Techniques to increase
brand value
Lecturer: Trương Quang Vinh
Chapter 4
BRAND MEDIA
Explain how communication and meaning
1 are generated
between people and objects.
Analyse the advantages and disadvantages
2
of advertising.
OBJECTIVES 3 Describe the characteristics of above the
line media.
4 Describe the characteristics of below the
line media.
Examine the role of packaging in brand
5
communication.
Describe the best way to work with external
6 agencies.
1
Communication
Identity is only worth something to a business when it is properly
communicated to its intended audience, and they recognize and
acknowledge its value. This means that the process of
communication plays as important a role as the images we may
use.
The two-way communication process clearly expresses the goals of
excellent brand communication.
The two-way communication process clearly expresses the goals of
excellent brand communication.
Stray Kids Stars in ……………
“Always Together” Fall 2023
Campaign
This shift in the meaning of a message is often referred to as
‘noise’, the interference that changes or diffuses a message as it
travels through the consumer culture.
The context of use and the user can also dramatically shift the value
of the meaning of a brand.
The most obvious type of noise is the language barrier, even in
countries or regions that supposedly speak the same language.
The modern consumer culture of westernized countries forms a
filter to many of our daily activities and communication. There is a
strong undercurrent of living in a ‘to have is to be’ society, where
others judge us by what we have, rather than what we are, as we
judge them by what they have.
The brand message that is received by the consumer is not just the
words, but the cultural meaning that is associated with those
words, symbols or images.
Figure 3.4 Semiotic Relationships
• Object
• Sign
• Interpretant
2
Brand perception
Figure and background refers to our perception of which objects or
elements are more prominent in an image we look at. They are
often universal, but can be personal as well; two people do not
always understand the same meaning from a single image.
Perceptual grouping is our ability to make patterns out of what we
see, even if the information is not complete. A pattern can be based
on the proximity of objects to each other: we would understand
two people who are stood very close to each other as having some
kind of relationship.
Consumers associate groups of brands by their proximity to their
meaning.
Perceptual similarity is another type of gestalt, where a brand
portfolio might use the same pack, shape or colour to signify their
relationship, enabling consumers to perceive the brand collection.
Perceptual continuity can help a brand to build a brand narrative
across media types and over time.
Perceptual closure allows consumers to fill in the gaps between
elements of a brand presentation, even if they have not witnessed
all of them.
The final element of gestalt perception is common fate, the sense
that similar groups of brands have a similar trajectory in consumer
culture over time.
There is fantastic value in leveraging gestalt perception of a brand,
since any single brand communication can then leverage the total
brand value.
3
Advertising
A definition from the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising is: ‘Advertising presents the
most persuasive possible selling message to the right prospects for the product or service
at the lowest possible cost.’
This awareness may be needed to:
• Launch a new brand on the market. This will express the brand personality to the
targeted audience.
• Revitalize a brand that is losing market share.
• Protect a brand against a competitor’s brand advertising efforts.
• Suggest new ways a brand might fit with a new target cus-tomer’s needs and desires.
• Reinforce a brand’s appeal in the market.
• To raise awareness of a brand for trade communication, stock-holder information and
investor relations.
• Remind current customers of aura – the brand personality they have purchased.
Strong’s (1929) AIDA model – Attention, Interest, Desire, Action –
is one of many similar models that explain how advertising helps
to transform a brand proposition into a successful brand
advertisement.
The effectiveness of an advertisement can be measured across several
vectors, using a range of research techniques. These need to be clearly
stated as the target at the start of the briefing process and can then be
used as the measurement tool at the end of the campaign. Blythe (1998)
defines these as:
1. Awareness. There is a high correlation between brand loyalty and
brand awareness.
2. Liking. Likeability appears to be the single best predictor of sales
effectiveness, since likeability scales predict 97 per cent of sales
successes.
3. Interest. This clearly relates to likeability.
4. Enjoyment. This appears to be a good indicator in advertising pre-
tests.
To derive the maximum benefit from an advertisement, corporate
identity or packaging brief, the core needs should be formulated in
a SMART way:
Specific
Measurable
Achievable
Realistic
Time-based
For the early history of advertising, the miracle of mass-market
communication was a great success with businesses and the
consumer, although the contemporary consumer wants to be
addressed in a different tone and a different manner.
Technologies like computer databases and narrowcast media have
also played a part in enabling these focused modes of relationship
marketing.
The result of these shifts towards selective and two-way
relationship marketing is that traditional advertising has lost some
of its power.
Depending on the target audience, the media type will need to be
selected to convey the brand-advertising message. Each one has its
own advantages and disadvantages that will help to make the
appropriate choice.
4
Above the line media
Five media – press, radio, television, cinema, and outdoor &
transport – cover what has traditionally been recognized as above
the line media: those that paid commission to advertising agencies.
The press can be split into the following groupings:
National newspapers
Local newspapers
Free newspapers
Consumer magazines
Trade magazines
Technical journals
Directories and anthologies
Magazines are particularly good at developing an enriched
narrative that is often re-read many times, or even cut out and kept
by the target audience.
Radio can have a local, national and international dimension to its
message delivery, helping to target specific audiences. Radio
advertising delivers short messages, often for only a few seconds,
so they require immediate impact.
• Television is the most expensive way of advertising your brand
message and relatively few companies can afford it.
