short-term
financial results coupled with the fragmentation of media will tempt
organizations to focus on tactics and measurables and neglect the objective
of building assets.
• Possessing a compelling vision: A brand vision needs to differentiate itself,
resonate with customers and inspire employees. Visions that work are
usually multidimensional and adaptable to different contexts. They employ
concepts such as brand personality, organizational values, a higher purpose,
and in general they simply move beyond functional benefits.
• Creating new subcategories: The only way to grow, with rare exceptions, is
to develop “must have” innovations that define new subcategories and build
barriers to inhibit competitors from gaining relevance. That requires
substantial or transformational innovation and a new ability to manage the
perceptions of a subcategory so that it wins.
BRANDING CHALLENGES
• Generating breakthrough brand building: Exceptional ideas and
executions that break out of the clutter are necessary in order to
bring the brand vision to life. These ideas and the execution of
them are more critical than the size of your budget.
• Achieving integrated marketing communication (IMC).:IMC is
more elusive and difficult than ever in light of the various
methods you have to choose from such as advertising,
sponsorships, digital, mobile, social media and more. These
methods tend to compete with each other for your budget and
have become a complex choice.
• Building a digital strategy: The audience is in control here. New
capabilities, creative initiatives and new ways to work with other
marketing modalities are required. Adjust the digital marketing
focus from the offering and the brand to the customer’s sweet
spot, which is to say the activities and opinions in which they are
interested or even passionate about. Develop programs around
that sweet spot in which the brand is an active partner.
BRANDING CHALLENGES
• Building your brand internally: It is hard to achieve successful integrated marketing
communications or breakthrough marketing without employees both knowing the
vision and caring about it. The brand vision that lacks a higher purpose will find the
inspiration challenge almost impossible.
• Maintaining brand relevance: Brands face three relevance threats: Fewer customers
buying what the brand is offering, emerging reasons not-to-buy, and loss of energy.
Detecting and responding to each requires an in-depth knowledge of the market,
plus a willingness to invest and change.
• Creating a brand-portfolio strategy that yields synergy and clarity: Brands need
well-defined roles and visions that support those roles. Strategic brands should be
identified and resourced, and branded differentiators and energizers should be
created and managed.
• Leveraging brand assets to enable growth: A brand portfolio should foster growth
by enabling new offerings, extending the brand vertically or extending the brand
into another product class. The goal is to apply the brand to new contexts where the
brand both adds value and enhances itself.
STRATEGIC BRAND MANAGEMENT PROCESS
 STEP 1: Identifying and establishing
brand positioning.
• Brand Positioning is defined as the act of designing the
company's offer and image so that it occupies a distinct and
valued place in the target consumer's mind.
• Points of Parity (POP): convinces consumers about the
advantages and similarities with the competitors, maybe at a
lower price or at greater convenience
• Points of difference (POD): convinces consumers about the
advantages and differences over the competitors
• Mental Map: visual depiction of the various associations linked
to the brand in the minds of the consumers
• Core Brand Values: subset of associations i.e. both benefits and
attributes which best characterize the brand.
• Brand Mantra: that is the brand essence or the core brand
promise also known as the Brand DNA.
 ICARUS PARADOX
• The term refers to the phenomenon of businesses failing abruptly after a
period of apparent success, where this failure is brought about by the very
elements that led to their initial success.
 STEP 2:Planning and Implementation of
Brand Marketing Programs
• Choosing/mix-matching Brand Elements: Different brand elements
here are logos, images, packaging, symbols, slogans, etc. Since
different elements have different advantages, marketers prefer to use
different subsets and combinations of these elements.
• Integrating the Brand into Marketing Activities and the Support
Marketing Program: Marketing programs and activities make the
biggest contributions and can create strong, favorable, and unique
brand associations in a variety of ways.
• Leveraging Secondary Associations: Brands may be linked to certain
source factors such as countries, characters, sporting or cultural
events etc. In essence, the marketer is borrowing or leveraging some
other associations for the brand to create some associations of the
brand's own and them to improve it's brand equity.
STEP 3:Measuring and Interpreting Brand
Performance
• Brand Audit: Is assessment of the source of equity of the brand
and to suggest ways to improve and leverage it.
• Brand Value chain: It is a structured approach to assessing the
sources and outcomes of brand equity and the manner by
which marketing activities create brand value. Helps to better
understand the financial impacts of the brand marketing
investments and expenditures.
• Brand Tracking: Brand tracking is way of continuously
measuring the health of a brand and what consumers think
about it. Opinion on a brand is usually divided into overall brand
warmth/love, brand momentum and attributes associated with
that brand.
• Brand Equity Measurement System: Is a set of tools and
procedures using which marketers can take tactical decision in
the short and long run.
 STEP 4:Growing and Sustaining Brand
Equity:
• Defining the brand strategy/Brand-product matrix: Captures the branding
relationship between the various products /services offered by the firm using the
tools of brand-product matrix, brand hierarchy and brand portfolio
• Brand Hierarchies: A brand hierarchy is a means of summarizing the branding
strategy by displaying the number and nature of common and distinctive brand
elements across the firm’s products, revealing the explicit ordering of brand
elements
• Managing Brand Equity over time: Requires taking a long -term view as well as a
short term view of marketing decisions as they will affect the success of future
marketing programs.
• Managing Brand Equity over Geographic boundaries, Market segments
and Cultures: Marketers need to take into account international factors, different
types of consumers and the specific knowledge about the experience and behaviors
of the new geographies or market segments when expanding the brand overseas or
into new market segments.
• Brand reinforcement: refers to an activity associated with getting those consumers
who have tried a particular brand to become repeat purchasers along with attracting
new users. It is a key objective of the growth stage of the product's life cycle.
CBBE-CUSTOMER BASED BRAND EQUITY
MODEL-by KELLER
• Do you know what makes a brand strong? And if you had to make
yours stronger, would you know how to do it?
• In order to build a strong brand, you must shape how customers think
and feel about your product. You have to build the right type of
experiences around your brand, so that customers have specific,
positive thoughts, feelings, beliefs, opinions, and perceptions about
it.
• When you have strong brand equity, your customers will buy more
from you, they'll recommend you to other people, they're more loyal,
and you're less likely to lose them to competitors.
CBBE-CUSTOMER BASED BRAND EQUITY
MODEL-by KELLER

