Learning Diary on Branding and Brand Equity - Essay Example

Learning diary Branding is an important case study in practical applications of cases wherein brands are underleveraged or the business strategy is at risk because of inadequate brand platforms. There are issues of bland branding that need to be dealt with and the fact that strategies are sometimes paralyzed due to a lack of priority among the brands is also a point to be noted. Brands are cluttered and confusing to both customers and employees. These and many more issues face marketing managers in the world of contemporary marketing management. This was a course that seeked to answer some of these questions through the development of an understanding of brands, branding, brand equity and scope along with the intricacies of integrated marketing communications. Each brand in the portfolio needs to have a clear role and other portfolio brands will profoundly affect the firm's profitability. The following is case by case, week by week description of a course diary as the tasks progressed, with a focus on an understanding of the related learning in the course. Week 1: The first week on the course focused on the creation of an understanding of the concepts of brands and the management of the brand. I n the very first week of the course the importance of brand creation and brand management became apparent given the fact that in the current scenario, consumer loyalty to the product is defined in terms of the loyalty that the consumer has for the name of the product i.e. the brand. A brand is an image that is easy to identify and have a high recollecting value (Herr, Farquhar and Fazio, 1996). A number of different types of brands could be recognized, these include a premium brand, an economy brand, and a fighting brand. A brand could therefore be defined as a name, term, sign, symbol, or design, or a combination of them, intended to identify the goods and services of one seller or group of sellers and to differentiate them from those of competition, (American Marketing Association , 2009) Brand management on the other hand is the process by which these brands are managed, their image is created and maintained. The first week was more about learning the basic than about getting into the intricacies of brand management. The presentation on Yahoo that the group made was enlightening in the sense that it helped us figure out the fact that the most important thing for a brand to know is what it stands for and the characteristics that it possesses making it unique. The idea therefore is that a classic marketing does not answer new questions posed in branding and management, out of the box brands like Yahoo need out of the box marketing initiatives congruent with brand identity. Lecture objectives as outlines were to ensure that the terminology and its application became clear along with the application of the term in terms of their relevance to real brands. Brand equity, defined as “the quantifiable result of product marketing by virtue of its brand name that if that same product or service did not have that brand identification”. Brand equity deals with the value, usually defined in economic terms of a brand beyond the physical assets associated with its manufacture and provisions (Aker and Biel, 1996). Whereas barnd image is a concept originated and owned by marketers and advertising specialists, the idea that a brand has equity that exceeds its traditional asset value is a notion developed by financial analysts. This was therefore a concept that was tough to comprehend and to decipher. The week also focused on Keller’s model of brand equity or the customer based brand equity (CBBE) model that states in essence that making an assessment of the equity of brand name is more appropriate and therefore more needed as compared to individual product equity. Brand feelings appear to lack relevance in the industrial market investigated, and the pinnacle of Keller’s pyramid, resonance, needs serious modifications. Finally, company representatives play a role in building brand equity, indicating a need for this human element to be recognized in a B2B model. Week 2: The focus of week two was on an understanding of the brand in the sense of it being a cognitive construal in the mind of the consumer. The idea innate in the lectures was that the brand resides in the mind of the consumer, but the marketer still needs to be able to control the value of brand creation. The differential effect that brand knowledge has on consumer response to the marketing of the brand. The idea has been the focus on the input-output methods to understanding of how consumer decisions change if stimuli are changed and process tracing methods to understand the process of brand choice. The marketer is assumed to be very much in control with brand communication as the approach rests upon an assumption of the consumer as a cognitive man. This would therefore mean that that the consumer is seen and analyzed through a lens grounded in cognitive psychology and information economics. The idea therefore is that the marketing strategy needs to be construed backed by the needs and demands of the customer (Heding, Knudtzen and Bjerre, 2009). One would need to understand the fact that even though the brand is analyzed as a mental construal in the mind of the consumers, it still makes sense to talk about the communication of intended meaning. This notion of linear communication means that the recipient of a message understands message as intended by the sender. Brand equity would therefore be a bridge that would be linking the consumer to the product. This would therefore mean that the reflections of the past investments in the marketing of a brand and sets the direction for future marketing actions and programs. There were discussions on brand building and the questions of the consumer with respect to the product. Consumer equity is also a thought that would need to be discussed. The written case presentation was the MTV case. The lecture has helped me thinking of the brand in the sense of the something that resides in the mind of the consumers. We changed the meeting time from Mondays  to Fridays from 3-4 due to changing time of our lecture Our group decided to first finish the individual report by next week. Week 3: Week three based its focus on the elements of brand equity. These elements essentially have to memorable, meaningful, likeable, transferable, and adaptable. Elements of brand equity are brand loyalty, brand awareness, perceived quality and brand association (Aaker, 2003). Brand Loyalty, is a measure of the attachment that a customer has to a brand. Brand Awareness, the ability of a potential buyer to recognize or recall that a brand is a member of certain product category. Perceived Quality, (perception by customer) is the customer’s perception of the overall quality or superiority of a product or service with respect to its intended purpose, relative to alternatives. Brand Association, is anything “linked” in memory to a brand. The measures   Week 4: Marketing communication can contribute to brand equity given the fact that it establishes the brand in memory by linking strong, favorable, and unique associations to it in the minds of the consumer (Keller, 2008).  