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Unit 1Introduction to Brand Management Q1) Explain with an example what is a brand and brand management.A1)A brand is an identifying sign, logo, representation, name, word, or sentence that companies use to differentiate their products or services from others. A blend of one or more of those rudiments can be used to create a brand identity. Legal security given to a brand name is called a trademark. An example of a well-known and popular brands are: Apple, Google, Amazon, Coca-Cola, etc. Whereas, Brand management is essentially a function of marketing that uses methods to grow the apparent value of a product line or brand over time. Effective brand management allows the price of products to go up and builds loyal consumers through constructive brand associations and images or a robust awareness of the brand. Q2) Describe the difference between Brand and product. What is the scope of branding?A2)A product is something which is made by a corporation and can be bought by a customer in exchange for money while a brand is established through a consumer perceptions, experiences and potentials with all products or services under a brand umbrella. There are multiple scopes of branding, such as branding a Physical goods service a person place an organization or, an idea Q3) Discuss the Importance of Branding to Consumers.A3)There are numerous reasons why branding is important to customers, moreover, now that we have entered the digital era, where more and more customers have their strong social presence, there is the hoard of companies trying to climb the ladder of popularity. Here, listed below are some of the most important reasons why branding is needed when the customers are concerned.The face of businesses: The customers relate brands to businesses as their identity. For many, when they remember a brand, it’s the only thing they can link to. This connection of customers and brand makes them remember the brand, thereby, making them loyal to that particular brand. Visually appealing brand management: The visual appeal of a brand is what makes the customers choose that particular brand over thousands of others. With an attractive packaging and an ingenious graphic design, the brand could be extensively linked to the company and etched in the mind of customers, thereby, making them automatically choose the visually appealing one over other. Hike in sales: The more tempting the product looks to buy, the more chances of customers trying it. This direct connection of visually convincing the customers of its importance drives the sales of that particular product up a notch. Q4) Explain the meaning and importance of brand positioning.A4)Brand positioning allows you to describe your brand and comprehend what lies at the center of your business plan. Understanding this allows you to strategize how your brand and products should be interconnected to the customer and through what channels. The importance of brand positing may be enumerated as under: It gives the company a unique characteristic. It becomes firms focus. It drives the firms to be extensively effective and build an innovative decision-making plan It amplifies the message you’re trying to convey to the consumers. It drives more sales, thereby, increasing the conversion rates of the company. Q5) What is the basis of brand positioning?A5)Product positioning grounded on product qualities or benefits is the most frequently used strategy. Brands are categorized apart from opponents on the basis of some specific product feature or advantage offered. For years, Kelvinator refrigerator used to be advertised for its coolest compressors. Hero Honda has highlighted the economy and reliability of its cars and has become the front-runner in the number of units sold. Hyundai Santro has strained upon the maneuverability of the car on the roads and has become one such corporation having profits in the exact first year of its operations in India.Though, one or more than one traits can be chosen as a part of the positioning strategy, but communication about many product attributes may cause dilution in the product image and cause complications for the application of an advertising strategy. At the same time, positioning the product for a single attribute or profit in itself can also be a chancier proposition, as the product may lose its competitive advantage in case if competition trails the same. Hence, only noticeable attributes are identified i.e. those that are significant to the customers and are the basis for making a buying decision. Q6) What are the branding challenges and opportunities? A6) The following are the challenges and opportunities encountered by a marketer in branding:Linking brand to be an asset In today's competitive promoting space, the pressure on branding to deliver short-term business gains tempt most of the organisational decision makers to emphasis more on such measurable tactics. However, often this means by ignoring the objectives of building assets like a brand. Financial encounters Another of the top branding encounters businesses face regarding branding is the funding it needs to be effective. A sensible budget should be allotted to branding, along with marketing, which is a substantial consideration to make. In fact, when business finances come into the delineation, many fail to do budgeting efficiently.The main reason for it is the need for repayment of debt, which slowly builds up as a bothersome affair for entrepreneurs on the go. However, these debts can be managed efficiently with budgeting and funding for the necessary needs like advertising and branding if you are careful. Creating a digital branding plan Brand building online is a more dynamic and intricate arena when compared to conventional brand-building channels. This needs to be approached with a new mindset, new initiatives and capabilities are required to flourish with an online brand strategy. Bringing up an advance brand concepts With tight competition, brand building is never easy.The need for excellent ideas and perfect execution is on a peak to bring a brand vision to life. This points to the need to source more original ideas from various sources and ensure you are the first to market advantage. Q7) What are the Steps of Brand Building including Brand Building Blocks?
