BRAND BUILDING

HOW TO BUILD A BRAND

Brand building is continuous process. The model may be used to illustrate
the salient steps of various inputs, outcomes, and assessment.
INPUTS:
 Identification of key customer groups or segments.
 Understanding customer expectations, needs and aspirations.
 Assessing competitive offering including substitutes.
 Building customer confidence by
- customizing the product,
- establishing the key image of the brand,
- dealer support- easy availability and push,
- innovative communication and promotion schemes, and
- elegant packaging.

• Total brand management- both hardware and software aspects

OUTCOME:
 Market share
 New customers attracted
 Customer loyalty index
 Increased profitability
 Brand knowledge
 ASSESSMENT:
 Continuous feedback from customers as well as trade
channels.
 Scientific inquiry into customer satisfaction determining
– who is the customer and profile of the target segment,
– what constitutes customer satisfaction,
– designing the scale to measure customer satisfaction,
and
– measuring the current levels of customer satisfaction,
– trend analysis and pointers for management of
customer satisfaction.
 Brand strength score.
SEVEN MAIN FACTORS IN BUILDING
SUCCESSFUL BRANDS
 Quality
 Quality is a vital ingredient of a good brand.

 Remember the “core benefits” – the things consumers

expect. These must be delivered well, consistently.

 The branded washing machine that leaks, or the training

shoe that often falls apart when wet will never develop
brand equity

 Research confirms that, statistically, higher quality brands

achieve a higher market share and higher profitability that
their inferior competitors.
 Positioning
 Positioning is about the position a brand occupies in a
market in the minds of consumers.

 Strong brands have a clear, often unique position in the

target market.

 Positioning can be achieved through several means,

including brand name, image, service standards, product
guarantees, packaging and the way in which it is delivered.

 In fact, successful positioning usually requires a

combination of these things.
 Repositioning
 Repositioning occurs when a brand tries to change
its market position to reflect a change in
consumer’s tastes.

 This is often required when a brand has become

tired, perhaps because its original market has
matured or has gone into decline.
 Communications
 Communications also play a key role in building a
successful brand.

 It suggested that brand positioning is essentially about

customer perceptions – with the objective to build a clearly
defined position in the minds of the target audience.

 All elements of the promotional mix need to be used to

develop and sustain customer perceptions.

 Initially, the challenge is to build awareness, then to

develop the brand personality and reinforce the perception.
 First-mover advantage
 Business strategists often talk about first-mover advantage.

 In terms of brand development, by “first-mover” they mean

that it is possible for the first successful brand in a market
to create a clear positioning in the minds of target
customers before the competition enters the market.

There is plenty of evidence to support this.

 Think of some leading consumer product brands like
Gillette, Coca Cola and Sellotape that, in many ways,
defined the markets they operate in and continue to lead.
 However, being first into a market does not necessarily
guarantee long-term success.

 Competitors – drawn to the high growth and profit potential

demonstrated by the “market-mover” – will enter the
market and copy the best elements of the leader’s brand

 A good example is the way that Body Shop developed the

“ethical” personal care market but were soon facing stiff
competition from the major high street cosmetics retailers.
 Long-term perspective
 This leads onto another important factor in
brand-building: the need to invest in the
brand over the long-term.
Building customer awareness,
communicating the brand’s message and
creating customer loyalty takes time.
This means that management must “invest”
in a brand, perhaps at the expense of short-
term profitability.
 Internal marketing
 Finally, management should ensure that the brand is
marketed “internally” as well as externally.

 By this we mean that the whole business should

understand the brand values and positioning.

 This is particularly important in service businesses where a

critical part of the brand value is the type and quality of
service that a customer receives.

 Think of the brands that you value in the restaurant, hotel

and retail sectors. It is likely that your favourite brands
invest heavily in staff training so that the face-to-face
contact that you have with the brand helps secure your
loyalty.
 BRAND BUILDING MODEL
 CUSTOMER-BASED BRAND EQUITY (CBBE)
MODEL
 Keller (1993) introduces the Customer-Based
Brand Equity (CBBE) model, which “approaches brand
equity form the perspective of the consumer -whether
it be an individual or an organization”

 The model is based on the premise “that the power

of a brand lies in what customers have learned, felt,
seen and heard about the brand as a result of their
experiences over time”
 The way to build a strong brand, according to the CBBE model, is
by following four sequential steps, each one representing a
fundamental question that customers ask about brands:

 1) Ensuring the identification of the brand with a specific

product category or need in the customer’s mind -who are
you?

