BM Viva

Brand
A brand is 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.”
Brand Elements
To be able to choose a name, logo, symbol, package design, or other characteristic that
identifies a product and distinguishes it from others. These different components of a brand
that identify and differentiate it are brand elements. The most common brand elements are
brand names, URLs, logos, symbols, characters, packaging, and slogans.
Brand Versus Product
A product is anything we can offer to a market for attention, acquisition, use, or
consumption that might satisfy a need or want.
We can define five levels of meaning for a product:4
1. The core benefit level is the fundamental need or want that consumers satisfy by
consuming the product or service.
2. The generic product level is a basic version of the product containing only those
attributes or characteristics absolutely necessary for its functioning but with no
distinguishing features. This is basically a stripped-down, no-frills version of the
product that adequately performs the product function.
3. The expected product level is a set of attributes or characteristics that buyers
normally expect and agree to when they purchase a product.
4. The augmented product level includes additional product attributes, benefits, or
related services that distinguish the product from competitors.
5. The potential product level includes all the augmentations and transformations that a
product might ultimately undergo in the future.
A brand is therefore more than a product, because it can have dimensions that differentiate it
in some way from other products designed to satisfy the same need. These differences may be
rational and tangible—related to product performance of the brand—or more symbolic,
emotional, and intangible—related to what the brand represents.
Savvy Customer
A consumer who has a complete knowledge about the specific product or brand and knows
exactly what they are buying and who they are buying from.
Strategic Brand Management Process
Strategic brand management involves the design and implementation of marketing programs
and activities to build, measure, and manage brand equity. In this text, we define the strategic
brand management process as having four main 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

 The brand positioning model describes how to guide integrated marketing to

maximize competitive advantages.
 The brand resonance model describes how to create intense, activity loyalty
relationships with customers.
 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.
Customer-Based Brand Equity
The CBBE concept approaches brand equity from the perspective of the consumer—whether
the consumer is an individual or an organization or an existing or prospective customer.
Understanding the needs and wants of consumers and organizations and devising products
and programs to satisfy them are at the heart of successful marketing.

Brand awareness
Brand awareness consists of brand recognition and brand recall performance:
• Brand recognition is consumers’ ability to confirm prior exposure to the brand when
given the brand as a cue. In other words, when they go to the store, will they be able
to recognize the brand as one to which they have already been exposed?
• Brand recall is consumers’ ability to retrieve the brand from memory when given the
product category, the needs fulfilled by the category, or a purchase or usage situation
as a cue. In other words, consumers’ recall of Kellogg’s Corn Flakes will depend on
their ability to retrieve the brand when they think of the cereal category or of what
they should eat for breakfast or a snack, whether at the store when making a purchase
or at home when deciding what to eat.
Brand Image
Brand Image is how customers think of a brand. It can be defined as the perception of
the brand in the minds of the customers. Brand image develops over time. The customers
form an image based on their interactions and experience with the brand.
Brand attributes
Brand attributes are those descriptive features that characterize a product or service.
Brand benefits
Brand benefits are the personal value and meaning that consumers attach to the product or
service attributes.
Brand positioning
It is the “act of designing the company’s offer and image so that it occupies a distinct and
valued place in the target customer’s minds.”
Target Market
A target market is the market a company wants to sell its products and services to, and it
includes a targeted set of customers for whom it directs its marketing efforts. A target
market is a group of consumers or organizations most likely to buy a company's products or
services
Market
A market is the set of all actual and potential buyers who have sufficient interest in, income
for, and access to a product.
Market Segmentation
Market segmentation divides the market into distinct groups of homogeneous consumers who
have similar needs and consumer behavior, and who thus require similar marketing mixes.
Indirect Competition
Competition among the suppliers of different types of products that satisfy the same needs.
For example, a pizza shop competes indirectly with a fried chicken shop, but directly with
another pizza shop.
Point of Difference
Points-of-difference (PODs) are formally defined as attributes or benefits that consumers
strongly associate with a brand, positively evaluate, and believe that they could not find to the
same extent with a competitive brand.
Points of Parity
Points-of-parity associations (POPs), on the other hand, are not necessarily unique to the
brand but may in fact be shared with other brands.
Laddering
Market opportunity that often arises is the need to deepen the meaning of the brand to permit
further expansion.
Reacting
Market challenge is how to respond to competitive actions that threaten an existing
positioning.
Brand Mantras
A brand mantra is a short, three- to five-word phrase that captures the irrefutable essence or
spirit of the brand positioning. For example, McDonald’s brand philosophy of “Food, Folks,
and Fun” nicely captures its brand essence and core brand promise.
Brand Functions
The brand functions term describes the nature of the product or service or the type of
experiences or benefits the brand provides.
Brand Extension
Brand extension occurs when a firm uses an established brand name to enter a new market.
Line Extension
A line extension uses a current brand name to enter a new market segment in the existing
product class, say with new varieties, new flavors, or new sizes.
Brand Resonance Pyramid
Submission of Brand Building Blocks

