Brand Benefit Ladder - Essay Example

Brand Benefit Ladder Introduction Scholars use a process referred to as Laddering to find out the essence of a brand. The process relies on the concept that deepening of the definition of a brand takes place through progressive examination of implications that appear more abstract compared to the features of the brand. Analysts mark the bottom rung as the starting point. The assign the area as attributes (Barsalou 629). The attributes insinuates a functional benefit and appears at the second rung of the ladder. Consequently, an emotional derivative is its implication. The emotional benefit then, constitutes the third layer on the ladder. At the apex lies the essence of the brand, which is also an implication of the emotional benefit. The focus keeps increasing in concentration as ladder rises. Ascending the ladder reduces the focus on the lower attachments such as the attributes associated with the brand while increasing the function of the brand in the lives of consumers. Illustration (Barsalou 630) Unearthing why the mother of a football player drives an SUV instead of a simple mini-van clearly illustrates the flow of the ladder. At first, an analyst consider the attribute of the product (car) for instance, SUV’s do not have doors that slide. It means that an SUV is stylish because of the attribute therefore; it constitutes a functional consequence of the absence of sliding doors. When the Mom feels trendy while driving, it amounts to the emotional or psychosocial consequence of owning a car with a stylish design. In the end, the bottom-line is the personal value where people as well as the owner accept the act of feeling fashionable. Additional Essence Development Associating a brand with other brands available in different categories, but with a common goal is another way of developing the essence of a brand. Brand Tools Brand Pyramid Marketing experts define a brand as a set of memories, expectations, relationships, and stories that, taken together, explain a decision by a consumer to select one service or product over another. A brand differentiates services, products, as well as organizations (Barsalou 640). Milward Brown developed the most common type of Brand Pyramid towards the end of the twentieth century. The pyramid identifies five important stages traversed by a consumer when analysing a brand. The process starts with primary awareness and ends with total loyalty. Presence Relevance Performance Advantage Bonding Application of the Tool Business organizations can apply the Brand Pyramid when in the process of designing a marketing strategy. The strategy could be for a product, a brand, or a service. Comprehending the five steps travelled by the consumer forms the best foundation for designing the marketing strategies. The steps are essential as they help the consumer build loyalty on a particular product or brand. It is crucial to know that a crossover exists between the fives levels therefore; it is not possible to consider each step independently. Practical Application Strategies The company can use the 4 Ps and the Marketing Mix through the first two levels of Relevance and Presence. The two, are critical when creating brand awareness. The ability to demonstrate the strength of your brand compared to those of competitors is essential for the process to move to the third level (Barsalou 647). The value of marketing content at this level is to educate the consumer. The degree with which voluntary information disclosed during the delivery of annual corporate continues to increase over the past twenty years. Managers continue to take advantage of the potential within the annual report as an essential opportunity to improve public relations and promote the company. Voluntary information gives managers an opportunity to set their financial agenda to report albeit partially. The value of voluntary disclosure is high because shows different managerial attitudes. In the same way the nature of financial reporting continues to increase, the nature of disclosure continues to evolve over the same period of two decades and at the same rate. The nature of disclosure keeps changing to be at par with the contemporary needs of users. Capital and business markets continue to become more challenging, with increased complexity in business frameworks, sources of improbability and risks, and advanced sophistication in the management of risks. The evolution is a representation of a desire for information relevant to those in need regardless of whether the information less dependable and more subjective. In response to the changes, which include practices and requirements, voluntary disclosure shifts to offering detailed and advanced disclosures from the traditional forms of giving subdivisions. The shift now includes disclosure of frameworks, assumptions, alternative bases of measurement, as well as ways of estimating uncertainty. Furthermore, they are tools that balance items in the calculus applied when trustworthy and decision-useful information. The changing trends present challenges to those preparing disclosures and seeking supporting measures, as well as investors attempting to tell the difference in the relevance of disclosed information. Discerning takes place during decision-making time covering financial statements. Other necessary occasions are accounting yardstick setters in generating judgments on required disclosures. Following the changes, the International Standards for Auditing (ISA) require that auditors must deal with disclosures when carrying out the audit and in planning. The requirements cover among other things evaluating the risks of giving wrong statements about materials and identifying the assertion degree for disclosures (Barsalou 649). Furthermore, the ISA requires that auditors consider the entire process of delivering financial statements and when determining the underlying representation of transactions within financial statements. Recently, the function assigned to auditors regarding disclosures focused on sizeable attention. It is a product of recent financial instability partially caused by the world economic recession of 2008. Increase in the same closely relates to the public image of efforts by auditors relating to disclosures. Currently, auditors must use sophisticated professional knowledge while making decisions such as judgment in addition to scepticism in handling disclosures. Questions linger on the minds of experts regarding meticulous challenges faced in retrieving appropriate and sufficient information about some disclosures. They also question the probability of auditing disclosures. Financial statements now include varied disclosures besides the usual items in the disclosure. Use of graphs and Imagery Disclosing information when managers deliver annual reports for their companies now entails a significant aspect because of using graphs to disclose information. Using graphs is a vital element in the management of financial disclosure. It is surprising that this aspect has received little attention within the scholarly and research sector. Comparatively, the US, and the UK rank higher than Australia in terms of using graphs to disclose information. The UK has eighty percent of companies using graphs while the US has more than ninety percent. The four leading elements graphed during reporting are earnings per share, sales, earnings per measure, and dividends (Barsalou 652). Explaining the environmental factors also differs majorly across the three countries. However, regulators have an unfinished responsibility of outlining and differentiating the roles of auditors and directors by having graphical guidelines. Principles of good graphical design and presentation exist and they include separating the use of financial graphs and not considering them as parts of financial performance. The designer must ensure that physical measures on the graph’s surface be directly proportional to the numbers within. Furthermore, the designer must select axe’s scales in a manner that makes the slope parameter about forty-five degrees. It will maximise the judgment accuracy. Reference Barsalou, Wilson. Ideals, Central Tendency and Frequency of Instantiation as Determinants of Graded Structure in Categories. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition, 11 (4), 629-653, 2005. Print. Read More