Controlling and Harmonising Brand Identity, Image, and Personality - Coursework Example

Controlling and Harmonising Brand Identity, Image, and Personality Table of Contents Introduction 3 Literature Review 3 Brand Identity 4 Aaker model of brand identity 4 Kapferer’s brand identity prism: six facets of brand identity 5 Brand personality 6 Five dimensions of brand personality 7 Brand Image 8 Criticism of branding 8 Criticism of brand identity, image, and personality 8 Analysis 9 Brand identity prism of Apple Inc 9 Apple Inc’s brand personality 10 Dimensions of Apple Inc brand personality 10 New approach for Apple Inc 11 Benefits of Cross-platform Connectivity Application 11 Conclusion and Recommendation 12 Reference List 13 Appendices 17 Appendix 1 17 Appendix 2 17 Introduction Recently, branding has evolved as the most significant concept in the marketing studies. The academics summarized the significance of brand experiences and brand relationships as building wedges of the brand identities (Shirazi, Lorestani and Mazidi, 2013; Verma, 2006). New communication tools of marketing enable, consumer engagement and interactions are considered as the important means for strengthening the brand relationships and also enhancing brand experiences. The brand managers sometimes face challenges in gaining a better knowledge of the connection or relationship between customer loyalty and brand constructs. It has been recognised by researchers that main role in brand management is played by the brand identity (Petek and Ruzzier, 2013). Brand image is defined as a perception or discernment about a particular brand in the memory of consumer (Keller, 1993). Most practitioners and researchers have the same opinion about the significance of stressing the brand image. Brand image generates value in several ways, such as assisting customers to develop information, engendering reasons to purchase, offering a base for extensions, providing positive feelings and helps in making distinctions between the brands (Aaker, 1991). Brand personality is recognized as a vital platform for growing a responsible customer base. In the recent global scenario of marketing, shaping brand personality is very important for marketer. Brand varies in their value and power in the market. Brand personality is referred as the collection of human attributes associated with brand. Customers pay more for the branded product comparative to unbranded products (Jana, Das and Dash, 2014). The main aim of this paper is to focus on different theories and models of brand identity, image, and brand personality. Through these models, the paper will explain how brand is considered as a person, symbol, product, or organisation. Further, emphasis will be given on the brand identity prism and brand personalities components of Apple Inc. A new approach will also be suggested for Apple Inc to improve its brand image through further innovation in its existing operations. Literature Review The literature review will highlight the main theories and models of brand identity, brand image and brand personality. Brand Identity Brand identity is the way the company wants to position or identify itself. It is an exceptional collection of brand associations which the brand strategist desires to maintain or create (Budelmann, Kim and Wozniak, 2010; Wheeler, 2012). It provides meaning, purpose, and direction for a brand. It forms the main part of the strategic vision of brand and the main driver of elements of brand equity (Upshaw, 1995). The identity of brand can be observed from four dissimilar perspectives: brand as a product, brand as a person, brand as an organisation, and brand as a symbol. When brand is observed from these viewpoints, it becomes simple to reinforce or develop the value proposition, trustworthiness, and finally a rapport with customers (Alihodzic, 2013). Aaker model of brand identity The model of brand identity has been developed by Aaker around four dissimilar perspectives and twelve dimensions (See Appendix 1). Brand managers must have a deep knowledge of brand identity/characteristics before they are capable to simplify, enhance as well as distinguish the brand identity. The four dissimilar perspectives of brand identity developed by Aaker will be explained by taking into consideration the heart of the approach i.e. core identity, brand essence, and extended identity (Faircloth, Capella and Alford, 2001). The brand essence: It captures the vision and brand values in an undecided eternal identity statement. It is considered as an internal magnet which keeps the main element of identity connected. The core identity: It represents the real meaning of the brand as well as includes the associations which are expected to remain stable over time. Eventually, the elements of core identity make the brand valuable, unique, and sustainable (Dobni and Zinkhan, 1990). The extended identity: It fulfils a texture and completeness role to channel the undecided core identity in a reliable brand’s direction. Where main elements are enduring or timeless, the extensive identity includes elements which do not go with the enduring brand identity’s foundation. The four dissimilar perspectives of brand identity are discussed below: Brand as a product: The attributes which are related to product will have a great influence on the brand identity because of the reality that they are connected to product experience and user requirements. Aaker concentrated on six elements in this group which are product scope, quality value, users, product attributes, uses, and country of origin (Chernatony, 1999). Brand as an organization: When brand is viewed as an organisation, the brand supervisors or managers are required to change their viewpoint from product attributes to organisation aspects. These are more subjective and less tangible. Attributes such as innovation, management of customer relationship, perceived quality, presence and visibility can contribute towards customer relationships and value propositions. In