Chapter1:

-A brand: «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.” -American Marketing Association

-It is the difference between a commodity and a distinctive offering that constitutes a brand.

-Five levels of a product:

1. Core benefit level

2. Generic product level

3. Expected product level

4. Augmented product level

5. Potential product level

-A brand is more than a product since it can have dimensions that differentiate it from other
products.

-Brands create competitive advantages through non-product-related means.

-On the basis of attributes, products can be classified as:

1. Search goods: Evaluated on the basis of attributes such as sturdiness, size, colour, style, design,
weight, and ingredient (Exp: Grocery).

2. Experience goods: Evaluated on the basis of features such as durability, service quality, safety,
and ease of handling (Exp: Automobile Wires).

3. Credence goods: Consumers may rarely learn attributes (Example: Insurance)

-Functions of a brand for consumers:

1. Identify the source or maker of the product

2. Simplify product decisions

3.Lower the search costs for products internally and externally

4. Helps set reasonable expectations about what consumers may not know about the brand

5. Reduce Risk (Time, Financial, Social, Physical, Functional, Psychological)

-Functions of a brand to a firm:

1. Simplify product handling and tracing

2. Help organizing inventory and accounting records

3. Offer the firm legal protection for unique features or aspects of the product

4. Provide predictability and security of demand for the firm and creates barriers of entry for
competitors

5. Provide a powerful means to secure competitive advantage

-Anything can be branded, from products, services, people and organizations, digital brands
(Amazon, Google, YouTube), cities and countries (place marketing), retailers and distributors
(carrefour/geant/…), sports, arts, entertainment, …

-Challenges in marketing services:

• Less tangible than products and vary in quality.

• Depends on the particular person or people providing them.

• Branding addresses problems related to intangibility and variability.

• Brand symbols help make abstract nature of the services more concrete.

• Provides competitive edge to the services

-Challenges of branding:

• Unparalleled access to information and new technologies

• Downward pressure on prices

• Ubiquitous connectivity and the consumer backlash

• Sharing information and goods

• Unexpected sources of competition

• Disintermediation and reintermediation

• Alternative sources of information about product quality

• The importance of customer-centricity

-Brand Equity: It is the value created around a product s in the minds of consumers, that can be
either positive or negative.

-It is composed of: Brand image, Brand identity, Customer perception, Brand Awareness, Brand
loyalty, and Brand Association.

-Strategic brand management involves the design and implementation of marketing programs
and activities to build, measure, and manage brand equity.
Chapter2:

- Strategic brand management process:

1. Identifying and Developing Brand Plans (Positioning)

2. Designing and implementing Brand Marketing programs (brand resonance)

3. Measuring and interpreting brand performance (Measuring system)

4. Growing and sustaining brand equity (sustainability)

-Building Brand Strategy:

1. Brand Positioning: establish competitive advantage in the minds of consumers.

2. Brand Resonance: take these competitive advantages and create intense, active, loyalty
relationships with customers.

3. Brand Value Chain: trace the value creation process to better understand the financial impact of
marketing expenditures and investments to create loyal customers and strong brands.

-CBBE: “Differential effect that brand knowledge has on consumer response to the marketing of
that brand”. It relates to how « your » customers’ attitude towards your brand. It approaches
brand equity from the perspective of the consumer.

- Positive CBBE: When consumers react more favourably to a product and the way it is
marketed when the brand is identified than when it is not.
- Negative CBBE: When consumers react less favourably to marketing activity for the brand
compared with an unnamed or fictitiously named version of the product.

-Advantages of CBBE:

1. Improved perceptions of product performance 2. Greater loyalty 3. Less vulnerability to

competitive marketing actions 4. Less vulnerability to marketing crises 5. Larger margins 6. More
inelastic consumer response to price increases 7. More elastic consumer response to price
decreases 8. Increased marketing communication effectiveness 9. Possible licensing opportunities
10. Additional brand extension opportunities

-Brand Knowledge: Brand image (=∑associations in the mind of consumers) + Brand awareness
(strength of the brand trace in memory)

-It is the key to create Brand equity, Marketers need an insightful way to represent how brand
knowledge exists in consumer memory.

-Associative network memory model: Views memory as a network of nodes and connecting links.

Steps:
1-Identifying and establishing brand positioning:

-Act of designing the company’s offer and image so that it occupies a distinct and valued place in
the target customers’ minds

-Finding the proper “location” in the minds of consumers or market segment

-Allows consumers to think about a product or service in the “right” perspective

-It requires establishing the correct points-of-difference and points-of-parity associations.

