mbrella Brands Rule!

The 1980s witnessed a revolution in the understanding of the working of the brands. Marketers depict brands as a
reflection of customers’ own personalities, so that they can relate to their products well. In fact the distinguishing
aspect of the modern marketing has been its focus upon the creation of differentiated brands and using them as
weapons for launching multi-level attacks on competition. Market research has been used to help identify and
develop bases of brand differentiation. A brand identifies a product and its sources, but it does even more. Along
came brand extension. Today brand extension strategies are widely employed because of beliefs that they build and
communicate strong brand positioning, enhance awareness and increase profitability.
Brands are often extended beyond their original categories to include new product categories. Research has proved
that the success of brand extension depends on the transfer of parent brand awareness and associations to the
extension. The transfer of these quality perceptions is the key in umbrella branding. An umbrella brand is a brand that
covers diverse kinds of products which are more or less related. It applies also to any company that is identified only
by its brand and history. It is contrasted with individual branding in which each product in a portfolio is given a unique
identity and brand name.
Mr. K.R.Senthilvelkumar, a professor at Jansons School of Business offers the most pragmatic of reasons behind an
umbrella brand strategy, “with scarce financial resources, firms cannot afford to allocate huge budgets for building
and maintaining several brands”.
Nowadays consumers have become quite unpredictable in their newspaper-reading or TV-viewing habits, it is very
difficult to assure the reach of messages to the target audiences. The advertiser has to use many broadcast and print
media with high frequency to create the desired effect for every brand, which ultimately puts huge burden on the
budget. Hence, companies consider it wise to maintain a minimum number of brands in their portfolio so that they can
do justice to each by effectively distributing their investment for promotion purpose.
Yes, umbrella branding is widely practiced. The Confederation of Indian Industry's second FMCG (fast moving
consumer goods) conclave in 2003 almost declared that umbrella branding was the way to go in a competitive market
environment. In an interesting anecdote, R S Sodhi, GM Marketing (Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation l),
compared the umbrella brand and individual brands to an Indian family, where in umbrella brands - like the Indian
family, the father is the head, looking over the children. When they grow up and become independent, they hold the
umbrella for the family. Individual brands on the other hand are like a western family, who grow up fast and leave the
father behind. Amul’s strategy of using “umbrella branding” has really paid off. Amul’s advertising and marketing
spend has never exceeded 1% of its revenues. Most other food companies spend 6-7% of revenues on advertising
and marketing. They (GCMMF) are not big spenders compared to Britannia or Nestle. Despite a limited budget,
Amul’s creatives—in the form of billboards or the Taste of India campaign—have always managed to evoke a larger-
than-life brand feel, consistency and spirit of Indian culture in a contemporary way.
Companies phase out the brands which have become redundant and retain one or two umbrella brands for every
category with necessary variations under each. For example consumer goods major Reckitt & Colman India Ltd.
chalked out an expansion strategy to introduce 20 new brands in the year 1999-2000. The strategy also involved
repositioning its existing brands and consolidating sub-brands under its main umbrella brands - Dispirin, Dettol,
Harpic and Cherry Blossom. The strategy was designed to vault Reckitt & Colman, in terms of sales, into the big
league. With the launch of new brands and the repositioning of its existing brands, the company aimed to achieve
expected sales growth. The strategy worked well as Dettol as an antiseptic lotion provided brand support to Dettol
soap, which was re-launched in a fragrant form called Dettol Fresh to take on HLL's Liril. Cherry Blossom acted as a
mother brand for several easy-to-use home products.
Hindustan Unilever Ltd’s (HUL) beverage brands have been amalgamated under two umbrella brands – Brooke Bond
and Lipton and in the fabric wash category, the company has retained only Rin, Surf and Wheel, HUL has withdrawn
brands such as Sunlight, 501, Dalda and Nihar; it plans to withdraw some more brands and group them under a few
umbrella brands. HUL is currently focusing on 35 power brands.
Nivea cosmetics brand has a presence in huge number of product categories and countries. Once upon a time
Nivea's performance prompted a yahoo.com news article to name it the 'Queen of Mega Brands.' This title was
appropriate since the brand was present in over 14 product categories and was available in more than 150 countries.
Nivea was reportedly believed to be a brand of local origin - having been present in them for many decades. This fact
