Chapter : 6

Choosing Brand Elements to Build Brand Equity

CRITERIA FOR CHOOSING BRAND ELEMENTS

Brand elements, sometimes called brand identities, are those trademarkable devices
that identify and differentiate the brand. Most strong brands employ multiple brand
elements. Nike, for example, has the distinctive “swoosh” logo, the empowering “Just
do it” slogan, and the “Nike” name based on the winged goddess of victory. The main
ones are brand names, URLs, logos, symbols, characters, spokespeople, slogans, jingles,
packages, and signage. Powerful brand elements enhance brand awareness; facilitate
the formation of strong, favorable, and unique brand associations; or elicit positive
brand judgments and feelings. In general, there are six criteria for choosing brand
elements, and they are : memorability; meaningfulness; likability; transferability;
adaptability; and finally, protectability.

1. Memorabe:

 Easily recognized
 Easily recalled

2. Meaningful:
  Descriptive
 Persuasive

3. Likable:

 Fun and interesting

 Rich visual and verbal imagery
 Aesthetically pleasing

4. Transferable:

 Within and across product categories

 Across geographic boundaries and cultures

5. Adaptable:

 Flexible
 Updatable

6. Protectable:

 Legally
 Competitively

Figure : Criteria for choosing Brand Elements

The first three criteria – memorability, meaningfulness, and likability – are the marketer’s
offensive strategy and build brand equity. The later three – transferability, adaptability, and
protectability play a defensive role for leveraging and maintaining brand equity in the face of
different opportunities and constraints.

Memorability

A necessary condition for building brand equity is achieving a high level of brand awareness.
Brand elements that promote that goal are inherently memorable and attention-getting and
therefore facilitate recall or recognition in purchase or consumption settings. Therefore, brand
names should be such that can easily be recognized, easily be recalled each time customers
initiate to purchase and thus, it should be as short as possible. For example – Aarong, Pran, Lux,
LG etc.

Meaningfulness

Brand elements may take on all kinds of meaning, with either descriptive or persuasive content.
Brand names can be based on people, places, animals, or birds, or other things or objects; but it
should carry a meaning that can be communicated to the customer. Name should be such that
suggests something about the product category, the needs it satisfies, the benefits it supplies.
Again the brand name should provide specific information about the particular attributes and
benefits the brand provide to the customers. Therefore, inherent meaning of the brand should
consider in order to make the brand meaningful. For example- “Fair and Lovely” means fairness
cream; “Close-Up” means toothpaste.

Likability

Independent of its memorability and meaningfulness, do customers find the brand element
aesthetically appealing? Is it likable visually, verbally, and in other ways? Brand elements can be
rich in imagery and inherently fun and interesting, even if not always directly related to the
product. A memorable, meaningful, and likable set of brand elements offers many advantages
because consumers often do not examine much information in making product decision.
Descriptive and persuasive elements reduce the burden on marketing communications to build
awareness and link brand associations and equity. To what extent the product is aesthetically
appealing, matters in deciding brand choice. A consumer can easily visualize the brand if it is
just liking to the customer. For example – one can easily visualize “KFC” when talking about fast
food if he likes it; visualize “Hotel Sea Crown” when talking about vacation at Cox’s Bazzar, if he
like it.
Transferability

Transferability measures the extent to which the brand element adds to the brand equity for
new products or in new markets. Brand elements can be transferable within and across product
categories to support line and brand extensions, and across geographic and cultural boundaries
and market segments. There are several aspects to this criterion.

First, how useful is the brand element for line or category extensions? In general, the less
specific the name, the more easily it can be transferred across categories. For example,
“Amazon” connotes a massive South American River and therefore as a brand can be
appropriate for a variety of different types of products. Books “R” Us obviously would not have
afforded the same flexibility if Amazon had chosen that name to describe its original line of
business.

Second, to what extent does the brand element add to brand equity across geographic
boundaries and market segments? To a large extent this depends on the cultural content and
linguistic qualities of the brand element. One of the main advantages of non-meaningful,
synthetic names like “Exxon” is that they transfer well into other languages.