The four steps of the pyramid represent four fundamental questions that your customers will
ask – often subconsciously – about your brand.
The four steps contain six building blocks that must be in place for you to reach the top of the
pyramid, and to develop a successful brand.
 Step 1: Brand Identity – Who Are You?

• First goal is to create "brand salience," or awareness to make

sure that your brand stands out, and that customers recognize it
and are aware of it.
• You're not just creating brand identity and awareness here;
you're also trying to ensure that brand perceptions are "correct"
at key stages of the buying process.
• Identify how your customers narrow down their choices and
decide between your brand and your competitors' brands. What
decision-making processes do your customers go through when
they choose your product? How are they classifying your product
or brand?
• You should be familiar with their needs, and it's important to
communicate to your customers how your brand fulfills these.
 Step 2:Brand Meaning – What Are You?
• Your goal in step two is to identify and communicate what your
brand means, and what it stands for. The two building blocks in
this step are: "performance" and "imagery."
• "Performance" defines how well your product meets your
customers' needs. According to the model, performance consists
of five categories: primary characteristics and features; product
reliability, durability, and serviceability; service effectiveness,
efficiency, and empathy; style and design; and price.
• "Imagery" refers to how well your brand meets your customers'
needs on a social and psychological level. Your brand can meet
these needs directly, from a customer's own experiences with a
product; or indirectly, with targeted marketing, or with word of
mouth.
• Take both performance and imagery into account, and create a
"brand personality”.
 Step 3: Brand Response – What Do I
Think, or Feel, About You?
• Your customers' responses to your brand fall into two categories:
"judgments" and "feelings." These are the two building blocks in
this step.
• Your customers constantly make judgments about your brand
and these fall into four key categories:
• Quality: Customers judge a product or brand based on its actual
and perceived quality.
• Credibility: Customers judge credibility using three dimensions –
expertise (which includes innovation), trustworthiness, and
likability.
• Consideration: Customers judge how relevant your product is to
their unique needs.
• Superiority: Customers assess how superior your brand is,
compared with your competitors' brands.
 Step 3: Brand Response – What Do I
Think, or Feel, About You?
• Customers also respond to your brand according to how it
makes them feel. Your brand can evoke feelings directly, but
they also respond emotionally to how a brand makes them
feel about themselves. According to the model, there are six
positive brand feelings: warmth, fun, excitement, security,
social approval, and self-respect.
• Think carefully about the six brand feelings listed above.
Which, if any, of these feelings does your current marketing
strategy focus on? What can you do to enhance these
feelings for your customers?
Step 4: Brand Resonance – How Much of a
Connection Would I Like to Have With You?
• The Brand Resonance refers to the relationship that a consumer has with
the product and how well he can relate with it. The resonance is the
intensity of customer’s psychological connection with the brand and the
randomness to recall the brand in different consumption situations.
• Resonance when your customers feel a deep, psychological bond with your
brand. Keller breaks resonance down into four categories:
• Behavioral loyalty: This includes regular, repeat purchases.
• Attitudinal attachment: Your customers love your brand or your product,
and they see it as a special purchase.
• Sense of community: Your customers feel a sense of community with
people associated with the brand, including other consumers and company
representatives.
