Developing a brand strategy

Question 1

Strategic Brand Management Process

Accepted Answer

The Strategic Brand Management Process involves the design and implementation of marketing program and activities to build, measure, and manage brand equity

Question 2

a. Strategic Brand Management Process - Step 1

Accepted Answer

Identifying and developing brand plans · clear understanding of what the brand is to represent and how it should be positioned with respect to competitors Brand positioning model Brand resonance model Brand value chain

Question 3

a. Strategic Brand Management Process - Step 2

Accepted Answer

Step 2: Designing and implementing brand marketing programs · building brand equity requires properly positioning the brand in the minds of customers and achieving as much brand resonance as possible · depends on three factors: 1. The initial choices of the brand elements making up the brand and how they mixed and matched 2. the marking activities and supporting marketing programs and the way the brand is integrated into them other associations indirectly transferred to or leveraged by the brand as a result of linking it to some other entity (country of origin, different brand, channel of distribution)

Question 4

a. Strategic Brand Management Process - Step 3

Accepted Answer

Step 3: Measuring and interpreting brand performance · A brand measurement system is a set of research procedures designed to provide timely, accurate, and actionable information for marketers so that they can make the best possible tactical decisions in the short and the best strategic decisions in the long run · three key steps: 1. Conducting brand audits 2. Designing brand tracking studies 3. Establishing a brand equity management system

Question 5

a. Strategic Brand Management Process - Step 4

Accepted Answer

Step 4 Growing and sustaining brand equity · brand equity management activities take a broader and more diverse perspective of the brand’s equity · understanding how branding strategies should reflect corporate concerns and be adjusted (over time, over geographical boundaries or multiple market segments) · three central considerations in this context: 1. Defining Brand architecture 2. Managing Brand Equity over time 3. Managing Brand Equity over geographic boundaries, cultures and market segments

Question 6

b. Customer-Based Brand Equity

Accepted Answer

Customer-based equity (CBBE) is defined as the differential effect of brand knowledge on consumer response to the marketing of the brand Differential effect: brand equity arises from differences in consumer response Brand knowledge: what customers have learned about the brand (result of brand experience) Consumer response to marketing the power of a brand lies in what the customer have learned, felt, seen and heard about the brand as a result of their experiences over timeMarkter’s challenge in building a strong brand: Ensuring that customers have the right type of experiences with a firm’s product or services and the accompanying marketing programs so that the desired feelings, opinions and experiences become linked to the brand

Question 7

Marketing Advantages of strong brands

Accepted Answer

Improves perceptions of the product performancegreater loyaltyless vulnerability to competitive marketing actionsless vulnerability to marketing criseslarger marginsmores inelastic consumer response to price increasesmore elastic consumer response to price decreasesgreater trade cooperation and supportincreased marketing communications effectivenesspossible licensing opportunitiesadditional brand extension opportunities

Question 8

c. Sources of Brand Equity

Accepted Answer

Brand knowledge has two componentes 1. Brand Awareness: Consumer’s ability to identify the brand under different conditions 2. Brand Image: Consumers perceptions about a brand as reflected by brand associations held in consumer memory What causes brand equity to exist? Customer based equity argues that when customer have a high level of awareness and familiarity with the brand, consumers hold strong, favorable and unique brand associationsin some cases, brand awareness alone is enough to create favorable consumer response→ in most other cases, the strength, favorability and uniqueness of brand associations play a critical role markets must convince consumers that there are meaningful differences among brands → establishing a positive brand image in consumer memory goes along with creating brand awareness to build customer-based brand equity

Question 9

Advantages of Brand Awareness

Accepted Answer

Learning advantages Consideration advantages Choice advantages

Question 10

Establishing brand awareness

Accepted Answer

repeated exposure → strongly registration in their memory, recallmarketing elements → improves recognizability rather than brand recalllinkages in memory, purchase or consumption cues → can be created through appropriate marketing elements

Question 11

The Controversial effect of shock advertising

Accepted Answer

positive effects: often generates a lot of attentionnegative effects:often fails to create strong category links because the product in not depicted prominent enoughoften generates a fair amount of ill willconveys a sense of despairWhat was the company about?→ shock advertisement measures should be used sparsely as they rarely provide a foundation for long-term brand equity