Brand Salience
Brand salience measures various aspects of the awareness of the brand and how easily and
often the brand is evoked under various situations or circumstances. 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?
 Breadth and Depth of Brand Awareness
The depth of brand awareness measures how likely it is for a brand element to come to mind,
and the ease with which it does so. A brand we easily recall has a deeper level of brand
awareness than one that we recognize only when we see it.
The breadth of brand awareness measures the range of purchase and usage situations in
which the brand element comes to mind and depends to a large extent on the organization of
brand and product knowledge in memory.
Brand Performance
Brand performance describes how well the product or service meets customers’ more
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 Imagery
Brand imagery depends on 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 own experience or indirectly through advertising or
by some other source of information, such as word of mouth. Many kinds of intangibles can
be linked to a brand, but four main ones are:
1. User profiles
2. Purchase and usage situations
3. Personality and values
4. History, heritage, and experiences
1. User Imagery
One set of brand imagery associations is about the type of person or organization who uses
the brand. This imagery may result in customers’ mental image of actual users or more
aspirational, idealized users.
2. Purchase and Usage Imagery
A second set of associations tells consumers under what conditions or situations they can or
should buy and use the brand. Associations can relate to type of channel, such as department
stores, specialty stores, or the Internet; to specific stores such as Macy’s, Foot Locker, or
Bluefly; and to ease of purchase and associated rewards (if any).
3. Brand personality and Values
Through consumer experience or marketing activities, brands may take on personality traits
or human values and, like a person, appear to be “modern,” “old-fashioned,” “lively,” or
“exotic.” Five dimensions of brand personality (with corresponding subdimensions) are
sincerity (down-to-earth, honest, wholesome, and cheerful), excitement (daring, spirited,
imaginative, and up-to-date), competence (reliable, intelligent, successful), sophistication
(upper class and charming), and ruggedness (outdoorsy and tough).
4. Brand History, Heritage, and Experience
Finally, brands may take on associations to their past and certain noteworthy events in the
brand’s history. These types of associations may recall distinctly personal experiences and
episodes or past behaviors and experiences of friends, family, or others. They can be highly
personal and individual, or more well-known and shared by many people. For example, there
may be associations to aspects of the brand’s marketing program, the color of the product or
look of its package, the company or person that makes the product and the country in which it
is made, the type of store in which it is sold, the events for which the brand is a sponsor, and
the people who endorse the brand.
Brand Judgements
Brand judgments are customers’ personal opinions about 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: judgments about quality, credibility, consideration, and
superiority.
 Brand Quality
Brand attitudes are consumers’ overall evaluations of a brand and often form the basis for
brand choice.20 Brand attitudes generally depend on specific attributes and benefits of the
brand. For example, consider Hilton hotels. A consumer’s attitude toward Hilton depends on
how much he or she believes the brand is characterized by certain associations that matter to
the consumer for a hotel chain, like location; room comfort, design, and appearance; service
quality of staff; recreational facilities; food service; security; prices; and so on.
 Brand Credibility
Brand credibility describes the extent to which customers see the brand as credible in terms
of three dimensions: perceived expertise, trustworthiness, and likability. Is the brand seen as
(1) competent, innovative, and a market leader (brand expertise); (2) dependable and
keeping customer interests in mind (brand trustworthiness); and (3) fun, interesting, and
worth spending time with (brand likability)? In other words, credibility measures whether
consumers see the company or organization behind the brand as good at what it does,
concerned about its customers, and just plain likable.
 Brand Consideration
Favorable brand attitudes and perceptions of credibility are important, but not important
enough if customers don’t actually consider the brand for possible purchase or use. As
Consideration depends in part on how personally relevant customers find the brand and is a
crucial filter in terms of building brand equity. No matter how highly they regard the brand or
how credible they find it, unless they also give it serious consideration and deem it relevant,
customers will keep a brand at a distance and never closely embrace it. Brand consideration
depends in large part on the extent to which strong and favorable brand associations can be
created as part of the brand image.
 Brand Superiority
Superiority measures the extent to which customers view the brand as unique and better than
other brands. Do customers believe it offers advantages that other brands cannot? Superiority
is absolutely critical to building intense and active relationships with customers and depends
to a great degree on the number and nature of unique brand associations that make up the
brand image.
Brand Feelings
Brand feelings are customers’ emotional responses and reactions to the brand. Brand feelings
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’
feelings about themselves and their relationship with others? These feelings can be mild or
intense and can be positive or negative.
 Transformational Advertising
Advertising designed to change consumers’ perceptions of the actual usage experience with
the product.
Brand Resonance
Brand resonance describes the nature of this relationship and the extent to which customers
feel that they are “in sync” with the brand. Examples of brands with historically high
resonance include Harley-Davidson, Apple, and eBay. 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). We can
break down these two dimensions of brand resonance into four categories:
1. Behavioral loyalty
2. Attitudinal attachment
3. Sense of community
4. Active engagement
 Behavioral Loyalty
We can gauge behavioral loyalty in terms of repeat purchases and the amount or share of
category volume attributed to the brand, that is, the “share of category requirements.” In other
words, how often do customers purchase a brand and how much do they purchase? For
bottom-line profit results, the brand must generate sufficient purchase frequencies and
volumes.
 Attitudinal Attachment
Behavioral loyalty is necessary but not sufficient for resonance to occur. Some customers
may buy out of necessity—because the brand is the only product stocked or readily
accessible, the only one they can afford, or other reasons. Resonance, however, requires a
strong personal attachment. Customers should go beyond having a positive attitude to
viewing the brand as something special in a broader context. For example, customers with a
great deal of attitudinal attachment to a brand may state that they “love” the brand, describe it
as one of their favorite possessions, or view it as a “little pleasure” that they look forward to.
 Sense of Community
The brand may also take on broader meaning to the customer by conveying a sense of
community. Identification with a brand community may reflect an important social
phenomenon in which customers feel a kinship or affiliation with other people associated
with the brand, whether fellow brand users or customers, or employees or representatives of
the company. A brand community can exist online or off-line.
  Active Engagement
Finally, perhaps the strongest affirmation of brand loyalty occurs when customers are
engaged, or willing to invest time, energy, money, or other resources in the brand beyond
those expended during purchase or consumption of the brand. For example, customers may
choose to join a club centered on a brand, receive updates, and exchange correspondence with
other brand users or formal or informal representatives of the brand itself.
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.44 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 brand managers, chief marketing officers, managing directors, and chief executive
officers, all of whom may need different types of information.