2- Build Brand Resonance and Brand Value chain:

A. Brand resonance model:

-Breadth and depth of awareness (Salience): Gives a product an identity by linking brand
elements to:

o The product category

o The associated purchase
o The consumption or usage situations

-Four types of judgments:

o Brand quality: Defined by specific attributes and benefits of a brand.

o Brand credibility: Judgments about the company or organization behind the brand. Often
defined by: Perceived expertise / Trustworthiness / Likability
o Brand considerations: Serious consideration to purchase the brand.
 o Brand superiority: Measures extent to which customers view the brand as unique and
better than other brands

-Four categories of brand resonance:

• Behavioural loyalty: Repeat purchases and the amount or share of category volume
attributed to the brand
• Attitudinal attachment: Viewing the brand as something special
• Sense of community: Social phenomenon in which customers feel a kinship or affiliation
with others associated with the brand –
• Active engagement: Willing to invest time, energy, money, or other resources beyond
those expended during purchase or consumption

B- 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. It provides a detailed
road map for tracking value creation.
Chapter3:

- Brand elements: are those trademarkable devices that serve to identify and differentiate the
brand. The main ones are:

Brand names:

• Descriptive brand name: is simple and direct (Handy Plast).

• Suggestive brand name: Often communicate some appropriate message about the product
in a subtle manner (Délice)
• Freestanding brand name: Conveys less or no Information immediately to the consumer
(Kodak).

-Brand name associations:

• Word associations: These are words freely associated with names.

• Image associations: These include images stimulated/ provoked by the name.
• Product associations: It includes any specific products or product categories associated
with names.

URLs: Register and pay for it

Logos: Indicate origin, ownership, or association

Symbols: Easily recognizable, Valuable to identify products, Abstract logos offer advantages when
the full brand name is difficult to use, unlike brand names, logos can be easily adapted over time,
For a more contemporary look.

Characters: human or real-life characteristics Introduced through advertising (Ronald McDonald,

Chester Cheetah, Energizer Bunny, Duracell Bunny, Captain Birdseye)

Slogans: Short phrases that communicate descriptive or persuasive information about the brand,
useful “hooks” or “handles” to help consumers grasp the meaning of a brand.

Jingles: Catchy musical messages/hooks and choruses

Package: Identify/Convey descriptive and persuasive information/ Facilitate transportation and

protection/ Assist in at-home storage/ Aid product consumption

-Criteria for choosing brand elements:

Offensive strategy:

-Memorability: Easily recognized / Easily recalled

-Meaningfulness: Descriptive / Persuasive

-Likability: Fun and interesting / Rich visual and verbal imagery / Aesthetically pleasing
Defensive strategy:

-Transferability: Within and across product categories / Across geographic boundaries and cultures

-Adaptability: Flexible / Updatable

-Predictability: Legally / Competitively

- Brand identity: Entire set of brand elements/ Contribution of all brand elements to awareness and image.

- The cohesiveness of the brand identity depends on the extent to which the brand elements are
consistent.

- Integrated marketing is a strategy for delivering a unified, holistic message across all of the marketing
channels that your brand uses.

- Experiential Marketing and Relationship Marketing: provide seamlessly integrated solutions and
personalized experiences for customers that create awareness, spur demand, and cultivate loyalty.

Marketing Programs:

1. Product:

- Perceived Quality: Customers’ perceptions of overall quality or superiority of a product or service

compared with alternative and with respect to its intended purpose.

2. Price: everyday low pricing strategy, value-pricing strategy, Consumer Price strategy,

3. Place: Distribution channels: “sets of interdependent organizations involved in the process of making a
product or service available for use or consumption.”

- Direct/Indirect

-Push tactics (third party stocking prods) /Pull tactics (customers demanding prods from retailers)

4. Promotion:

- Creating awareness of the brand

- Linking points-of-parity and points-of-difference associations to the brand in consumers’
memory
- Eliciting positive brand judgments or feelings
- Facilitating a stronger consumer-brand connection and brand resonance

-IMC: Combine Advertising, Promotion, Interactive Marketing, experiences, events, and brand
amplifiers (PR, Publicity, WOM).
-Criteria of IMC (6Cs):

• Coverage: reach maximal number of customers

• Contribution: creating the desired response and ideal effects in consumers
• Commonality: the extent to which the various communication options share the same
meaning
• Complementarity: the extent to which different associations and links are emphasized
through various communications.
• Conformability: the versatility of communication and the extent to which a particular
marketing strategy “works” for multiple consumer targets, at any time and in any place.
• Cost: they are cost effective and efficient

Marketing in the Digital Era:

-Changes in the CB and MRK: change in decision journey, online retailing, increase in consumer
touchpoints, data availability, personalization, growth of brands, change in consumers' demands

-Customer Engagement: In an online context, consumers engage in a number of activities that go

beyond mere purchase, including cross buying, word-of-mouth, and referrals, and posting reviews
and blogging about a brand.

- Digital communication: Paid Media (sponsoring), Owned Media (info), Earned Media (Reviews)