• Active engagement: This is the strongest example of brand loyalty.
Customers are actively engaged with your brand, even when they are not
purchasing it or consuming it. This could include joining a club related to the
brand; participating in online chats, marketing rallies, or events; following
your brand on social media; or taking part in other, outside activities.
STEPS OF BRAND BUILDING INCLUDING BRAND
BUILDING BLOCKS
BRAND BUILDING BLOCKS-SUB DIVISION
SALIENCE
• Needs Satisfied: answers the questions, What basic functions does
the brand provide to customers? Brand awareness ensures that
customers know which of their needs the brand – through these
products – is designed to satisfy.
• Category Identification: brand awareness helps customers
understand the product or service category in which the brand
competes and what products or services are sold under the brand
name. Brand awareness gives the product an identity by linking brand
elements to a product category and associated purchase and
consumption or usage situations.
PERFORMANCE
• Primary Characteristics and Secondary Features: customers have
beliefs about the levels at which the primary characteristics of the
product operate (low, medium, high, or very high) Marketers must
manage these expectations to make sure that the product exceeds
customer beliefs, rather than underperform customer beliefs.
• Product Reliability: measures the consistency of performance over
time and from purchase to purchase
• Product Durability: is the expected economic life of the product
• Product Serviceability: the ease of repairing the product if needed
PERFORMANCE
• Service Effectiveness: measures how well the brand satisfies
customers’ service requirements
• Service Efficiency: describes the speed and responsiveness of service
• Service Empathy: is the extent to which service providers are seen as
trusting, caring, and having the customer’s interests in mind
• Style and Design: how a product looks and feels, or how a product
sounds or smells
• Price: how relatively expensive or inexpensive the brand is, and
whether it is frequently or substantially discounted
IMAGERY
• Brand imagery is the way people think about a brand abstractly,
rather than what they think the brand actually does. It depends
on the extrinsic properties of the product or service, including
how the brand attempts to meet consumers’ psychological or
social needs. Imagery refers to more intangible aspects of the
brand.

• User Profiles: the type of person or organization that uses the

brand. Can be based on descriptive demographic factors or more
abstract psychographic factors.

• Purchase and Usage Situations: under what conditions or

situations consumers use or should use the brand. Examples
include the channel (department store, specialty store, internet)
or time of day, week, month, or location (inside the home,
outside the home) or if usage is formal or informal, for example.
IMAGERY
• Personality and Values: consumer experience and marketing can
dictate brand personality traits. For example, modern, old-fashioned,
lively, exotic, etc. There are five main dimensions of brand
personality:
• sincerity (down to earth, honest, wholesome, cheerful)
• excitement (daring, spirited, imaginative, up to date)
• competence (reliable, intelligent, successful)
• sophistication (upper class and charming)
• ruggedness (outdoorsy and tough)

• History, Heritage and Experiences: these types of associations may

recall distinctly personal experiences and episodes or past behaviors
and experiences of friends, family, or others. They can be highly
personal and individual, or more public and shared by many people.
These associations involve more specific concrete examples that
transcend the generalizations that make up the usage imagery.
JUDGEMENT
• Brand judgments are customers’ personal opinions about
and evaluations of the brand, which consumers form by
putting together all the different brand performance and
imagery associations. The four most important judgments
are quality, credibility, consideration and superiority.