Customer Equity
“The sum of lifetime values of all customers.” Customer lifetime value (CLV) is affected by
revenue and by the cost of customer acquisition, retention, and cross-selling.
 Value equity: Customers’ objective assessment of the utility of a brand based on
perceptions of what is given up for what is received. Three drivers of value equity are
quality, price, and convenience.
  Brand equity: Customers’ subjective and intangible assessment of the brand, above
and beyond its objectively perceived value. Three key drivers of brand equity are
customer brand awareness, customer brand attitudes, and customer perception of
brand ethics.
 Relationship equity: Customers’ tendency to stick with the brand, above and beyond
objective and subjective assessments of the brand. Four key drivers of relationship
equity are loyalty programs, special recognition and treatment programs, community-
building programs, and knowledge-building programs.
Criteria for Choosing Brand Elements
In general, there are six criteria for brand elements
1. Memorable
2. Meaningful
3. Likable
4. Transferable
5. Adaptable
6. Protectable
BRAND ELEMETS
 URLs
URLs (uniform resource locators) specify locations of pages on the Web and are also
commonly referred to as domain names. For example, https://www.google.com.pk
 Characters
Characters represent a special type of brand symbol—one that takes on human or real-life
characteristics. For example, Peter Pan peanut butter, Ronald McDonald.
 Slogans
Slogans are short phrases that communicate descriptive or persuasive information about the
brand. For example, Nike’s slogan is “Just Do it”, “Hungry? Grab a Snickers,” Ufone
tum hi tou ho etc.
 Jingles
Jingles are musical messages written around the brand. For example, jingle for Kit Kat “Give
me a break”.
 Packaging
Packaging is the activities of designing and producing containers or wrappers for a product.
Personalizing Marketing
Personalized marketing is a marketing strategy that focuses on targeting
marketing initiatives and messaging to an individual current or prospective customer. 
 Experiential Marketing
Experiential marketing promotes a product by not only communicating a product’s features
and benefits but also connecting it with unique and interesting consumer experiences. One
marketing commentator describes experiential marketing this way: “The idea is not to sell
something, but to demonstrate how a brand can enrich a customer’s life.”
 Relationship Marketing
Relationship marketing attempts to provide a more holistic, personalized brand experience to
create stronger consumer ties. It expands both the depth and the breadth of brand-building
marketing programs.
 Mass Customization
The concept behind mass customization, namely making products to fit the customer’s exact
specifications, is an old one, but the advent of digital-age technology enables companies to
offer customized products on a previously unheard-of scale. Going online, customers can
communicate their preferences directly to the manufacturer, which, by using advanced
production methods, can assemble the product for a price comparable to that of a non-
customized item.
  One-to-one Marketing
The basic rationale is that consumers help add value by providing information to marketers;
marketers add value, in turn, by taking that information and generating rewarding experiences
for consumers. The firm is then able to create switching costs, reduce transaction costs, and
maximize utility for consumers, all of which help build strong, profitable relationships.
One-to-one marketing is thus based on several fundamental strategies:
• Focus on individual consumers through consumer databases— “We single out consumers.”
• Respond to consumer dialogue via interactivity— “The consumer talks to us.”
• Customize products and services— “We make something unique for him or her.”
 Permission Marketing
Permission marketing, the practice of marketing to consumers only after gaining their express
permission, was another influential perspective on how companies can break through the
clutter and build customer loyalty.
PRODUCT STRATEGY
The product itself is the primary influence on what consumers experience with a brand, what
they hear about a brand from others, and what the firm can tell customers about the brand. At
the heart of a great brand is invariably a great product.
Designing and delivering a product or service that fully satisfies consumer needs
and wants is a prerequisite for successful marketing, regardless of whether the product is a
tangible good, service, or organization. For brand loyalty to exist, consumers’ experiences
with the product must at least meet, if not actually surpass, their expectations.
 Perceived Quality
Perceived quality is customers’ perception of the overall quality or superiority of a product or
service compared to alternatives and with respect to its intended purpose.
 Aftermarketing
Aftermarketing, that is, those marketing activities that occur after customer purchase.
 User Manuals
 Customer Service Programs
 Loyalty Programs
PRICING STRATEGY
Consumer Price Perceptions
 Price Bands
Within any price tier, there is a range of acceptable prices, called price bands, that indicate
the flexibility and breadth marketers can adopt in pricing their brands within a tier.
  Value-based Pricing Strategy
Strategies—attempting to sell the right product at the right price—to better meet consumer
wishes.
Setting Prices to Build Brand Equity
 Value Pricing
The objective of value pricing is to uncover the right blend of product quality, product costs,
and product prices that fully satisfies the needs and wants of consumers and the profit targets
of the firm.
CHANNEL STRATEGY
Channel Design
A number of possible channel types and arrangements exist, broadly classified into direct and
indirect channels. Direct channels mean selling through personal contacts from the company
to prospective customers by mail, phone, electronic means, in-person visits, and so forth.
Indirect channels sell through third-party intermediaries such as agents or broker
representatives, wholesalers or distributors, and retailers or dealers.
Indirect Channels
 Push and Pull Strategies