Secondary brands are line extenders, or "flankers," for a core brand. These do not always have to have their own name and are usually modifiers to the brand name. the idea in the week was to help the development of an understanding of the key features that would need to go behind a marketing campaign in the sense of the development of a brand. This one would need to understand in terms of the help that marketing communication as a strategy would give in the build up of brand equity in as much as is in essence a process of developing and implementing media strategies. At the end of the week, one could outline the advantages and limitations of various media including print, broadcast, and alternative media and how each one needs to be used in an given marketing communications endeavor to build brand equity. Marketing communication as a process of brand building needs to be creative. The message has to be stated in a unique fashion; it should be observant. Competition would have to be accordingly monitored. The goals of the campaign should be realistic and understand the complexities involved in the process. The two most important terms learnt this week were brand positioning and secondary brands. The biggest part of the learning process this week was the cultivation of an analytical thought process as far as usage of different media in the marketing communication process. This is important given the fact that incorrect media can kill a campaign without it ever taking off. The idea also is that the importance of a well planned out and executed marketing communications strategy is a big part of brand equity. The week culminated with the group finalizing the question answers and agreed that everyone would have to put in by next week in white slide and an initiation of discussion on our major project. Week 5: Week five was all about the processes that go behind the development of brand equity. In the context of its development by marketing communication, brand equity could be defined as the distinct effect brand knowledge has on consumer response to marketing activity--the relationship between what a consumer knows about a brand and what a consumer does as a result of that knowledge. The 9idea here was to develop an understanding of a process that would help the future marketer to understand the process by which brand equity could be measured and future steps could be taken based on an understanding of the consumer mindset. the aim of the learning in this week was therefore to compare and contrast perspectives that characterize the study of consumer behavior and carry out an application of these theories of consumer behavior to the formulation of effective marketing strategy, thereby contributing to the development of an effective campaign for building brand equity. For this purpose it would be necessary for a marketing official to have an an ability to recognize trends based on current research that is carried out in relation to consumer behavior. The new terms learnt in this week were terms such as consumer mindset, profiling brand associations, Measurement and Management System, and brand triads. For this purpose the marketing individual would have to know answers to question such as the target audience…This would mean a definition of who the customer for a particular product is, the products that they would be buying, how they are buying the product, influences on the consumer before they go and by the product, strategies of consumer acquisition, retention and growth. Most of these questions need to be backed by research and statistical analysis. The written case presentation was that of Levis Dockers and the strategy used by the company to bring in young target audience. The learning outcomes have been outlined already, the week ended with us having collected presentation parts. We also designed the power point slides together. A schedule for or project was made on this week. Week 6: The focus of the week was on the measurement of brand equity. Brand equity being a multi dimensional concept, there are a number of measures that are needed. The ultimate value of the brand is dependant on the underlying components of brand knowledge and sources of brand equity. This important given the fact that trends and pressures on margins. The idea is that measurement of equity is needed so that the functions of the brand could be articulated and the fact that there are three key roles that a brand plays: issues of its functioning and the fact that it acts as an assurance Device. Brand based approaches are important in this context given the fact that marketing element under consideration is mostly fixed and that consumer responses are examined based on changes in brand identification. The vide case presentation was that of the Strawberry Frog. It was a behind the scenes video valuation. The idea behind understanding the variables beneath the measurement of brand equity are issues like understanding what is a brand scorecard comes in handy while creating the ultimate brand portfolio, it helps in gaining an overview of brand scorecard and in the determination of the metrics that are right for the overall brand scorecard. The valuation approaches that need to be placed under consideration in this regard are attempts that place a financial value on brand equity for accounting purposes, residual approaches that examine the value of the brand by subtracting consumer preferences based on physical product attributes