Chapter 1

Brands & Brand Management

What is a Brand?

A brand is a name, sign, term, symbol or design, or a combination of them, intended to identify the goods and services of one seller or a group of sellers and to differentiate them from those of competition. These components are also called brand elements

Brand Names

Corporate brands Brand Families Peoples Names

Brands vs. Products

Core Product Generic Product Augmented Product

New competition is not between what companies produce in their factories but between what they add to their factory output in terms of packaging, services, advertising, financing, delivery and other things that people value

Brand Dimensions

1. Products are made and owned by companies. Brands, on the other hand, are made and owned by people by the public by consumers. 2. A brand image belongs not to a brand but to those who have knowledge of that brand. 3. The image of a brand is a subjective thing. No two people, however similar, hold precisely the same view of the same brand. 4. That highest of all ambitions for many CEOs, a global brand, is therefore a contradiction in terms and an impossibility.

5. People come to conclusions about brands as a result of an uncountable number of different stimuli: many of which are way outside the control or even influence of the products owner. 6. Brands unlike products are living, organic entities: they change, however imperceptibly, every single day.

7. Much of what influences the value of a brand lies in the hands of its competitors.
8. The only way to begin to understand the nature of brands is to strive to acquire a facility which only the greatest of novelists possess and which is so rare that it has no name.

9. The study of brands in itself a relatively recent discipline has generated a level of jargon that not only prompts deserved derision amongst financial directors but also provides some of the most entertaining submissions in Pseuds Corner.

10. It is universally accepted that brands are a companys most valuable asset; yet there is no universally accepted method of measuring that value.
11. The only time you can be sure of the value of your brand is just after youve sold it. 12. And as if all this were not enough, in one of the most important works about brands published this year, the author says this: Above all, I found I had to accept that effective brand communication involves processes which are uncontrolled, disordered, abstract, intuitive and frequently impossible to explain other than with the benefit of hindsight.

Why do brands matter

Consumers

Search Goods Experience Goods Credence Goods Functional risk Physical risk Financial risk Social risk Time risk

Consumer Risks

Why do brands matter

Firms

Identification Simplify product handling and tracing Organize Inventory Legal procedures Creates credibility which can act as a barrier to entry for other firms Its a valuable intangible asset

What can be branded

Physical goods Services Retailers and Distributors Online Products and Services People and Organizations Sports Arts & Entertainment Geographic Locations

Branding Challenges

Savvy Customers Brand Proliferation

Globalization Low-priced competitors Brand extensions Deregulations

Media Fragmentation Greater Accountability

Brand Equity