 2) Establishing the meaning of the brand in the customer’s

mind by strategically linking tangible and intangible brand
associations with certain properties -what are you?

 3) Eliciting customer responses to the brand identification

and meaning -what about you?

 4) Converting the response into an active, intense and loyal

relationship between the customers and the brand -what
about you and me?
 The CBBE model is built by “sequentially
establishing six ‘brand building blocks’ with
customers”, that can be assembled as a brand
pyramid.
 Brand salience relates to the awareness of the brand.
 Brand performance relates to the satisfaction of customers’
functional needs.
 Brand imagery relates to the satisfaction of customers’
psychological needs.
 Brand judgments focus on customers’ opinions based on
performance and imagery.
 Brand feelings are the customers’ emotional responses
and reactions to the brand.
 Brand resonance is the relationship and level of
identification of the customer with a brand.
CUSTOMER-BASED BRAND
EQUITY PYRAMID
AAKER’S TEN GUIDELINES FOR
BUILDING STRONG BRANDS
 Brand identity: Have an identity for each brand. Consider
the perspective of the brand as- person, brand as
organization, and brand as symbol, as well as brand as
product. Identify the core identity. Modify the identity as
need for different market segments and products.

 Value proposition: know the value proposition for each

brand that has a driver role. Consider emotional and
symbolic benefits as well as functional benefits. Know
how endorser brands will provide creditability.

 Brand position: for each brand have a brand position that

will provide clear guidance to those implementing a
communication program.
 Execution: Execute the communication program so that it
not only is on target with the identity and the position but
achieves brilliance and durability.

 Consistency over time: Have as a goal a consistent

identity, position, and execution over time. Maintain
symbols, imagery, and metaphor that work. Understand
and resist organizational towards changing the identity,
position and execution.

 Brand system: make sure that the brands in the portfolio

are consistent and synergistic. Know their roles.

 Brand leverage: Extend brands and develop co-branding

programs only if the brand identity will be both used and
reinforced. Identify range brands and, for each, develop
an identity and specify how that identity will be different in
disparate product contexts.
 Tracking brand equity: track brand equity over
time, including brand awareness, perceived quality,
brand loyalty, and especially brand associations.

 Brand responsibility: have someone in charge of

the brand who will create the identity and positions
and coordinate the execution over organizational
units, media and markets. Beware when brand is
being used in business where it is not cornerstone.

 Invest in brands: Continue investing in brands even

when the financial goals are not being met.
 BRAND BUILDING TOOLS
 Public relation and press releases: brands can get
lot of attention from well placed newspaper and
magazine stories.
 Sponsorship: Brands are frequently promoted in
sponsored events such as world famous bicycle or
car races.
 Clubs and consumer communities: Brands can
form the centre of a customer community, such as
Harley-Davidson motorcycle owners or Bradford
plate collectors.
 Factory visits: Hershey’s and Cadbury’s, two
candy companies, have built theme parks at their
factories and they invite visitors to spend the day.
 Trade shows: Trade shows represent a great
opportunity to build brand awareness, knowledge
and interest.
 Event Marketing: Many automobile companies
make an event of introducing their new car
models.
 Public facilities: Perrier, the bottled water
company, etched its identity in the public mind by
building running tracks in public parks to promote
healthful lifestyles.
 Social cause marketing: Brands can achieve by
donating money to charitable causes. Ben &
Jerry’s Ice cream turns over 7 percent of its profits
to charity.
 High value for the money: Some brands create
positive word of mouth by offering exceptional value
for the money. Examples like IKEA or Southwest
Airlines.
 Founder’s or a celebrity personality: A colourful
founder such as Richard Branson, or a celebrity
personality, such as Michael Jordan, can create
positive effect for the brand.
 Mobile phone marketing: Customers in the future will
hear about brands on their wireless mobile phones
as their m-commerce grows.
THANK YOU