• Television advertising also delivers a short message, which is
repeated several times over a week. The message has to be
instant, directing the consumer to other sources to discover the
detail of the brand proposition such as Web sites, telephone call
centers, print or retail sites.
The cinema is a larger, more seductive version of the television
brand media but it has special characteristics as well. The brand
message is still temporary, but can be longer than the 30-second
television slot. The physical nature of cinema creates an impressive
audio-visual brand experience that generates a high impact on
consumers.
Outdoor and transport brand advertising are often used as a
secondary or reminder message together with advertising in
another medium. The brand message is almost always read by
people on the move and from a distance, so instant impact is
essential.
4
Below the line media
These media types are generally printed communications including
point of sale (POS), public relations (PR), direct mail (DM), in-
store promotion and many other forms of communication.
Point of sale media act as a stand-alone salesperson, where there
are insufficient sales staff, in hypermarkets and supermarkets for
example.
Public relations is a separate category of marketing
communications and, unless you are a natural, requires specialist
agency skills.
PR is also essential when the brand needs to admit it made a
mistake, when it has misjudged the consumers’ mood.
The growth of DM has been phenomenal in the past 10 years,
allowing companies to target ever more precisely groups of
prospects. Sophisticated computer databases with complex
algorithms offer predictive success rates of
market/lifestyle/demographic/geo-political combinations.
Using creative promotional activities has helped many brands to
generate leading market share results. The best way to generate
these is to try to understand what kind of brand experience the
personality would best fit.
5
Packaging
New product development allows the pack to define part of the
brand personality, and this is especially true for FMCG brands.
The choice of translator of those brand values is the role of the ‘big
idea’ in packaging design. This is where the brand planner starts to
translate the words used in the brand proposition or personality
into a series of images, metaphors and analogies that the design
creatives can use.
The original product packaging was simply for the protection and
transport of goods. There were few examples of branded packaging
until the late 19th century, when commercial competition started
to grow rapidly.
There are four elements in the cycle of effective packaging:
1. protect – implicit quality;
2. identify – in-store brand navigators;
3. dispense – in-home branded use experience;
4. disposal – re-use or recycle and the environment.
The choice of what kind of packaging to use will depend on certain
factors:
• what the product in the pack is;
• what the brand personality is;
• what the retail environment is;
• where it will be sold;
• how much sales assistance will be available;
• how much POS material will be provided;
• how it will be stacked on the floor or shelf;
• how it will be taken home;
• whether dosage size is important;
• whether it needs to be tamper-proof;
• whether freshness is important;
• where the packaging will be used – in the kitchen, bathroom, living room or bedroom at home, or in a
commercial environment;
• whether the packaging is also the container for the goods.
Protective packaging is largely used for consumer durables such as
televisions, toasters and telephones. Where the product is
displayed on a store shelf, the packaging is usually a simple box for
transport.
Most FMCG packaging must not only protect the contents, it must
advertise and sell the product and be used as the dispenser
throughout the product’s life.
The task of an FMCG pack: the in-store purchase process, which is
mainly graphic; and the in-home use experience, which is mainly,
structural.
The role of brand packaging in a retail store is to attract the
customer’s attention, identify the product brand and sell itself in
an instant.
A pack with a distinctive shape that characterizes the brand
personality is powerful because it identifies the brand and
differentiates it clearly from the competition. This should help the
brand to standout on the shelf amongst competitors’ offerings.
The material and texture a pack is made from can also build up the
brand personality. Premium brands often use noble materials to
express their superiority, while cut-price brands tend to use the
cheapest materials available.
Often a category has a color that dominates, which is usually
derived from the category leader. The use of yellow and white in
the margarine category is derived from the Flora brand, and the
use of orange in the cream cracker category is derived from the
Jacobs brand.
These need to be applied to the pack so that they promote the
brand proposition and added benefits; they need to sell the
product off the shelf, even to first-time buyers.
If the role of packaging in the store is to attract and identify the
brand to potential customers, so that they try the brand, the role of
the brand pack, post-purchase, is to generate loyalty, so that trial
customers become dedicated customers.
In today’s business environment it is not possible to ignore the
environmental lobby; in fact many companies have been successful
in harnessing green marketing. This is especially true in the
packaging industry, where packs can often seem wasteful and
unnecessarily bad for the environment.
5
Working with agencies
Potential advantages:
• have external objective viewpoint;
• have broader sector knowledge from working with other clients in
same sector;
• have no sector knowledge but bring valuable knowledge from a
different sector, eg a service sector consultant working for an FMCG
client on delivery systems;
• have greater specialist knowledge;
• free from internal politics;
• used on a project basis rather than structural cost;
• more creative at ideas generation.
Potential disadvantages:
• longer and more complex communication structure;
• may take time to understand the problem fully;
• work may be driven too much by creative ambition;
• may cause conflicts with internal staff members;
• require more time to monitor and advise;
• working with several agencies (design, advertising and public
relations) may result in different brand personalities;
• potentially more expensive in the short term, but better value in
the long term.
Strategic consultancy
• Operate as management consultants to the board of directors.
• Their people are highly trained as business/marketing consultants.
• They work on strategic business solutions.
• They are media neutral, not biased by any specific channel.
Tactical consultancy
• Operate as brand and design consultants to marketing managers.
• Their people are trained as visual consultants.
• They work on implementation of marketing campaigns.
• They often have a specific channel background such as advertising, print or
face-to-face marketing.