A7) Define Your Target AudienceSo much of branding needs an understanding of your audience. Once you’ve decided what your business outlooks for, it’s time to learn who purchases your products or services, why, and how you can reach them. Admittedly, this isn’t something most companies can do in-house. Many companies instead choose to hire market scholars, who collect data on a company’s industry, as well as opponents.But data doesn’t provoke an emotional response. You’ll need to turn those figures into something tangible by creating a consumer persona. Use these findings to create a complete picture of the perfect customer. You’ll want to include features like their income, education, online habits, and shopping preferences.
-Be AuthenticUnderstanding your audience in and of itself isn’t enough to grasp them. If your marketing comes across as deceiving or disingenuous, you’ll run the risk of detaching your audience and losing their trust.Define your company’s values and use those values to create helpful, fun, tangible content.
-Focus on Building RelationshipsWith authentic marketing comes more consumer trust. Now, it’s time to raise that trust and grow your relationship with your audience. In fact, this is the most fun part of branding. Start networking with your audience as much as possible. Break down the communication barriers and let them start seeing the fun side of your business. Social media is a great place to start. Post fun, engaging content that’s likely to resonate with your customers. When they respond, respond right back!
-Keep Your Branding ConsistentThe most vital part of building a brand is consistency. If you take a more serious tone on your blog but your Facebook page is full of memes, customers are going to get muddled. Make sure that your brand’s voice remains steady across every marketing channel. Q8) Explain the sources or techniques of Brand Equity.A8) Brand equity is a value that a business holds or receives through Brand awareness, people’s perception, competitor advantages, brand recognition & advocacy.In simple terms, Brand equity means a business has successfully differentiated itself from other products in the market through grander product quality, excellent consumer service, or an effective marketing campaign, some aspect of the business has garnered enough recognition and respect from customers, so that they never bother about comparatively spending more on the product/services.Brand equity for a business has numerous benefits. Most common benefits that a Brand receives are:The financial benefit- The Brand equity allows a company to demand a finest price for the product which in-turn increases their profit margins and cash flows. Eg: A coffee from Starbucks is premium priced. The other major benefit is the decrease of sales and marketing budget for the company The other indirect advantage is the product line extension, where a company can expand its products and services by sponging on the brand image. There two techniques to measure Brand equity which isQualitative Quantitative A brief discussion of each of the techniques along with their types are given below:Qualitative Technique 1. Free Association 2. Projective Techniques 3. Brand Personality and Values 4. Experiential Methods Quantitative Technique 1. Awareness 2. Recognition 3. Recall 4. Image Qualitative Research Techniques: Qualitative research techniques are often employed to identify possible brand associations and sources of brand equity. Qualitative research techniques are relatively unstructured measurement approaches whereby a range of possible consumer responses are permitted. Because of the freedom afforded both researchers in their probes and consumers in their responses, qualitative research can often be a useful “first step” in exploring consumer brand and product perceptions. Consider the following three qualitative research techniques that can be employed to identify sources of brand equity. 1. Free Association The simplest and often most powerful way to profile brand associations involves free association tasks whereby subjects are asked what comes to mind when they think of the brand without any more specific probe or cue than perhaps the associated product category (e.g., “What does the Rolex name mean to you?” or “Tell me what comes to mind when you think of Rolex watches.”). Answers to these questions help marketers to clarify the range of possible associations and assemble a brand profile. 2. Projective Techniques Uncovering the sources of brand equity requires that consumers’ brand knowledge structures be profiled as accurately and completely as possible. Projective techniques are diagnostic tools to uncover the true opinions and feelings of consumers when they are unwilling or otherwise unable to express themselves on these matters. The idea behind projective techniques is that consumers are presented with an incomplete stimulus and asked to complete it or given an ambiguous stimulus that may not make sense in and of itself and are asked to make sense of it. In doing so, the argument is that consumers will reveal some of their true beliefs and feelings. Thus, projective techniques can be especially useful when deeply rooted personal motivations or personally or socially sensitive subject matters may be operating. Projective techniques often provide useful insights that help to assemble a more complete picture of consumers and their relationships with brands. 