• Quality: is the brand perceived as low, medium, or high

quality
• Credibility: describes the extent to which customers see
the brand as credible in terms of three dimensions:
perceived expertise, trustworthiness, and likability.
JUDGEMENT
• Consideration: depends in part on how personally relevant
customers find the brand and is a crucial filter in terms of
building brand equity. Brands must be be given serious
consideration and deemed relevant to closely embrace it.
This is dependent upon strong and favorable brand
associations created as part of brand image.
• Superiority: measures the extent to which customers view
the brand as unique and better than other brands.
Superiority is absolutely critical to building intense and
active relationships with customers and depends to a great
degree on the number and nature of unique brand
associations that make up brand image.
FEELINGS
• Brand feelings are customers’ emotional responses and
reactions to the brand, as well as the social currency evoked
by the brand.

• Warmth: The brand evokes soothing types of feelings and

makes consumers feel a sense of calm or peacefulness.
Consumers may feel sentimental, warmhearted, or
affectionate about the brand. Hallmark is a brand typically
associated with warmth.
• Fun: Upbeat types of feelings make consumers feel amused,
lighthearted, joyous, playful, cheerful and so on. Disney is a
brand often associated with fun.
FEELINGS
• Excitement: The brand makes consumers feel energized and that they are
experiencing something special. Brands that evoke excitement may
generate a sense of elation, of “being alive,” or being cool, sexy, or so on.
• Security: The brand produces a feeling of safety, comfort, and self-
assurance. As a result of the brand, consumers do not experience worry
or concerns that they might have otherwise felt.
• Social Approval: Consumer feel that others look favorably on their
appearance, behavior, and so on. This approval may be a result of direct
acknowledgment of the consumer’s use of the brand by others or may be
less overt and a result of attribution of product use to consumers.
• Self-Respect: The brand makes consumers feel better about themselves;
consumers feel a sense of pride, accomplishment, or fulfillment. A brand
like Tide laundry detergent is able to link its brand to “doing the best
things for the family” to many homemakers.
RESONANCE
• Brand resonance focuses on the ultimate relationship and
level of identification that the customer has with the brand.
Brand resonance describes the nature of this relationship
and the extent to which customers feel that they are “in
sync” with the brand.
• Loyalty: we can gauge behavioral loyalty in terms of repeat
purchases and the amount or share of category volume
attributed to the brand, that is, the “share of category
requirements.” In other words, how often do customers
purchase a brand and how much do they purchase?
• Attitudinal Attachment: or personal attachment. Viewing
the brand as something special in a broader context.
RESONANCE
• Sense of Community: an important social phenomenon in
which customers feel a kinship or affiliation with other
people associated with the brand, whether fellow brand
users or customers, or employees or representatives of the
company.
• Active Engagement: when consumers are engaged, they are
willing to invest time, money, energy or other resources in
the brand beyond those expended during purchase or
consumption of the brand.
 BRAND EQUITY
• Brand equity is the commercial value that derives from
consumer perception of the brand name of a particular
product or service, rather than from the product or service
itself.

• Brand equity describes the value of having a well-known

brand name, based on the idea that the owner of a well-
known brand name can generate more money from
products with that brand name than from products with a
less well known name, as consumers believe that a product
with a well-known name is better than products with less
well-known names.
SOURCES OF BRAND EQUITY

BRAND
AWARENESS

BRAND
EQUITY
BRAND IMAGE
SOURCES OF BRAND EQUITY
1)BRAND AWARENESS: Consumers’ ability to identify the
brand under different conditions; it is the familiarity of the
brand to the consumer. Related to the strength of the brand
node or trace in the memory.
• Brand Recognition: Consumers’ ability to confirm prior
exposure to the brand when given a cue.
• Brand Recall: Consumers’ ability to retrieve the brand from
his memory when given the product category, the needs
fulfilled by the category, or a purchase or usage situation
as a cue.
SOURCES OF BRAND EQUITY
2) BRAND IMAGE: Consumer’s perception about the brand
• Strength of brand associations: More deeply a person
thinks about information and relates it to existing brand
knowledge, stronger is the resulting brand association.
• Favorability of brand associations: Is higher when a brand
possesses relevant attributes and benefits that satisfy
consumer needs and wants.
• Uniqueness of brand associations: ”Unique Selling
Proposition” of the product. It provides brands with
sustainable competitive advantage.
Brand Equity Research Goals
• Brand equity market research falls into one of three camps:
Tracking, exploring change, and/or extending brand power.

