The Importance of the Future Branding Strategies of JB Hi-Fi - Research Paper Example

?JB Hi Fi JB Hi Fi, is a well known retail store for the electronics good on the Australia and new Zealand. A brand has its own value whichmakes the product the identified quantity in the market. Each and every brand has some qualitative and quantitative measurement towards the measurement of its value. JB Hi Fi is not just another electronics store it is a great brand and has a great quantitative value. And, this paper will also try to evaluate the importance of the future branding strategies to keep up the brand image towards the future market. Introduction: Auditing is an important factor to be taken seriously to measure the ultimate output in a quantitative manner. The brand audit is basically the valuation of the brad in a quantitative manner. JB Hi Fi is one of the leading electronics retail chains in the Australia and New Zealand. However, the evolution of the brand JB Hi Fi was not an easy job. It has gone through many changes and many obstacles in the past. And it has overcome many barriers with the help of great branding strategy. Brand audit and background analysis of the Brand JB Hi Fi: The brand audit is an important factor for the improvement of the brand. It helps a company to understand the health of the brand (Solomon 2009, 159). Brand audit is a very important platform for building the brand identity (Roll 2006, 101). It also identifies the additional values required to improve the brand equity. The brand is the name, logo or some marks associated with the product which distinguishes the product from the other identical products. (Clifton, Simmons, and Ahmad 2009, 23). According to Martin Jelsema 1 the auditing of the brand has many factors involved, and these factors are basically segregated as six major factors. These six factors are brand matrices, brand positioning, market segmentations, internal strength of the brand, brand personality and differentiators which differentiate the brand from the other competing brands. JB Hi Fi is having a great personality as a brand in the Australian market and it has shown great improvement in all of these six factors related to the brand audit to increase the brand equity. JB Hi Fi Started its journey in the year of 1974, with the great vision and mission of Mr John Barbuto (JB) and with his intellects and great visions towards the future as a single electronic store in Victoria became a great brand (About Us: JB Hi Fi. Nd). However, in 2000 the JB Hi Fi was bought by private equity bankers and they started a new branding strategy to increase the brand equity with the national expansion. And in 2003 the JB Hi Fi was listed in the Australian stock market (About Us: JB Hi Fi. N.d), since that time the JB HI FI became the brand of the nation for the retailing of electronics. The brand equity of JB Hi Fi: The JB Hi Fi started its journey in 1974 and from that time in never looked back within few years with a great strategic vision it got 131 stores in Australia and 10 stores in New Zealand within 2010 (Roth 2010, 106). Recently the stock price of the JB Hi Fi is floating around $ 20 and the last 12 months average price is $ 21.65 with the market capital of $ 2,154 million (JB Hi-Fi Limited, 2011). Within just one decade it has gained a great position in the Australian Qualitative stock market. Competitive advantage: Competition makes a brand more powerful. And the competitive advantage can be felt if and only if the competition is there. However, JB Hi Fi got a great competitive market in Australia. Few of the competitors are Harvey Norman, The Good Guys, Domayne, Sanity Entertainment, Strathfield Group, HMV, Video Ezy and Blockbuster. However the great branding strategies and value pricing have made the JB Hi Fi one of the toughest competitors in Australia. Current branding strategy and marketing programs: Branding is all about powering the product profile with great brand equity (Keller 2008, 59). And the brad equity plays a great role in it. the success of branding lies on few important factors and they are brands awareness, identifying the competitors, long term marketing activities and adjustment with changing marketing environment (Zentes, Morschett and Schramm-Klein 2007, 128). JB Hi Fi has most of its branding strategies in strategizing the pricing. It has been seen that price is the main catalyst for the buying behavior of the human nature. Price is the main factor which drives the sales (Holden and Burton 2008, 53). However, the main promotion and the branding lie on the in-store promotions. The JB Hi Fi gift cards are also a great tool for promoting the brand. The media commercials are also going good in the recent time for the JB