went a long way in helping the brand attain the leadership status in many categories and countries. According to
analysts, the brand was the single largest factor for the 4.4% increase in the company's (Beiersdorf) revenues (€ 4.74
billion) and 10.7% increase in after-tax profit (€ 290 million) for the year 2002. Beiersdorf never tried to disturb the
umbrella branding of Nivea and got fruitful results.
Today as organized retailing is gaining popularity, we can see that popularity of private labels owned by retailers.
Retailers do not feel the need to develop many brands for various categories because it is the loyalty towards their
store name which draws and retains the customers. Hence it is the umbrella retail store name which will be the brand
for various product categories and not individual names for each. Customers prefer these brands over that of
manufacturers, due to the fact that they address their functional needs well. The retailers also enjoy high margins for
private labels. Today a retail chain like Shopper’s Stop’s 20% apparel section is driven by private labels. There are
others like Trent from the TATAs which has developed its business model purely on private labels.
From Asian Paints in 2003 to Electrolux, Onida and Airtel in 2004, they have all made a move from individual product
branding to umbrella branding. Just a few year ago Bharti Televentures had brand Airtel for mobile services, Touchtel
for land line and India One for long distance calls. But with Airtel dominating the group's ad spends, the company
figured that the other brands were hardly making their presence felt. The unified licensing regime in December 2003 -
which means that only one license is required to offer fixed, mobile and other services - acted as a catalyst (new
Airtel logo/ Airtel outlets). So come September 2004 and the company started selling all its services under one brand
name - Airtel. It claims that the move not only upped brand visibility but also charged up its distribution network.
No doubt, umbrella branding has a number of advantages over individual brands in terms of low promotional costs
and easy acceptance in trade but umbrella branding imposes on the brand owner a greater burden to maintain
consistent quality and brand equity. If the quality of one product in the brand family is compromised, it could reduce
sales of all the others. Single umbrella branding works relatively better for services like telecom; it may not be feasible
in cases where there is a lesser degree of cohesion between categories, product values and target customers. So,
maintaining a few umbrella brands is better option. For instance, suppose LG, a tech brand as far as Indian consumer
is concerned, wants to sell you talc or toothpaste or detergent under that name. Consumers would find it very difficult
to say what is transferred value from LG TV sets which they’re now going to put on their skin.
Nokia, a moralist for single umbrella branding dropped their single umbrella brand strategy in 2006 in naming it’s
products. The company believed it needed to have a look at its competitors’ book. After the roaring success of the
Moto RAZR, PEBL, SLVR and ROKR series, the Finnish mobile handset manufacturer felt that consumers found
names easy to remember compared to the usual mundane numbers. Even LG launched its popular Chocolate range
of phones under the Black Label series. For Nokia, barring few exceptions, numbers have been the only way its
phones have been branded so far - remember 1100, 2600, 3310, 6020?
In 2006 they launched Nokia 8800 Sirocco Edition (a mixture of names and numbers). Nokia introduced this
approach to make it easier for customers to navigate across their range of phones. They also launched E-series
phones (which serve business users) and N-series (which have multimedia features).
While some players say that the naming trend will be restricted to the high-end, feature-led phones(for example- LG
is also banking on the name game but in that case it is confined to the high-end range of designer phones), others
like Motorola are banking on names irrespective of price slabs. Motorola believes that consumers don't look at these
names in an abstract manner and therefore names convey a message to consumers.
A few umbrella brands or individual brands? According to experts, independent brands only make sense when the
product clearly has a different proposition from the company brand; like Lexus from Toyota and Swatch from Omega.
In the case of Asian Paints, there were so many sub-brands, there was a reduction of media weights for advertising
each entity. Then, the company shifted to a brand-centric portfolio, which involved a change of logo, product names,
packaging and advertising. But the response from the trade and consumers has been positive, overall brand synergy
and shop presence have increased, and the advertising is more effective.
Most probably in near future the media environment will make it impossible to create newer brand names and the
conditions at the consumer level, as well as the environment. So unless the product is clearly different in the mind of
the consumer, umbrella branding is the way to go. Umbrella brands are going to rule!