this group, Aaker concentrated on two dimensions which are organization attributes (like consumer concern, innovation, and trustworthiness), and local versus international (Coleman, De Chernatony and Christodoulides, 2011). Brand as a person: It is a perception as if brand is a person. Brand personality is regarded as a very unique element of brand and widely used in various models of brand equity. Aaker concentrated on two dimensions in this group which are personality (such as rugged, energetic, and genuine), and relationships of brand-customer (such as adviser and friends). Brand as a symbol: It captures almost everything that symbolizes the brand. A powerful sign plays a principal and also a vital part in the brand strategy. Symbols are considered as very powerful if they engross a trustful, meaningful, and recognisable metaphor. Aaker explained two dimensions in this group which are brand heritage and visual imagery (Ghodeswar, 2008) The stability of four dissimilar perspectives can diverge by internal context, competitor composition, and customer segmentation. As a result, the balance or stability is co-dependent with strategic brand analyses. Kapferer’s brand identity prism: six facets of brand identity Physique: A brand encompasses physical qualities which mean that what the brand looks like. It is the salient features of the brand which gives identity to it (Viot, 2011). Personality: Each brand encompasses its own personality such as reliability and innovation. The personality traits of human are applicable for different brands such as Levi’s ruggedness. Culture: Set of values offered by products to their customers is known as culture of brand. Culture is defined as the source of inspirational powers of brands. Relationship: Each brand creates relationship through the exchange of products between suppliers and customers and also between retailers and service sectors. Reflection: A brand produces image or reflection of the user. Customers or users are reflected as they desire to be observed by means of brand they are using. They use brands in order to construct their own image. Self-image: A brand expresses its own image through its service. The attitude of the customer towards a particular brand promotes an inner connection with self. It also reflects that what users see within themselves by using a particular brand (Csaba and Bengtsson). Brand personality Brand personality is referred to the set of characteristics of human being related to a brand. Brands provide experimental and emotional benefits to their customers and the benefits provided by them are necessary to build strong or powerful brand equity (Lee and Oh, 2006). To construct powerful brand equity, it is essential to be aware of the core elements of the brand identity, which is known as brand personality. It is also a chief element of brand imagery which assists to create brand equity (Biel, 1993). The related personality of brand is defined by Aaker (1997) as a collection of human characteristics like race, gender, and age; human lifestyle features like opinion, interest, and activities; and the human traits like sentimentality, extroversion, and dependability (Keller and Richey, 2006). The brand is considered as an existing person as well as frequently attached to metaphor. Therefore, the abstract characteristics and intangible assets can be envisaged in a physical or tangible way, and hence the customers communicate with brand/trademark as if the brands really exist like humans (Caprara, Barbaranelli and Guido, 2001). Measuring a personality of brand may help the companies to communicate efficiently with their users and may also play a chief role in promoting and advertising efforts. Brand personality is utilised as a source of differentiation, which assist the companies to differentiate their brand from their peers in a definite product category. The companies now understand the significance of building distinctive and clear brand personality as a main driver of user or customer preference. It was suggested by Aaker (1997) that constructing powerful brand personality is a major objective of the brand management (Saptarshi, 2009). Five dimensions of brand personality The five components of brand personality are competence, sincerity, ruggedness excitement, and sophistication (See Appendix 2). Sincerity: Consumers take genuine brands as being honest, down-to-earth, cheerful and wholesome. Some persons find certain brand annoying but some find it interesting. So, it depends on the interpretation of customers that how they take particular brands. Excitement: The brands which are more exciting are imaginative, spirited, advanced, and daring. Cutting-edge designs and funky graphics make brand a leader (Azoulay and Kapferer, 2003). Competence: Success, intelligence, and reliability are the qualities, which are related with the brands. Even in the time of financial crisis, there are some financial services companies that are still well remembered by consumers. Sophistication: A sophisticated brand is observed as fit and charming for the customers of upper classes. Ruggedness: Rugged brands are well taken by customers, especially the youngsters because they like the brands which give them the feeling of tough and outdoorsy. For example, ‘The North Face’ has constructed a realm by outfitting those people who in reality do terrifying outdoorsy things (Siguaw, Mattila and Austin, 1999). Brand personality is required for the strategic planning. There are generally three levels in the strategic planning which are functional level, strategic business unit, and the corporate level (Kotler et al, 2006). The brand personality should be build from the customer side, as it will help the companies to understand the customers in a better way. Companies can make a proper vision and mission in the corporate level, select the correct decision in the functional level, and get a suitable business definition or description in the strategic business unit level. This will