Hi Fi. Rebuilding of Brand equity: The advertising planners on JB HI FI focus on the three way of doing advertisements and they are BTL that is below the line advertisements, ATL that is above the line advertisements and TTL that is through the line advertisements. Among these three lines the proper line should be selected to have a profitable advertising campaign. (Tymorek 2010, 71). The recognition and the recalls are the factors which trace the awareness of the advertisements (Plessis 2005, 164). Promotions are accepted and sometimes feared for the branded goods (Wiehenbrauk 2010, 1). Negative promotions can kill the brand without knowing the consequences. The expectations of the customers are not the same (Cochran 2003, 2). Customer’s opinions are the ultimate opinions. The customers should feel good to buy a product from JB Hi FI. However, it has been seen that a small improvements towards the many of the customer’s requirements are mostly neglected by the buyers (Hill and Allen 2007, 190). But for the future prospects the customer satisfaction should be maintained. New product profile for maximizing the profit: Product profile for a retail store is very important. JB Hi Fi can be treated as an Umbrella Brand which has many stores in same kinds of format with same brand name (Zentes, Morschett and Schramm-Klein 2007, 125). However, to maintain the brand equity it must keep on updating its product profiles in the stores. The new product arrivals must be conveyed to the customer with great initiatives. Branding should be such that a customer can understand that a product is from JB HI FI even if some somebody sees the product outside the store. Tactical brand management: Products should be generated at par with the demand in the market. The long term branding strategy is very much important to transform a product in a brand. There are few strategies which can be accepted for the betterment of the products and they are as follows. 1. Protect the brand: the trade mark law is there to protect the brand; the brand is an intangible asset which gives value to the product. Without a brand a product is just another electronic good from another retail store. 2. Always honor the stakeholders: customers are the king they are the people who generate the profits out of the products. Each and every customer expects some value addition from the products. Products profile of JB HI FI should be made in such a way so they can fit into the minds of the customers. The brand extension can be a great initiative to improve the qualitative and quantitative value of the brand in the future. Conclusion: From this paper it is very clear that brand audit is an important factor to evaluate the brand of the JB HI FI. However, with great brand awareness and great branding strategy it can be said that Jb Hi Fi is indeed the best retail store for the electronics goods in the Australia and it has got a great brand recall value within it. End Note: 1. Martin Jelsema: Martin Jelsema is known as one of the prominent author for the marketing and branding. In 1994 he founded the Signature Strategies to help the small companies to from systematic branding strategies. Bibliography Clifton Rita, Simmons John, and Ahmad. Brands and Branding. New Jersey: Bloomberg Press, 2009. Cochran Craig. Customer satisfaction: tools, techniques, and formulas for success. California: Paton Professiona, 2003. Hill Nigel and Allen Rachel. Customer Satisfaction: The Customer Experience Through the Customer's Eyes. Huddersfield: The Leadership Factor, 2007. Holden R K and Burton M. Pricing with Confidence: 10 Ways to Stop Leaving Money on the Table. New Jersey: John Wiley and Sons, 2008. Plessis Erik Du. The advertised mind: ground-breaking insights into how our brains respond to advertising. London: Kogan Pages Publishers, 2005. Roll M. Asian brand strategy: how Asia builds strong brands. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006. Roth M. Top Stocks 2011: A Sharebuyer's Guide to Leading Australian Companies. New Jersey: John Wiley and Sons, 2010 Solomon M. Launch! Advertising and Promotion in Real Time. New York: Flat World Knowledge, 2009. Tymorek Stan. Advertising and Public Relations. New York: Infobase Publishing, 2010. Wiehenbrauk Daniela. Collaborative Promotions: Optimizing Retail Supply Chains with Upstream Informaton Sharing. New York: Springer, 2010. Zentes J, Morschett D and Schramm-Klein H. Strategic Retail Management: Text and International Cases. Saarbrucken: Gabler Verlag, 2007. About Us: JB Hi Fi. N.d. JB Hi Fi. http://www.jbhifi.com.au/about-us/. (Accessed on 16th April 2011) JB Hi-Fi Limited, 2011. InvestSmart. http://www.investsmart.com.au/shares/asx/JB-Hi- Fi-JBH.asp. (Accessed on 16th April 2011) Read More