BRANDING and

BRAND MGMT
 Evolution of branding models

Neil McElroy David Aaker Douglas Holt

P&G – CEO Academic Academic

Brand Management Model Brand Leadership Model Cultural Branding

30s è Circa 90s è Circa 2000-2010s è

 Why is the brand so important?

”The brand is the only sustainable source of competitive

advantage.” (Aaker 1996)

“A brand is essentially a container for a customer’s complete

experience with the product or company.” -- Sergio Zyman
• As per David Aaker and likeminded, managing brands strategically
pays-off
• He offers a brand leadership perspective as a mean of building and
sustaning strong brands
• Aaker offers four distinct but no mutually exlusive dimensions to
argue for his model:

• Organizational structure and processees

• Brand architecture
• Brand-building programs
• Brand identity/position
 Brands and brand architecture Campaigns to foster brand
Org structure and processes (Each) brand identity + value proposition equity dimenssions
(biz model) Brand position è CMO + team CMO + team + creative ag.

Core
Identity Brand comm.
Consumer
Analysis Programs
Extended
Identity
Competition Brand
Analysis Vaulue
Position
Proposition

Own brand
analysis Brand equity

Brand Identity Model by Aaker and Joachimsthaler (2000)

I.
Organizational structure and processes
• Build/foster an organizational structure and culture that will lead to strong
brands
• Someone or somegroup needs to be in charge of brand building and
maintance procesess è think about the role of the CMO or the brand
manager
• CMO and others, to offer relatively clear guidelines and rules for everyone in
the organization and especially for those engaged in brand management

è “this is how we do branding in this organization” è organizational culture

II.
Brand architecture
• Identify brands and sub-brands as well as their roles, but also, see how
they relate to one another
• Doing so, you will be in a better position to:
• Offer clear consumer/customer offerings
• Engage in better communication programs
• Also, to leverage brand equity assets
• Brand architecture may help you decide:
• When to stretch and existing brand (extension)
• When to develop a new brand
• When to use a sub-brand
BRAND PORTFOLIO STRATEGIES

There are two opposite ends of a spectrum where the focus attention is
either on the product brand or the parent/corporate brand:

1. House of brands: maximum separation between product brands and

corporate brand
2. Endorsed brands: the master brand lends the (relatively) independent
brand credibility (i.e., ”Marvel’s the Avengers”)
3. Sub-brands: the sub-brand relies quite a bit on the master brand’s
prestige yet has its own identity (i.e., Toyota Prius)
4. Branded house: minimal separation between product brands and
corporate brand
• Holistic view on branding
• Each brand has a role to play within the brand architecture
• The idea is not to manage brands as if they were silos
• The Brand manager/CMO and her/his team to decide and internally
communicate this aspect
• Identify strategic brands and invest in them
III.
Brand identity and positioning
• Each brand has/needs a brand identity:
• How should consumers perceive our brand(s)?
• Brand identity è the crux of brand building programs
• Needs to be precise; to avoid confusion
• Crucial for brand differentiation
The brand “onion model”

Extended • The core identity

identity Rugged:
Rule breaker,
remains unchanged
underdog, other
symbol(s)

Brand • The extended

Core identity can and
Identity should be updated è
What IMC does!
• Low price
• Safety
• Quality
IV.
Positioning
• “the act of designing the company’s offering and image to occupy
a distinctive place in the mind of the target market” (Ries and
Trout 1981; Kotler 2003)

• Brand position helps with communication objetives:

What message will best differentiate the brand and appeal to designated
consumers?
Strategic endeavor?

The goal is to generate brand equity through managing a brand

identity … (Aaker 1996)
Brand equity

• The logic of the mind-share paradimg è to build strong brands by

attending to brand equity elements
• What does this mean?

• Brand equity: “brand assets (liabilities) linked to a brand’s name and

symbol that add to (or subtract from) a product or service.” (Aaker
and Joachimsthaler 2000: 17).
“Product plus” view of equity

Brand equity = the additional sum of

Branded money a consumer is willing to pay vs. a
product similar, (un)branded product (de
markup Chernatory & McDonald 1992)

Branded Generic
product X product Y
 Brand equity (Aaker and Joachimsthaler 2000: 17)

Perceived
Awareness Associations Loyalty
Quality

- Linked to perceptions Argued to influence brand Anything that connect - The crux of brand’s value
and even taste associations … also argued consumers to a brand: - The goal is to strengthen the size and
to partly affect profitability - Imagery each loyalty segment
- Consumers like as measured by ROI and - Attributes (e.g., - Think about touch points and
familiarity and are likey stock return hedonic & consumer decision making journey, for
to ascribe “positive” è Reason to buy utilitarian) e.g.!
attributes to brands è Helps with pricing - Personality
è Position and differentiate - Symbols
 Brand equity

Perceived
Awareness Associations Loyalty
Quality

Does our brand come Depends quite a bit Anything that connect - The crux of brand’s value
first to mind? on associations consumers to a brand: - The goal is to strengthen the size and
è How it “looks” - - Imagery each loyalty segment
“feels” - Personality - Think about touch points and
è “reliable” - Sincere consumer decision making journey, for
è “competence…” - Extitign e.g.!
- Competent
- Sophisticated
- Rugged
- Symbols
(Aaker and Joachimsthaler 2000: 17)
Customer centric view of brand equity – Keller

-Repeat -Sense of -Active

-Love
purchase community engagement
(WOM)

Deep bond with the brand (loyalty)

Perceived quality and associations

Perceived quality / added value (social and

psychological needs) è brand identity

The mapping of brand perceptions between what

“you think” vs. “what consumers” think your brand is
about (identity and awareness)
 Brand equity

Perceived
Awareness Associations Loyalty
Quality

Batra and Keller, 2016

What prompted Burberry to change its
business model?
• Misalignment between the Burberry brand and the business model è
bad company performance
• Annual profits from 62m to 25m pounds
• Change è enter: a new CEO
• Identification of key strategic challenges (x, y, z…)
• Strategy: multi-brand positioning … as a distinctive luxury brand …
appealing to new, younger, fashion-forward customers, while still
retaining the traditional customer base

"From 1997, the new Burberry management team sought to radically

reposition a company whose primary asset, the Burberry brand, was
undermined by a moribund image and which was overly reliant upon a
narrow customer base comprising of middle aged, fashion-conservative men.”
Brand image “face lift” – how to drive the new positioning?