3. Brand Personality and Relationships Another useful set of measures to assemble the brand profile is brand personality. Brand personality is the human characteristics or traits that can be attributed to a brand. Brand personality can be measured in different ways. Perhaps the simplest and most direct way is to solicit open-ended responses to a probe such as: “If the brand were to come alive as a person, what would it be like, what would it do, where would it live, what would it wear, who would it talk to if it went to a party (and what would it talk about).” Other means are possible to capture consumers’ point of view. For example, consumers could be given a variety of pictures or a stack of magazines and asked to assemble a profile of the brand. These pictures could be of celebrities or anything else. Along these lines, ad agencies often conduct “picture sorting” studies to clarify who are typical users of a brand. In terms of measuring brand image, the Zaltman Metaphor Elicitation Technique (ZMET) requires study participants to take photographs and/or collect pictures (from magazines, books, newspapers or other sources) and use these visuals to indicate what the brand means to them in various ways. 4. Ethnographic and Observational Approaches Fresh data can be gathered by directly observing relevant actors and settings. Consumers can be unobtrusively observed as they shop or as they consume products to capture every nuance of their behavior. Marketers such as Procter & Gamble seek consumers’ permission to spend time with them in their homes to see how they actually use and experience products. Quantitative Research Techniques Although qualitative measures are useful to identify and characterize the range of possible associations to a brand, a more quantitative portrait of the brand often is also desirable to permit more confident and defensible strategic and tactical recommendations. Whereas qualitative research typically elicits some type of verbal responses from consumers, quantitative research typically employs various types of scale questions so that numerical representations and summaries can be made. Quantitative measures are often the primary ingredient in tracking studies that monitor brand knowledge structures of consumers over time. 1. Awareness Brand awareness is related to the strength of the brand in memory, as reflected by consumers’ ability to identify various brand elements (i.e., the brand name, logo, symbol, character, packaging, and slogan) under different conditions. Brand awareness relates to the likelihood that a brand will come to mind and the ease with which it does so given different type of cues. 2. Recognition In the abstract, recognition processes require that consumers be able to discriminate a stimulus — a word, object, image, etc. — as something they have previously seen. Brand recognition relates to consumers’ ability to identify the brand under a variety of circumstances and can involve identification of any of the brand elements. The most basic type of recognition procedures gives consumers a set of single items visually or orally and asks them if they thought that they had previously seen or heard these items. 3. Recall Brand recall relates to consumers’ ability to identify the brand under a variety of circumstances. With brand recall, consumers must retrieve the actual brand element from memory when given some related probe or cue. Thus, brand recall is a more demanding memory task than brand recognition because consumers are not just given a brand element and asked to identify or discriminate it as one they had or had not already seen. Different measures of brand recall are possible depending on the type of cues provided to consumers. 4. Image Brand awareness is an important first step in building brand equity, but usually not sufficient. For most customers in most situations, other considerations, such as the meaning or image of the brand, also come into play. One vitally important aspect of the brand is its image, as reflected by the associations that consumers hold toward the brand. Brand associations come in many different forms and can be classified along many different dimensions. Q9) Explain Customer based Brand Equality.A9)Customer-based brand equity (CBBE) is built on the concept that to build a strong brand – it is important to understand how the customers think and feel about your product. For a customer to love your product, you must build pleasant experiences around your brand. If they experience positive thoughts, opinions, feelings, and perceptions about your product, then it signals positive brand equity.Customer-based brand equity shows the power of a customer’s attitude towards a brand, and how it can lead to the success or failure of a brand. It emphasizes laying a strong foundation that can create a positive attitude towards a brand. The Keller model is a pyramid shaped chart and shows businesses how to build from a tough foundation of brand identity upwards towards the holy grail of brand equity ‘resonance’: where customers are in an adequately positive relationship with a brand to be advocates for it.The way up