The difficulties or mistakes that even top marketers have encountered in translating their brand
names, slogans, and packages into other languages and cultures over the years have become
legendary. For example, Microsoft was challenged when launching its “Vista” operating system
in Latvia, because the name means “Chicken” or “Frumpy Woman” in local language. When
Pepsi started marketing its products in China to translate its slogan “Pepsi brings you back to
life”, a pretty literally- in Chinese, it really meant “Pepsi brings your ancestors back from the
grave”. To avoid such complications, companies must review all their brand elements for
cultural meaning before introducing the brand into a new market.

Adaptability

One of the major considerations for brand elements is their adaptability over time. Because of
changes in consumer values and opinions, or simply because of a need to remain
contemporary, most brand elements must be updated. The more adaptable and flexible the
brand element, the easier it is to update it. For example, logos and characters can be given a
new look or a new design to make them appear more modern and relevant. Therefore, the
question that guides the management regarding brand element is to what extent the elements
are adaptable and updated? Changes in packaging content, size, color, shape, fragrance,
formulation often require to make the brand suitable over time. Appearance of “Lux” and
“Lifebouy” in new color and packaging in time to time is an example of the same.
Protectability

The sixth general consideration in choosing brand element is the extent to which the brand
element is protectable – both in a legal and a competitive sense. Marketers should (1) choose
brand elements that can be legally protected internationally, (2) formally register them with the
appropriate legal bodies, and (3) vigorously defend trademarks from unauthorized competitive
infringement. The necessity of legally protecting the brand is dramatized by the billions of
dollars in losses in the US alone from unauthorized use of patents, trademarks, and copyrights.
Another consideration is whether the brand is competitively protectable. If a name, package, or
other attribute is too easily copied, much of the uniqueness of the brand may disappear.
Marketers need to reduce the likelihood that competitors can create a derivative based on the
product’s own elements.

Because different brand elements have different strengths and weaknesses, marketers “mix
and match” to maximize their collective contribution to build strong brand equity.
 Chapter : 4
Brand Resonance and the Brand Value Chain

BUILDING A STRONG BRAND : THE BRAND RESONANCE MODEL

The brand resonance model looks at building a brand as a sequence of steps, each of which is
contingent on successfully achieving the objectives of the previous one. The steps are as follows
:

1. Ensure identification of the brand with customers and an association of the brand in
customers” minds with a specific product class, product benefit, or customer need.

2. Firmly establish the totality of brand meaning in the minds of customers by strategically
linking a host of tangible and intangible brand associations.

3. Elicit the proper customer responses to the brand.

4. Convert the brand responses to create brand resonance and an intense, active loyalty
relationship between customers and the brand.

These four steps represent a set of fundamental questions that customers invariably ask about
brands. The four questions (with corresponding brand steps) are :

1. Who are you? (brand identity)

2. What you are? (brand meaning)

3. What about you? What do I think or feel about you (brand responses)

4. What about you and me? What kind of association and how much of a connection
would I like to have with you? (brand relationships)
According to this model, enacting the four steps means establishing a pyramid of six “brand
building blocks” with customers as illustrated in the following figure. The model emphasizes the
duality of brands – the “rational” route to brand building is in the left-hand side of the pyramid,
whereas the “emotional” route is in the right-hand side of the pyramid. Most strong brands are
built by going up both sides of the pyramid.

The creation of significant brand equity requires reaching the top or pinnacle of the brand
pyramid, which occurs only if the right building blocks are put into place.

