Brand Management

by Jean-François Chénier

Brand Management

            BRAND  MANAGEMENT  ABSTRACT

Brand Management is often viewed in organizations as a broader and more strategic role than Marketing alone. Marketers see a brand as an implied promise that the level of quality people have come to expect from a brand will continue with future purchases of the same product. My paper is about branding identity, importance, types,how to develop a brand, brand equity. Learning to see intangible values and symbols as resources is the necessary step in brand orientation The organization’s overall goals, values, and positions come to be expressed through brands, and thus acquire an identity.

INTRODUCTION

    Brand management is the application of Marketing techniques to a specific product ,product line, or brand. It seeks to increase the product’s perceived value to the customer and thereby increase brand franchise and brand equity. The value of the brand is determined by the amount of profit it generates for the manufacturer. This can result from a combination of increased sales and increased price, and/or reduced cost of goods sold, and/or reduced or more efficient marketing investment.

A brand is a name, term, sign, symbol, or design which is intended to identify the goods or services of one seller or group of sellers and to differentiate them from those of competitors.

  TYPES OF BRANDS

Premium brand; It costs more than other products in the same category. Economy brand;It is a brand  targetted to a high price elasticity.price elasticity market segment. Fighting brand ;It is a brand created specifically to counter a competitive threat. corporate branding; When a company’s name is used as a product brand name, this is referred to as corporate branding Family branding; When one brand name is used for several related products, this is referred to as Family branding individual branding; When all a company’s products are given different brand names, this is referred to as individual branding private branding ; When large retailers buy products in bulk from manufacturers and put their own brand name on them,  is called private branding Co branding ; When two or more brands work together to market their products, this is referred to as “co-branding Brand licensing ; When a company sells the rights to use a brand name to another company for use on a non-competing product or in another geographical area, this is referred to as “brand licensing.” Employment brand; It is created when a company wants to build awareness with potential candidates

      BRAND NAME

A great brand name is one of the most powerful forces in branding marketing and advertising. It is at once the story about what makes you different from your competitors and the emotional tug that connects you with your audience—all in one or a few words. consumers pay a higher price for brand-name products than for products that do not carry an established brand name.

Great brand names roll off the tongue.

The sound of the spoken name, regardless of what it means, is a big consideration for brand names. An easy-to-understand pronunciation translates across languages and is more likely to be remembered.

A great brand name is the ambassador of your company.

It introduces and characterizes a company to its customers and to the public at large. It also helps differentiate a company’s offerings from the competition’s. As a registered trademark, a great brand name will make these kinds of impressions an official part of a company with actual value on a balance sheet.

Brand-name quality

Brand-name quality assurance is especially important when consumers lack complete informationabout product quality at the time of purchase Moreover, the greater the value of a company’s brand name, the more likely the company is to take quality-control precautions. To protect its brand name, a company will want to make sure its consumers are satisfied. A consumer who pays a high price for a brand-name product is paying for the assurance of increased quality. When companies do not earn a large price premium on their products, the potential sanction the companies face for poor quality control is much lower than the economic cost borne by brand-name companies.

 Brand Development – The Lifeblood Of Business

   There are thousands of products and services out there, but not many brands. Brands generally return better profits because they are less sensitive to price undercutting. They achieve a level of awareness and customer loyalty by building a set of emotional connections in the consumers’ mind.

Disjointed brands
Like immature brands, these may have a number of different ‘brand idea’ messages in the market place, probably because you haven’t uncovered one that resonates with the audience and everyone will commit to. Immature brands require guidance and a long-term view.

Boring brand
Maybe you haven’t managed to reveal the brand idea creatively? A good, strategically minded creative person can often see and express aspects of the brand you may consider mundane because you’re too close to it. We created huge impact for a shipping company because one of their people revealed to us in passing that their ships go 3 knots faster than the competition. The resulting campaign dramatised the message that meat exporters could get their money quicker because of the faster delivery. The proposition was a strong emotional promise based on a difference the client had not perceived as valuable.

Plain old-fashioned brand
Usually requires a straightforward design evolution to update the ‘clothes of the brand’. When St.George wanted to shift from building society to bank, this was the opportunity for us to contemporise the brand with a careful, evolutionary step. The objective was to broaden the bank’s purchase with the business world whilst retaining as much ‘friendly’ equity as possible.

Misunderstood brand
Either you have failed to communicate the brand idea properly, or you need to change your own perception of what the brand is, by listening to what the customer tells you it is. Then strengthen that position.

BRAND EQUITY

Brand equity serves as the bridge between what happened to the brand  in the past and what should happen to the brand in the future.”1″Brand equity relates to the fact that different outcomes result from the marketing of a product or service because of its brand name or some other brand element that if that same product or service did not have that brand identification.”

Positive Equity

An interesting question is raised- can brands have negative brand equity? From one perspective, brand equity cannot be negative. Positive brand equity is created by effective marketing including via advertising, PR and promotion. A second perspective is that negative equity can exist. Looking at a political “brand” example, the “Democrat” brand may be negative to a Republican, and vice versa.

The greater a company’s brand equity, the greater the probability that the company will use a family branding strategy rather than an individual branding strategy. This is because family branding allows them to leverage the equity accumulated in the core brand. Aspects of brand equity includes: brand loyalty, awareness, association, and perception of quality.

To financiers, brand equity = retained earnings. To marketers, brand equity = retained customers

To a marketer, creating and maintaining brand equity can provide for increased profitability, reduced vulnerability to competition, the ability to charge premium prices, and a platform for introducing new to market products carrying the brand name.

A brand’s equity is comprised of its loyalty rate and its relative price.

Relative price reflects the perceived value of a brand. By using relative price in the calculation of brand equity, we introduce the element of perceived value for the money. Loyalty rate is defined as the percent of category purchases of the brand by people who buy the brand.

To its buyers, a brand is a promise

Its value to consumers is that it reduces risk, saves time and provides reassurance. Predictable results are the promise of a brand. As long as a product or service meets a customer’s expectations with no unexpected negative results, a buyer is likely to continue to buy the brand. It is the customer-oriented definition of a brand that is at the heart of the concept of brand equity.

Brand equity does not exist in nature, to be assayed like gold ore in rock. It’s      measurement depends on how you define it.

Brand equity is a concept. It does not exist in nature in the manner that the specific gravity of elements exists as a physical entity. It cannot be assayed like the gold content in a piece of ore. Those who argue that brand equity cannot be measured miss the essential point. Its measurement depends on how it is defined. That definition must have pragmatic value to a marketer of consumer products or services. It should help improve marketing effectiveness and efficiency by providing a yardstick with which to evaluate these things. Also, the definition should reflect the role of the brand in the dynamics of consumer choice in a competitive environment.

BRANDING TECHNIQUES

Companies sometimes want to reduce the number of brands that they market. This process is known as “Brand rationalization. companies tend to