Umbrella Marketing Services is helping timeshare owners and vacationers

alike with there fresh outlook on vacationing! 
With the current conditions of our economy, people are more and more selling off their luxury items.
From boats, to antique cars, to vacation properties, you can find them all over the internet and in
newspapers across the country. The best thing about this is that people that are looking to acquire
items like this, can do so at a discounted rate. This lens is specifically about vacation properties,
more specifically about Timeshares.
Timeshare owners are looking for ways to make money, and vacationers are looking for ways to
save money. Timeshare affords both the seller and the buyer these respective opportunities.
Timeshare properties are much more than simple hotel rooms. They usually include one, two, or
three bedrooms, multiple bathrooms, a full kitchen and a living room. These units come fully
furnished, and the purchaser of these units gets the same rights as owning their own vacation home.
They only difference is that these units are owned by multiple people. The costs of ownership in
these units is shared amongst all the owners of that specific unit. Typically these units are owned in
measurements of time (most often 1 week intervals) or points. Points are ways of keeping track of
how much time you own and in what size unit. Just like a standard hotel room, timeshare resorts are
located all over the world. Owning in one resort destination does not mean you have to travel to that
same location year after year. You can exchange your week of time, or however much time you own,
to different destinations. Vacationing in a timeshare gives vacationers more than a standard hotel
room, and as time goes by, the cost becomes less than a hotel, while the resort gains in value.
Because these units are owned like real estate, the owner of each interval of time has the ability to
sell or rent their unit. This is where the new purchaser can buy these units at a discount.

Timeshare resorts have massive amounts of overhead, from the developers profit, to paying
marketing companies to attract buyers, paying for electricity in every unsold unit, paying sales
people, all the way down to paying the cleaning crew to keep the property looking nice. Often times
resort developers have investors who take there money off the top before anything is ever paid for.
The resorts overhead can be upward of 60 to 70 percent of the asking sales price! Why pay all those
people yourself when you can buy directly from the owner of the unit you want? The owner sells on
the resale market and knows they have already paid the overhead costs to the resort. It's as simple
as cutting out the middle man!

Timeshare owners can also rent out their units. This allows the owner to keep the unit and allow it
more time to gain in value. Renting the timeshare is a great way to cover maintenance fees and
make a little extra money at the same time. The best part of it is that you can give the potential
renter a plethora of choices to vacation in. Often times, renters enjoy themselves so much while on
vacation in a spacious condo instead of a cramped hotel room, they want to purchase one for
themselves!

When a vacationer is looking to purchase a timeshare, they often turn to the internet. The internet,
after all, is the biggest market place for anything in the world! For a seller, the problem becomes too
much inventory. The more choices someone has, the cheaper they can usually get it. The solution to
this is streamlined, direct marketing and soliciting of potential buyers or renters. This is most easily
accomplished through an established company experienced in this realm of marketing and
advertising. There are a number of websites, such as www.umbrellamarketingservices.com,
dedicated to doing just that.

Umbrella Marketing Services offers the most up to date advertising and marketing techniques and
strategies to Timeshare owners who are looking to either sell the ownership outright or rent out the
usage. We have designed a systematic approach to finding potential buyers or renters for individual
ownerships, that is unmatched in this industry. We do not just "list" a Timeshare, we actively seek
out potential buyers and renters so that we can forward offers directly to the owner. Because our
marketing techniques are based on the trends of the specific market we are targeting at any given
time, our marketing and advertising strategies are always changing and flowing with the times.

Umbrella Marketing Services provides potential buyers and renters with all the information regarding
a specific Timeshare, that they may need to make an educated decision to make an offer. Our
services are designed to make buying, renting, or selling a Timeshare as effortless and smooth as
possible. Our inventory is limited at times, because we do not want to spread the market too thin, but
rest assured, if we do not have a specific unit you may be interested in, we will go out and find it for
you. Wether you are looking to sell, buy or rent a timeshare, now is the right time to
consider timeshare resales.