 Push Strategy
A push promotional strategy involves taking the product directly to the customer via
whatever means, ensuring the customer is aware of your brand at the point of purchase.

“Taking the product to the customer”

Examples of Push Strategy

o Trade show promotions to encourage retailer demand

o Direct selling to customers in showrooms or face to face
o Negotiation with retailers to stock your product
o Efficient supply chain allowing retailers an efficient supply
o Packaging design to encourage purchase
o Point of sale displays

 Pull Strategy

A pull strategy involves motivating customers to seek out your brand in an active process.

“Getting the customer to come to you”

Examples of Pull Strategy

o Advertising and mass media promotion

 o Word of mouth referrals
o Customer relationship management
o Sales promotions and discounts

Branded Variants

Branded variants have been defined as branded items in a diverse set of durable and semi-
durable goods categories that are not directly comparable to other items carrying the same
brand name. Manufacturers create branded variants in many ways, including making changes
in color, design, flavor, options, style, stain, motif, features, and layout.

Direct Channels

 Company owned stores

 Store within a store: Shop within a major departmental store
 Other means: Another channel option is to sell directly to consumers via phone, mail,
or electronic means. Retailers have sold their goods through catalogs for years. Many
mass marketers, especially those that also sell through their own retail stores, are
increasingly using direct selling, a long-successful strategy for brands such as Mary Kay
and Avon.