 Brand Salience : brand salience is how often and how easily customers think of the
brand under various purchase or consumption situations. Achieving the right brand
identity means creating brand salience with customers. Brand salience measures
various aspects of the awareness of the brand and how easily and often the brand is
evoked under various situations. To what extent is the brand top-of-mind and easily
recalled or recognized? What types of cues or reminders are necessary? How pervasive
is this brand awareness? Brand salience stage seeks to answer all those questions.
Therefore marketers need to create brand awareness – the customers’ ability to recall
and recognize the brand under different conditions and to link the brand name, logo,
symbol, and so forth to certain associations in memory. In particular, building brand
awareness helps customers understand the product or service category in which the
brand competes and what products or services are sold under the brand name. it also
ensures that customers know which of their “needs” the brand – through these
products – is designed to satisfy. In short, this stage seeks to answer the question –
what basic functions does the brand provide to customers?

 Brand Performance : Brand performance is how well the product or service meets
customers” functional needs. How well does the brand rate on objective assessments of
quality? To what extent does the brand satisfy utilitarian, aesthetic, and economic
customer needs and wants in the product or service category? Brand performance
transcends the product’s ingredients and features to include dimensions that
differentiate the brand.

 Brand Imagery : Brand imagery describes the extrinsic properties of the product or
service, including the ways in which the brand attempts to meet customers’
psychological or social needs. It is the way people think about a brand abstractly, rather
than what they think the brand actually does. Thus, imagery refers to more intangible
 aspects of the brand, and consumers can form imagery associations directly from their
experience or indirectly through advertising or some form of communications.

 Brand Judgments : Brand judgments focus on customers’ own personal opinions and
evaluations of the brand, which consumers form by putting together all the different
brand performance and imagery associations. Customers may make all types of
judgments with respect to a brand, but four types are particularly important : judgment
about quality, credibility, considerations, and superiority.

 Brand Feelings : Brand feelings are customers’ emotional responses and reactions with
respect to the brand. Brand feeling also relate to the social currency evoked by the
brand. What feelings are evoked by the marketing program for the brand or by other
means? How does the brand affect customers’ feeling about themselves and their
relationships with others? These feelings can be mild or intense and can be positive or
negative. The emotions evoked by a brand can become so strongly associated that they
are accessible during product consumption or use.

 Brand Resonance : Brand resonance refers to the nature of the relationship customers
have with the brand and the extent to which they feel they are “in sync” with it.
Resonance is characterized in terms of intensity, or the depth of the psychological bond
that customers have with the brand, as well as the level of activity engendered by this
loyalty (repeat purchase rates and the extent to which customers seek out brand
information, events, and other loyal customers). Brands with high resonance include
Harley –Davidson, Apple, and e-Bay. Fox News has found that the higher levels of
resonance and engagement its program engender often leads to greater recall of the
ads it runs.
 AN ILLUSTRATION

MasterCard is an example of a brand with much duality, because it emphasizes both the
rational advantages of the Credit card – its acceptance at establishments worldwide – as well as
the emotional advantages – expressed in the award-winning “Priceless” advertising campaign.
Ads depict people buying items to achieve both a very practical goal and a more important
emotional goal. The first ad, for example, showed a father taking his son to a baseball game. As
they made purchases on the way to their seats, superimposed on the screen and in a voiceover
came the words :

“Two tickets ---- $46,

Two hotdogs, two popcorns, two sodas ---$27,

One autographed baseball --- $50,

Real conversation with 11-year-old son --- priceless”.

The ad ended with the tagline, “There Are Some Things Money Can’t Buy; For Everything Else
There’s MasterCard”. The ads reinforced the notion that the ultimate goal of MasterCard – a
feeling, an accomplishment, or other intangible – was truly “priceless”. The campaign has been
so successful that it has run around the world for more than 17 years, running similarly
structured ads in 102 markets and 50 languages with appropriate cultural adaptation. The
baseball spot, for example, was redone as a cricket ad for Australia. Lately, it has emphasized
enabling “priceless” moments with the “Priceless Cities” initiative, launched in 2011 to create
special events for MasterCard cardholders in major cities around the world.
 Chapter : 5
Brand Resonance Model and the Brand Value Chain

THE BRAND VALUE CHAIN

The brand value chain is a structured approach to assessing the sources and outcomes of brand
equity and the manner by which marketing activities create brand value. It recognizes that
many different people within an organization can affect brand equity and need to be aware of
relevant branding effects. The brand value chain thus provides insights to support different
stakeholders around the brand, all of whom may need different types of information.

