BRAND MANAGEMENT

By:-Dr. Sundeep Kumar

BE(IT), MBA, Ph.D. (MNIT Jaipur)
Department of Management Studies
MNIT, Jaipur
What is a Brand?
• Brand (American Marketing Association definition) = a name, term, sign, symbol, or

design, or a combination of them, intended to identify the goods and services of one seller or
group of sellers and to differentiate them from those of competition. Whenever a marketer
creates a new name, logo, or symbol for a new product, a new brand has been created.

• A brand can also be considered something that has created a certain amount of awareness,

reputation, prominence, and so on in the marketplace. This is the industry concept of a brand,
called ‘Brand with a big B’, while the AMA definition is the definition with a small b. The
key to creating a brand is being able to choose the right brand elements (name, logo, etc.).
 Product
Anything we can offer to a market for attention, acquisition, use, or consumption that might satisfy a need or want. It may be a physical

good, a service, a type of store, a person, an organization, a place, or even an idea. Five levels of meaning for a product are defined:

• Core benefit level : The fundamental need or want that consumers satisfy by consuming the product or service;

• Generic product level : A basic version of the product containing only those attributes or characteristics absolutely necessary for its

functioning but with no distinguishing features (stripped-down, no frills version);

• Expected product level : A set of attributes/characteristics that buyers normally expect and agree to when they purchase a product;

• Augmented product level : Includes additional attributes/benefits/services that distinguish the product from those of competitors;

• Potential product level : Includes all the augmentations and transformations that a product might ultimately undergo in the future.
Consumer
All types of customers, including individual citizens as well as organizations. To consumers, brands identify the

source/maker of a product, thereby allowing them to assign responsibility to a particular manufacturer/ distributor.

Based on past experiences and marketing programs, consumers find out which brand satisfies them. They use this

information to simplify their product decisions because when they already know a brand and like it, they do not

necessarily have to consider all other brands available for purchase. This way, the consumer’s search costs for

products both internally (how much he has to think) and externally (how much he has to look around) are lowered.

Consumers trust a brand and become loyal to it with the implicit understanding that the brand will behave in certain

ways and provide them utility through consistent product performance and appropriate pricing, promotion, and

distribution programs and actions. As long as consumers are satisfied with a product, they are likely to continue to

buy it.
Why do brands matter?
Brands can allow consumers to project their self-image (serve as symbolic devices) and allow consumers to communicate
to others the type of person they are by reflecting different values or traits. Brands and their attributes can be classified into
three categories:
• Search goods = consumers can evaluate product attributes like color, size, style, design, and weight by visual inspection
(e.g. groceries);
• Experience goods = consumers cannot assess product attributes like durability, ease of handling, and safety easily by
inspection, so have to try/experience the product (e.g. car tires);
• Credence goods = consumers may rarely learn product attributes (e.g. insurance coverage).

Brands can be indicators of quality and other characteristics, and can reduce risks in product decisions. Types of risk are:
• Functional risk = the product does not perform up to expectations;
• Physical risk = the product poses a threat to the physical well-being of the user/others;
• Financial risk = the product is not worth its price;
• Social risk = the product results in embarrassment from others;
• Psychological risk = the product affects the mental well-being of the user;
• Time risk = the failure of the product results in an opportunity cost of finding another satisfactory product.
Can anything be branded?
Ultimately a brand is something that resides in the minds of consumers: it
reflects their perceptions. Marketers must give consumers a label for the
product (how you can identify it) and provide meaning for the brand (what it
can do for you, and why it is special and different). The key to branding is
that consumers perceive differences (related to attributes, the product/service
itself, or intangible assets) among brands in a product category. Marketers
can benefit from branding whenever consumers have to make a choice.
What are the strongest brands?
Virtually anything can be and has been branded. However, any brand, no matter how strong, is vulnerable and susceptible to

poor management. Factors determining enduring leadership are:

• Vision of the mass market: companies with a keen eye for mass market tastes are more likely to build a broad and

sustainable customer base;

• Managerial persistence: the ‘breakthrough’ technology that can drive market leadership often requires the commitment of

company resources of long periods of time;

• Financial commitment: costs are high because of the demands for R&D and marketing;

• Relentless innovation: consumer tastes change and competitors develop, so you must keep innovating to stay ahead;

• Asset leverage: companies can become leaders in some categories if they hold a leadership position in a related category.
The brand equity concept
Brand equity : The marketing effects uniquely attributable to a brand. It explains why different
outcomes result from the marketing of a branded product or service than if it were not branded.
Basic principles of branding and brand equity:

• Differences in outcomes arise from the ‘added value’ endowed to a product as a result of past
marketing activity for the brand. This value can be created for a brand in many different ways.
Brand equity provides a common denominator for interpreting marketing strategies and assessing
the value of a brand. There are many different ways in which this value can be manifested or
exploited to benefit the firm. Fundamentally, the brand equity concept reinforces how important
the brand is in marketing strategies.
Strategic brand management process
The design and implementation of marketing programs and activities to
build, measure, and manage brand equity. The process has four steps:

1. Identifying and developing brand plans;

2. Designing and implementing brand marketing programs;

3. Measuring and interpreting brand performance;

4. Growing and sustaining brand equity.

 Strategic brand management process
1. Identifying and developing brand plans

What is the brand to represent and how should it be positioned? Use three models:

• Brand positioning model : Describes how to guide integrated marketing to

maximize competitive advantages;

• Brand resonance model : Describes how to create intense, active loyalty

relationships with customers;

• Brand value chain : A means to trace the value creation process for brands, to better
understand the financial impact of brand marketing expenditures and investments.
 Strategic brand management process
2. Designing and implementing brand marketing programs

Building brand equity requires properly positioning the brand in the minds of customers and achieving as much
brand resonance as possible. This knowledge-building process depends on:

• The initial choices of the brand elements making up the brand and how they are mixed and matched:
what would consumers think about the product/service if they knew only the brand name/logo/other element?;

• The marketing activities and supporting marketing programs and the way the brand is integrated into
them;

• Other associations indirectly transferred or leveraged by the brand as a result of linking it to some other
entity: because the brand becomes identified with another entity, consumers may infer that the brand shares
associations with that entity, thus producing indirect associations for the brand.
 Strategic brand management process
3. Measuring and interpreting brand performance

• Brand equity measurement system : A set of research procedures designed to provide timely, accurate,
and actionable information for marketers so that they can make the best possible tactical decisions in the
short run and the best strategic decisions in the long run. Key steps:

• Conducting a brand audit : A comprehensive examination of a brand to assess its health, uncover its
sources of equity, and suggest ways to improve and leverage its equity;

• Designing brand tracking studies : Information collection from consumers on a routine basis over time;

• Establishing a brand equity management system : A set of organizational processes designed to

improve the understanding and use of the brand equity concept within a firm. Steps: creating brand equity
charters, assembling brand equity reports, and defining brand equity responsibilities.
 Strategic brand management process
4. Growing and sustaining brand equity
Brand equity management activities take a broader/more diverse perspective of the brand’s equity:

• Defining brand architecture = general guidelines about the branding strategy and which brand elements to apply. Key

concepts are brand portfolio = the set of different brands that a particular firm offers for sale to buyers in a particular

category, and brand hierarchy = displays the number and nature of common and distinctive brand components across the

firm’s set of brands.

• Managing equity over time: a long-term perspective recognizes that any changes in the marketing program may affect

the success of future programs. It also produces proactive strategies designed to maintain and enhance customer-based

brand equity over time and reactive strategies to revitalize a brand that encounters problems.

• Managing brand equity over geographic boundaries, cultures, and market segments: in expanding a brand overseas,

managers need to build equity by relying on specific knowledge about the experience and behaviors of those segments.