assist the companies in satisfying their customers better as well as to avoid some nasty competition such as competition of the galloping price (Blackston, 1993). Brand personality is required for understanding the customer’s behaviour. Marketers must clearly understand and be aware of the customer’s habits, feelings, prejudices, motivations, desires, and insecurities. They must know how the brand of their company fits into the life of customer and how they will respond to several branding messages. Building up brand personality will assist the company in maintaining close relationship with the customers. Brand Image It is defined as a current customer’s view about a particular brand. It is a distinctive collection of associations in the psyche of target customers. The brand image indicates what it currently stands for (Kapferer, 2012). The image of brand is referred to the collection of values held in the customer’s mind about an exact brand. It is the perception of the users about the particular product and also referred to the way in which a particular brand of the company is positioned. The brand image articulates emotional value related with the brand (Gwinner and Eaton, 1999). The main components of brand image are slogan which describes the business of the company in brief, unique logo which reflects the image of the organisation, as well as brand identifier which supports the main values of the brand. It is the total impression in the minds of consumers, which is formed from entire sources. Users develop several associations with brand. For example, the brand image of Apple Inc is that it is a user friendly and premium product, brand image of Toyota is related with reliability, and Volvo is related with safety (Park, Jaworski and Maclnnis, 1986; Cretu and Brodie, 2007). The thought behind the image of brand is that the users are not buying just the service or products, furthermore the image related with the service or products. The brand image must be unique, instant, and positive (Graeff, 1998). Criticism of branding Brand critics frequently argue that the users or customers are seduced into impulsive purchasing through the numerous brand advertisements that confined the minds of customers (Aaker, 1996). It has been claimed that the customers’ weakness for instant vanity and gratification is exploited, with the brands promising to complete all emotional needs and desired aspirations of customers. Brand critics frequently accuse different brands of dramatising and endorsing sex, violence, hedonism, and elitism in order to attract the subconscious want of the customers (Aaker, 1996). Criticism of brand identity, image, and personality It has been argued by the critics that the customers are frequently manipulated to be preoccupied or obsessed with emotional appeal, excitement, glamour, and exclusiveness derived from different brands. For example, some brands such as Calvin Klein, Mercedes, and Louis Vuitton entice the consumers with the images of glamour and success. The obsession for brand image transports the customers or users into a fantasy world where the expressions and emotions related to the exact brand is realised. Once the realism sets into the mind of customers and the feeling of enjoyment fades, they go to shops to explore more. This helps the customers to regain as well as reconnect with the fantasy world that they seek (Aaker, 1996). The criticism related to emotional branding is that it manipulates the emotions of human beings, which is an extremely irrational and vulnerable component of the human thinking. Some messages represented through branding is criticized such as fake beliefs that the products promise to deliver, focus on gratification and ease instead on restraint and austerity, etc (Thompson, Rindfleisch and Arsel, 2006). Analysis Apple Inc is the most well known brand and the symbol and shape of its logo is what defines them more than its colour. In the year 1990, Apple Inc came with the campaign ‘Think Different’ which became extremely famous because it featured several famous people (Kapferer, 1994). The theories and models of branding will be applied in the Apple Inc brand. The advertisement of iPods features dark characters against the backgrounds of bright colour lays emphasis on new means of living life. Brand identity prism of Apple Inc Physique: The physique or physical qualities of products of Apple Inc are design, performance, technology, interchangeable covers, logo, and premium materials, audio identifier, electronic visual identifier, big display, and comfortable forms. Personality: The products of Apple Inc are reliable, innovative, trendy, having user friendly software, easy to operate, and progressive. Culture: The Apple Inc culture includes customer focus, cutting edge interactions or communications through excellent network, customer satisfaction through superior service and respect for every individual, and its technology up gradation. Relationship: The Smartphones of Apple Inc creates relationships among several people by connecting people across the world. Through its excellent network and technology, people can exchange their ideas within a fraction of second. The company represents the relationship of human friendship as well as stands for trust, quality, and loyalty and safety. Reflection: The customers of Apple Inc Smartphones wanted to get noticed as a premium customer by using this brand as Apple Inc is already known for its premium pricing, superior quality and providing excellent service. By using Apple Inc Smartphones, the customers want to get viewed as young, cool, sophisticated, fun loving, status and fashion concerned. Self-image: The self-image of Apple Inc products is that it is trendy, buyable, sophisticated, technology aware and innovative (Kapferer, 1994). Apple Inc’s brand personality The branding approach of Apple Inc lays importance on emotions. The initial point is how the product of Apple Inc makes the customer feel about it. The brand personality