The brand value chain is a means to trace the value creation process for brands to better
understand the financial impact of brand marketing expenditures and investments. Taking the
customer’s perspective of the value of a brand, the brand value chain assumes that the brand
value creation process begins when the firm invests in a marketing program targeting actual or
potential customers. Any marketing program investment that potentially can be attributed to
brand value development falls into this category, for example – product research, development,
and design; trade or intermediary support; and marketing communications.

The marketing activity associated with the program then affects the customer mind-set with
respect to the brand – what customers know and feel about the brand. The customer mind-set
includes everything that exists in the mind of customers with respect to a brand : thoughts,
feelings, experiences, images, perceptions, beliefs, attitudes, and so forth. Consistent with the
brand resonance model, five key dimensions that are particularly important measures of the
customer mind-set are brand awareness, brand associations, brand attitudes, brand
attachment, and brand activity or experience.

The customer mind-set affects how customers react or respond in the marketplace in a variety
of ways. Six key outcomes of that response are price premiums, price elasticities, market share,
brand expansion, cost structure, and brand profitability. Based on a thorough understanding
o0f the brand’s past, current and future prospects as well as other factors, the financial
marketplace then formulates opinions and makes various assessments that have direct financial
implications for the value of the brand. Three particularly important indicators are the stock
price, the price/earnings multiple, and overall market capitalization for the firm.

The model also assumes that a number of linking factors intervene between these stages. These
linking factors determine the extent to which value created at one stage transfers or
“multiplies” to the next stage. Three sets of multipliers moderate the transfer between the
marketing program and the subsequent three value stages – the program multiplier, the
customer multiplier, and the market multiplier.

The program multiplier determines the marketing program’s ability to affect the customer
mind-set and is a function of the quality of the program investment. The customer multiplier
determines the extent to which value created in the minds of customers affects market
performance. This result depends on contextual factors external to the customers. Three such
factors are :

 Competitive Superiority : how effective the quantity and quality of the marketing
investment of other competing brands are;

 Channel and other Intermediary Support : how much brand reinforcement and selling
effort various marketing partners are putting forth;

 Customer Size and Profile : how many and what types of customers, profitable or not,
are attracted to the brand.

The market multiplier determines the extent to which the value shown by the market
performance of a brand is manifested in shareholder value. It depends, in part, on the actions
of financial analysts and investors.

Once the marketers have determined the brand planning, they can put into place the actual
marketing program to create, strengthen, or maintain brand associations.
 CUSTOMER MIND -SET

The customer mind-set includes everything that exists in the minds of customers with
respect to a brand: thoughts, feelings, experiences, images, perceptions, beliefs, and
attitudes. In its totality, the brand resonance model captures a wide range of aspects of the
customer mind-set. Important measures of customer mind-set are :

1. Brand Awareness : The extent and ease with which customers recall and recognize
the brand and can identify the products and services with which it is associated.

2. Brand Association : The strength, favorability, and uniqueness of perceived

attributes and benefits for the brand. Brand associations often represent key sources
of brand value, because they are the by means of which consumers feel brands
satisfy their needs.

3. Brand Attitudes : Overall evaluations of the brand in terms of its quality and the
satisfaction it generates.

4. Brand Attachment : The degree of loyalty the customer feels toward the brand. A
strong form of attachment, adherence, is the consumer’s resistance to change and
the ability of a brand of a brand to withstand bad news like a product or service
failure. In the extreme, attachment can even become addiction.

5. Brand Activity : The extent to which customers use the brand, talk to others about
the brand, seek out brand information, promotions, and events, and so on.

Brand value is created at this stage when customers have (1) deep, broad brand awareness;
(2) appropriately strong, favorable, and unique POP and POD; (3) positive brand judgment
and feelings; (4) intense brand attachment and loyalty: and (5) a high degree of brand
activity.