to the resonance level affords a brand opportunities to identify and capitalize on its customers’ loyalties and outlooks – both positive and negative. By dividing CBBE into Keller’s four levels, marketers can estimate what their consumers want and need before they’ve even bought the product, or maybe even before they know they want it. Level 1 Brand identityThis is how consumers look at your brand and distinguish it from others. It explores the words and pictures buyers subordinate with when they hear a particular brand name. It’s the most significant level and must be strong to support the rest of the pyramid above it. Brand identity computes the breadth and depth of customer awareness of a brand. Start to build it when consumers are unaware of your products and values, drawing them with ad campaigns and targeted marketing. Level 2 Brand meaningOnce customers become aware of your brand, they’ll want to find more about your product. They’ll question its features, looks and consistency, style, customer involvement, durability and value for money, to find its brand meaning. Level 3 Brand responseOn this level of Keller’s model, judgment and feelings can be hard to distinguish and are intensely subjective for each individual consumer. One consumer may critic the brand irrelevant to them, whereas another might find it completely relevant. Another may make their own value comparison against another creation, harshly or fairly. And add to the mix actual communication and supposed reputation and you can see how hard it can be to measure how customers feels about a brand and how much they rely on it. Companies need to answer to judgments and shape positive feelings about the brand once they know what they are. Level 4 Brand resonanceThe apex of Keller’s CBBE model is resonance: when a customer is dedicated to a brand, considers it superior, will buy no other and advocates its qualities to others. Many things resonate with customers: lifetime, customer service, experience, products and value. Q10) Explain strategic Brand management process.A10)Strategic brand management process is important for creating and sustaining brand equity. Developing a strategy that successfully withstands or improves brand awareness, strengthens brand associations, emphasizes brand quality and operation, is a part of brand management. Strategic Brand Management Process has four main steps:Identify and Establish Brand Positioning and Values Designing and implementing brand marketing programs Measuring and interpreting brand performance Growing and sustaining brand equity Step 1: Identify and Establish Brand Positioning and ValuesBrand Positioning is defined as the act of designing the company's offer and image so that it occupies a distinct and valued place in the target consumer's mind.Points of difference: convinces consumers about the advantages and differences over the competitors Mental Map: visual depiction of the various associations linked to the brand in the minds of the consumers Core Brand Associations: subset of associations i.e., both benefits and attributes which best characterize the brand. Brand Mantra: that is the brand essence or the core brand promise also known as the Brand DNA. Step 2: Planning and Implementation of Brand Marketing ProgramsChoosing Brand Elements: Different brand elements here are logos, images, packaging, symbols, slogans, etc. Since different elements have different advantages, marketers prefer to use different subsets and combinations of these elements. Integrating the Brand into Marketing Activities and the Support Marketing Program: Marketing programs and activities make the biggest contributions and can create strong, favorable, and unique brand associations in a variety of ways. Leveraging Secondary Associations: Brands may be linked to certain source factors such as countries, characters, sporting or cultural events, etc. In essence, the marketer is borrowing or leveraging some other associations for the brand to create some associations of the brand's own and them to improve its brand equity. Step 3: Measuring and Interpreting Brand PerformanceBrand Audit: Is assessment of the source of equity of the brand and to suggest ways to improve and leverage it. Brand Value chain: Helps to better understand the financial impacts of the brand marketing investments and expenditures. Brand Equity Measurement System: Is a set of tools and procedures using which marketers can take tactical decision in the short and long run. Step 4: Growing and Sustaining Brand EquityDefining the brand strategy: Captures the branding relationship between the various products /services offered by the firm using the tools of brand-product matrix, brand hierarchy and brand portfolio Managing Brand Equity over time: Requires taking a long -term view as well as a short-term view of marketing decisions as they will affect the success of future marketing programs. Managing Brand Equity over Geographic boundaries, Market segments and Cultures: Marketers need to take into account international factors, different types of consumers and the specific knowledge about the experience and behaviors of the new geographies or market segments when expanding the brand overseas or into new market segments.
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