of Apple Inc is about aspirations and dreams, lifestyle, liberty regained, passion, imagination, hopes, technology up-gradation, stylish, cool, easy-going, casual, intuitive, and user friendly. Its brand personality is all about elimination of complication from the lives of people; product design is people-driven; as well as being a humanistic business with a warm connection with their customers (Panda, 2009). The customer franchise and the brand equity which the Company embodies are very strong. The fondness for the products of Apple Inc, for example the ‘Mac Community’ not only helps to keep the company active but also facilitates them to sustain the premium pricing strategy (Aaker, 1995). Dimensions of Apple Inc brand personality It has been analysed that three out of five dimensions appears in the Apple Inc’s iPhone. Excitement: The excitement of Apple Inc is reinforced or unbreakable personality traits. The personality such as cutting-edge designs, imaginative, advanced, and better graphics reveals that the brand is exciting in nature. Apple Inc brand with the personality of handsome and slick design draws most of the customers. The company is selling the products that ooze excitement, fun, and is stylish (Aaker, Benet-Martinez and Garolera, 2001). Competence: Characteristics such as reliability, responsibility, efficiency, dependability, and success are related with the Apple Inc brands. Sophistication: The products of Apple Inc, especially the Smartphones are upscale as well as totally innovative. It is easy to use, has superior quality, and is very stylish. The customers of Apple Inc products embrace the brand due the reason that they can connect themselves to its personality. It means that Apple Inc brand has same personality as of customers or they desire their personality to be like that of Apple Inc brand. Its brand personality assists in providing a medium for the customers to convey their personal identity (Chernatony, 2010). New approach for Apple Inc A ‘cross-platform connectivity’ strategy or approach is suggested for Apple Inc. The company can implement new software which could be named as ‘cross-platform connectivity application’ which will facilitate them to inter-operate or implement its software on several platforms. This approach will help the customers to run the application on different platforms such as Microsoft Windows, Linux, etc. Benefits of Cross-platform Connectivity Application The benefits of developing the cross-platform connectivity application are as follows: Speed: Through the cross-platform connectivity software, it will be faster to build up the cross-platform app for the Apple Smartphones as compared to the native app. This strategy of Apple Inc will help the customers to leverage single codebase and adapt to several platforms in spite of generating s novel codebase for every platform. Simplicity: Updates to particular cross-platform application would be instantly synchronized across various devices and platform. It will help the customers of Apple Inc to share information across various platforms. Great reach: Developing cross-platform connectivity application will help the customer of Apple Inc to reach several people in a simple way. Developing this software that runs on Android as well as iPhone will prove the company additional benefit of tapping in better market potential. Easy marketing: As Apple Inc already have great customer base, therefore marketing and branding of this new application will not require creating niche in order to cater specific target group. The company can do marketing and advertising of their software on different media as well as by means of generalised messages. By applying this new approach, Apple Inc will be able to develop its brand image in terms of innovation, imagination, efficiency and reliability. The company can do positioning of its new approach through its official website, television commercials, and other social media tools. Conclusion and Recommendation The paper focuses on the concept of brand identity, brand image, and brand personality by taking into consideration different models related to the concept. Brand identity contains emotional and specific ideas as well as reflects the beliefs and values of people. Brand image conveys and develops the characteristics of product in a distinctive way different from the competitor. Four dissimilar perspectives of brand identity developed by Aaker have been discussed by taking into consideration the main point of the approach which is extended identity, brand essence, and core identity. Kapferer’s brand identity prism includes the six aspects of brand identity through which the author explains what the brand looks like, its personality, culture, how relationship is created by brand, self-image and reflection of brand. Branding has also been criticised for various reasons. The brand personality of Apple Inc is reflected by its reliability, efficiency, dependability, cutting-edge designs, imagination, innovation, use of advanced and better graphics. The logo of Apple Inc is the root of its brand identity as well as signifies the company’s rationale of customer delight. It stands for its sleek design, competence, customer centric nature, loyalty and safety, etc. A new ‘cross-platform connectivity application’ approach has been recommended for Apple Inc. This approach will help the company to implement its software on several platforms. Making single cross-platform application to function across several platforms will be more beneficent than building several native applications. It will assist Apple Inc to boost its brand image and personality by doing innovation in its operations. Reference List Aaker, D.A., 1991. Managing brand equity. New York: The Free Press. Aaker, J.L., 1995. Brand personality: Conceptualization, measurement and underlying psychological mechanisms. United States of America: Stanford University Publication. Aaker, D. A., 1996. 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