alone from their overall brand preferences. The week was important given the fact that we practiced our presentation, came up with a group name- “Fine” and a plan for our project was developed and submitted to lecturer Week 7: The focus of week seven was on an understanding of factors behind a designing and implementation of brand strategies. The two most important elements of the week study were the definition of branding strategy. This is critical given the fact that it is by this means that the firm helps the consumers in understanding products and services and organize them in their minds. The two most important tools in are brand-product matrix and brand hierarchy. These help in the characterization and formulation of branding strategies by defining various relationships among brands and products. Branding strategy reflects the number and nature of common or distinctive brand elements applied to the different products sold by the firm. The discussions focused on the explaining of the new terms and integrating theory in by practical examples. One of the most important parts of the lecture was that a marketing executive needs to remember the fact that to market coverage needs to be maximized so that no potential customers are being ignored and that brand overlap is being minimized so that brands are not forced to compete among themselves to gain the same customer’s approval. The new terms learnt in this week were Flankers, Cash cows, Low-end entry-level, and High-end prestige brands. Issues of brand hierarchy were discussed- means of summarizing the branding strategy by displaying the number and nature of common and distinctive brand elements across the firm’s products, revealing the explicit ordering of brand elements. The lecture ended with a video case presentation of Proctor and Gamble. The learning modules from the week’s lecture were focused primarily on a learning of the technicalities of branding and its related terms, along with the hierarchies of branding and its application in brands such as Toyota and Ford. The best practice in the learning is in the context of the lecture was the proctor and gamble case presentation as it helped in the clarification of the many concepts in my mind. The difficulty is that remembering the related principles in this context in a pressure situation might be tough to apply in a correct manner. Week 8: The focus of week eight of the course was on the introduction of the brand, including new products and making new extensions. The lecture made use of Intel as a case, Leveraging a brand means that firms that seek to build power or mega brands establishing a broad market footprint, appealing to the multiple customer segments with multiple products all under the brand umbrella. The Ansoff’s growth share matrix was applied in this case. Brand extensions were discussed as well. A brand extension is for example the use of the brand name for the introduction of a new product. This can be further classified into line extensions and category extensions. This lecture discussed the advantages of brand extension in details but the most important advantage that is immediately recognizable, is the fact that newer extensions increase the levels of brand recognition and the levels to which a consumer would be able to relate to a given brand. The problems with extensions is the fact that they could at times frustrate consumers and the fact that there could a diminishing identification levels in any one category. The process of learning from the week’s lecture helped me understand the fact that a consumer's cognitive structure for a brand in a given product category affects the possible transfer of associations to other product categories. One key factor in evaluating such possible brand extensions is dominance, which can be defined as the strength of the directional association between the parent category and the branded product. Likewise, another important factor is the relatedness of the brand's parent category and the target category of the proposed extension.  Category extensions were discussed as well, the manner of thought in this case were creating a sequence the steps for creating brand extensions and an application of the steps that are required for the same. The week ended with revision of our project and discussion of the main outline and points. A conflict about the logo happened this week between Yaser and Ali. In conclusion therefore it may be stated that achieving the right brand identity requires creating brand salience with customers. Brand salience relates to aspects of brand awareness. The power of the brand is what resides in the mind of the customer, This would automatically lead to questions about brand evolution and brand recallabilty and recognizability. Brand awareness is also a factor of concern in this context. This refers to the customers' ability to recall and recognize the brand. By understanding the concepts, one could identify the roles that one would have to play as a marketing professional to increase brand awareness. Given the complex nature of the concepts, the presentation made were a help. The learning implications from the week were an understanding of the fact that brand equity is dependant in brand awareness. References: Branding and Brand Equity, accessed November 8, 2009, Aker D A and Biel A L, 1996, Brand equity & advertising: advertising's role in building strong brands, pub, Routledge, pppp69-71 Brand Management, PT MBA, accessed November 8, 2009, < http://www.slideshare.net/nagpai/lecture-2-brand-management> Keller K L, 2008, Strategic Brand Management, pub, Pearson Publication, pp136-140 Heding T, Knudtzen C F and Bjerre M, 2009, Brand Management: Theory and Practice, pub, Taylor and Francis, pp86-90 D, Managing Brand Equity: Capitalizing on the value of a brand name, pub, Free Press, Branding and brand management, accessed November 10, 2009, Aker D A, Brand portfolio strategy: creating relevance, differentiation, energy, pub, Borders Books, pp57-62 Upshaw L B, 1995, Building Brand Identity, A Strategy for Success in a Hostile Marketplace, pub, John Wiley, pp26-52 Herr P M, Farquhar P H and Fazio R H, 1996, Impact of Dominance and Relatedness on Brand Extensions, pub, Journal of Consumer Psychology, Vol. 5 Kapferer J E, The New Strategic Brand Management, pub, Kogan Page, pp31-43 Lecture Power Points Read More