• Market research that focuses on tracking makes comparison

among competitive brands or products against a
benchmark.
• When exploring change is the research goal, customer
brand attitude is tapped regarding branding decisions that
might result in repositioning or renaming products or
services.
• A deeper examination of extending brand power is carried
out when substantive additions to a brand are considered.
Each research goal requires a different tact.
MEASURING SOURCES OF BRAND EQUITY
There are two techniques of Capturing mindset:
• Quantitative Technique.
• Qualitative Technique.
• Qualitative Technique.
• 1. Free Association
• 2. Projective Techniques
• 3. Brand Personality
• 4. Experiential Methods
• Quantitative Technique.
• 1. Awareness
• 2. Recognition
• 3. Recall
• 4. Image
Qualitative research techniques
• Qualitative research techniques are relatively unstructured
measurement approaches whereby a range of possible
consumer responses are permitted.
• Because of the freedom afforded both researchers in their
probes and consumers in their responses, qualitative
research can often be a useful “first step” in exploring
consumer brand and product perceptions.
Quantitative Research Techniques
• Although qualitative measures are useful to identify and
characterize the range of possible associations to a brand, a
more quantitative portrait of the brand often is also
desirable to permit more confident and defensible strategic
and tactical recommendations.
• Whereas qualitative research typically elicits some type of
verbal responses from consumers, quantitative research
typically employs various types of scale questions so that
numerical representations and summaries can be made.
• Quantitative measures are often the primary ingredient in
tracking studies that monitor brand knowledge structures of
consumers over time.
Qualitative research techniques
• Free Association: The simplest and often most powerful
way to profile brand associations involves free association
tasks whereby subjects are asked what comes to mind
when they think of the brand without any more specific
probe or cue than perhaps the associated product category.
Qualitative: Projective Techniques
• Projective techniques are diagnostic tools to uncover the true
opinions and feelings of consumers when they are unwilling or
otherwise unable to express themselves on these matters.
• The idea behind projective techniques is that consumers are
presented with an incomplete stimulus and asked to complete
it or given an ambiguous stimulus that may not make sense in
and of itself and are asked to make sense of it. In doing so, the
argument is that consumers will reveal some of their true beliefs
and feelings.
• The Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) is a widely used projective
technique where an image of an ambiguous social scene is
shown and an individual is asked to create a story to explain the
image. The assumption is that sub-conscious or non-conscious
feelings and beliefs will be “projected’ onto ambiguous stimuli.
• Sentence/Story completion, Grouping are also projective
techniques which allow researchers to uncover deep
associations, emotions and thought processes.
Qualitative: Brand Personality & Ethnographic
and Observational Approaches
Brand personality is the human characteristics or traits that can
be attributed to a brand. Brand personality can be measured in
different ways. Perhaps the simplest and most direct way is to
solicit open-ended responses to a probe such as: “If the brand
were to come alive as a person, what would it be like, what would
it do, where would it live, what would it wear, who would it talk
to if it went to a party (and what would it talk about).”
Ethnographic and Observational Approaches
Consumers can be unobtrusively observed as they shop or as they
consume products to capture every nuance of their behavior.
Marketers such as Procter & Gamble seek consumers’ permission
to spend time with them in their homes to see how they actually
use and experience products.
Quantitative Research Techniques
1. Awareness: Brand awareness is related to the strength of the
brand in memory, as reflected by consumers’ ability to identify
various brand elements (i.e., the brand name, logo, symbol,
character, packaging, and slogan) under different conditions.
Brand awareness relates to the likelihood that a brand will come
to mind and the ease with which it does so given different type of
cues.

2. Recognition: In the abstract, recognition processes require that

consumers be able to discriminate a stimulus — a word, object,
image, etc. — as something they have previously seen. Brand
recognition relates to consumers’ ability to identify the brand
under a variety of circumstances and can involve identification of
any of the brand elements. The most basic type of recognition
procedures gives consumers a set of single items visually or orally
and asks them if they thought that they had previously seen or
heard these items.
Quantitative Research Techniques
3. Recall: Brand recall relates to consumers’ ability to identify the brand
under a variety of circumstances. With brand recall, consumers must retrieve
the actual brand element from memory when given some related probe or
cue. Thus, brand recall is a more demanding memory task than brand
recognition because consumers are not just given a brand element and
asked to identify or discriminate it as one they had or had not already seen.
Different measures of brand recall are possible depending on the type of
cues provided to consumers.