1st: brand name from Burberry’s to Burberry

èBrand idenity: logo, visual, packagaing …

2nd: Promotion strategy (promotion mix)

è Different advertising strategy è aimed at changing perceptions of
Burberry (recall brand equity elements) è how? è through a strategy
of celebrity endorsement (fashion models) è Kate Moss + Fashion
photographers è retain brand essence (distinct British themes*) as
content (encoding) to craft advertisements.
3rd (what have we learned day before yesterday?)

èLuxury and flagship stores

èPlaced Burberry adjacent to other luxury brands
èFlagship stores as a magner for earned media (PR)
CULTURAL BRANDING PRINCIPLES
 Cultural understanding

• “Culture è the set of shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices that characterizes an
institution, organization or group”
• Cultural categories and contradictions associated with categories of gender, technology,
national, and so on

• Brand genealogy (heritage)

• Cultural authority of the brand
• How has the brand engaged with “culture” over time
• Culture (cultural categories) è a conversation arena
• Brands as active participants in a cultural conversation
• Brand challenges arise as culture changes

• Empathetic understanding of consumer worlds

• Identity projects
• Consumer experiences of culture and cultural categories
• Angst …
 Meaning transfer model

Culture and cultural categories è the abstract realm in which

myths reside
Cultural categories and contradictions

Goods/brands
Meaning transferred to brands and
communicated
How good a myth is performed by the brand

Consumers relationship with brands is ritualistic

Brands that best perform a myth are more likely to succeed

McCracken, 1986
Good for the so-called “lifestyle” (identity) categories – symbolism

è value of the brands as a mean of self-expression

Holt claims that cultural branding priciples
are good for creating ”iconic” brands

• Icons = symbols of an ideal that people hold in considerable

esteem
• Icons are valued because through them, consumers get to
experience powerful myths
Myth
• Myths è (imaginative) simple sotories, with compelling characters
and resonant plots, … myths help us make sense of the world
• Cultural contradictions and individual experiences produce intense
desires and anxieties, fueling demand for myths
• A brand’s strength is dependent on how well a brand encapsulates an
identity myth and how strongly people identify with that myth
 “Myths provide ideals to live by, and they work to
resolve life's most vexing questions. Icons are
encapsulated myths. They are powerful because they
deliver myths to us in a tangible form, thereby making
them more accessible”
Dominant/salient myths informing (iconic) brand
communication programs – cultural contradictions

• Myths (imaginative stories) about masculinity (idealized masculine

categories)
• Gender and ethnicity (women vs. men rights, new social movements)
• Body and body ideals
• Sustainability myths (e.g., food, clothing, automobiles, beverages, ect.)
• Technology myths
The Cultural Branding Management Process

• Cultural knowledge helps identifying

major socical categories identified in
the previous slide, vs. obscuring these
categories by sorting people into
“psychographic” groups

• Brand as a historical actor in society

• Views people as meaning makers vs.

consumers of category benefits

• Understand the identity value of mass

cultural text (stories) vs. treating
culture as trends (e.g., Pepsi – Join the
Conversation campaign)

Holt, 2004: 2010

Semiotics
A (super) brief introduction
WHAT IS SEMIOTICS?
Semiotics is primarily concerned
with the investigation of
meaning, that is, how meaning
is created, transmitted and
interpreted in various
situations.

Analysis of systems of signs.

Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913)

• Swiss linguist
• Lecture series or seminars in ”general
linguistics” (1907-11)
• The founding father of semiotics
The “sing” is the most fundamental unit of mainstream semiology.
From linguistics
• Sign = two parts only distinguishable at the analytical level
• the first part è signified … concept or and object,
• second part signifier … a sound or an image that is attached to a
signified

• Arbitrariness
Signifiers can have multiple signifieds (concepts*):

Think of signifier red

A number of signifieds are possible:
Brands as signs
Paradigmatic and
syntagmatic
relations
PARADIGMA AND SYNTAGMA:
DIFFERENCE AND THE TWO AXES
• Paradigma: a class of objects or concepts
• Syntagma: an element which follows
another in a particular sequence
• Fashion operates in both categories, but is
more powerfully articulated through
syntagma!
 A blouse, a shirt, a –
Paradigma
shirt…

A blouse, a skirt,
Syntagma
jeans, dress shoes…

Always contextual at the level of practice!

blouse + trousers+ high-heeled shoes → “ok for fine dinner”
blouse + skirt + sneakers → “not ok for a fine dinner”
Q’S FOR INDIVIDUAL ASSIGNMENT:

• What is your chosen brand like (meanings, personality, experience)?

• What kind of emotional connection and brand engagement are they
striving for?
• What kind of brand experiences (digitally and offline) do they
facilitate or create?
• What could be the bran’s aspiration or “extension” plans beyond its
current business category?