4. Image: Brand awareness is an important first step in building brand equity,

but usually not sufficient. For most customers in most situations, other
considerations, such as the meaning or image of the brand, also come into
play. One vitally important aspect of the brand is its image, as reflected by
the associations that consumers hold toward the brand. Brand associations
come in many different forms and can be classified along many different
dimensions.
BRAND POSITIONING: MEANING
• Kotler as “the act of designing the company’s offering and image
to occupy a distinctive place in the mind of the target market”. In
other words, brand positioning describes how a brand is
different from its competitors and where, or how, it sits in
customers’ minds. Brand positioning must make sure that:
• Is it unique/distinctive vs. competitors ?
• Is it significant and encouraging to the niche market ?
• Is it appropriate to all major geographic markets and businesses
? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FGUkxn5kZQ
• Is the proposition validated with unique, appropriate and
original products ?
• Is it sustainable - can it be delivered constantly across all points
of contact with the consumer ?
• Is it helpful for organization to achieve its financial goals ?
• Is it able to support and boost up the organization ?
BRAND POSITIONING: IMPORTANCE
• To differentiate the product
• To protect Market share
• To carve a Niche
• The change/add target market as it moves on PLC
• Challenging competition
• Easy connect with the consumer
• Highlight functional attributes of the brand
• Increases TOMA(Top of mind Awareness) & create permanent
spot in mind of customer
• Develops corporate image
• Creates demand
• Facilitates consumer choice
• Creates status & commands premium
BRAND POSITIONING: BASIS
• Positioning by product attributes and benefits:The price/quality
attribute dimension is commonly used for positioning the
products. Marketers attempt to identify salient attributes (those
that are important to consumers and are the basis for making a
purchase decision).
• Positioning by price/quality: One way they do it is with ads that
reflect the image of a high-quality brand where cost, while not
irrelevant, is considered secondary to the quality benefits
derived from using the brand. Premium brands positioned at the
high end of the market use this approach for positioning the
product.Another way to use price/quality characteristics for
positioning is to focus on the quality or value offered by the
brand at a very competitive price. Although price is an important
consideration, the product quality must be comparable to, or
even better than, competing brands for the positioning strategy
to be effective.
BRAND POSITIONING: BASIS
• Positioning by use or application: Another way is to
communicate a specific image or position for a brand to
associate it with a specific use or application. Surf Excel is
positioned as stain remover ‘Surf Excel haina!’ Also, Clinic All
Clear – ‘Dare to wear black’.
• Positioning by product class: An electronics product will be
advertised with an electronics product, A Fmcg with Fmcg
and a financial product with a financial product.
• Positioning by product user: Positioning a product by
associating it with a particular user or group of users is yet
another approach.
BRAND POSITIONING: BASIS
• Positioning by competitor: Competitors may be as
important to positioning strategy as a firm’s own product or
services. Onida was positioned against the giants in the
television industry through this strategy.— ‘Neighbour’s
envy, owner’s pride’.
• Positioning by cultural symbols: This is an additional
positioning strategy wherein the cultural symbols are used
to differentiate the brands. Examples are Air India with
Maharaja,Jeevan Saathi.com etc. Each of these symbols has
successfully differentiated the product it represents from
competitors.
CULTURAL SYMBOLS FOR BRAND
POSITIONING
UNDER/OVER/RE POSITIONING
POSITIONING ERRORS
• Under Positioning: The state of buyers where they do not have
much information about the brand and its attributes and use and
consider the brand to be just another in the pool of brand is
called under positioning. This is a field attempt to assert
distinctive positions in the market.
• Over Positioning: This is the state where the buyers or
perspective buyers attaches a very narrow image for the brand.
They have perception about a particular brand due to lack of
information of pre decided notion
POSITIONING ERRORS
• Confused Positioning: It is often observed that a brand will created
too many associations with the product or will reposition the brand
very frequently. This results in confusing the potential buyers about the
goods and hampers the positioning schemes.
• Doubtful Positioning: There are situations where the buyer finds it
extremely difficult to believe the claims made by the brand given the
price, product features or the manufacturer. This means the positioning
strategy has not been to effectively in convincing the potential buyers
about the good.