Question 12

Brand Image as a source of brand equity

Accepted Answer

Creating a brand image takes marketing programs that link strong, favorable and unique associations to brand in memory · brand associations have two components o Brand Attributes: are the descriptive features that characterize a product or service o Brand benefits: are the personal value and meaning consumers attach to the product or service attributes o Additional sources: direct experience, online surfing, word of mouth, assumptions or inferences with the brand or logo, information from other commercial or nonpartisan sources o Marketers should recognize the influence of these other sources of information by both managing them as well as possible and by adequately accounting for them in designing communication strategies

Question 13

d. Identifying and Establishing Brand Positioning - Brand Positioning

Accepted Answer

· is the act of designing the company’s offer and image so that it occupies a distinct and valued place in the target customer’s minds · finding the proper location in the minds of a group of customers · helps guide marketing strategy by clarifying what a brand is all about · requires determining a frame of reference:

Question 14

Steps of Brand positioning - 1. Step

Accepted Answer

1. Target Market · Market: Set of actual and potential buyers who have sufficient interest in, income for, and access to a product · Market segmentation: divides the market into distinct groups of homogenous consumers who have similar needs and consumer behaviour, and who thus require similar marketing mixes · cost/benefit trade-offs: o the more finely segmented the market, the more likely hath the firm will be able to implement marketing programs that meet specific consumer needs in any segment o the more finely segmented the market, the greater the cost of reduced standardization 1. Segmentation Bases Consumer segmentation bases: behavioral: user status, usage, rate, brand loyalty, ...demographic: icome, age, sex, race, ...psychographic: values, opinions, attitudes, ... geographic: international, regionalB2B Segmentation Bases: nature of the good: kind, where used, type of buybuying condition: purchase location, type of buydemographic: SIC code, number of employees/ of production workerso descriptive or customer-oriented: related to what kind of person or organization the customer is o behavioral or product-oriented:related to how the customer thinks or uses the brand or product o behavioral segmentation bases are often most valuable in understanding branding issues because they have clearer strategic implications

Question 15

Steps of positioning - 2. Step

Accepted Answer

Nature of competition competitions should not be defined too narrowlydirect competition vs. indirect competitioneven if a brand does not face direct competitions in its product category, and thus does not share performance related attributes with other brands, it can still share more abstract associations and face indirect competition in a more broadly defined product category

Question 16

3. Step of brand positioning

Accepted Answer

Points-of-difference are attributes or benefits that consumers strongly associate with a brand → positively evaluated → and believe that they could not find to the same extent with a competitive brand functional, performance related considerationabstract, imaginary related considerationbrand choices often depend on the perceived uniqueness of brand associationsex. IKEA (cheap furniture accessible to everyone), Subaru (page 47-48)

Question 17

4. Step of Brand positioning

Accepted Answer

3. Points of parity Points of parity are attributes or benefits that are shared with other brands: < Category points of parity < competitive points of parity < correlational points of parity

Question 18

e. Positioning Guidelines

Accepted Answer

Key issues in arriving the optional competitive brand positioning: 1. Defining and communicating the competitive frame or reference 2. Choosing and establishing points of parity and points or difference Defining and communicating the competitive frame of reference: 1. Determine category membership Commuicate category benefits Compare to exemplars Rely on a product descriptor 2. Choosing points of difference:in determining whether a certain brand association can function as a point of difference, a company must evaluate three key criteria 1. Desirability 2. Deliverability 3. Dfferentiation Establishing Points of parity and points of differences: key to branding success: establish both points of parity and points of differencechallenge: inverse relationship of point of parity and points of difference that may exist in consumer mindsthree approaches to address this problem 1. Seperate the attributes 2. Leverage equity of another entity 3. Redfine the relationship

Question 19

Staddle Positions:

Accepted Answer

type of positioning where a company is able to straddle two frames of reference with one set of points of difference and points of paritythe points of difference in one category become points of parity in either other and vice for points of parityDisadvantage: if the points of parity and points of difference with respect to both categories are not credible, consumers may not view brand as a legitimate player in either categoryex. accenture, MCKinsey, IBM (page 69)

Question 20

Developing a good positioning:

Accepted Answer

has a foot in the present and a foot in the future (strikes balance between what t´he brand is and what it could beis careful to identify all relevant points of parityreflects a consumer point of view in terms of the benefits that consumers derive from the brandhas rational as well as emotional components (appeals to both the head and the heart)

Marketing (Fach) / Developing a brand strategy (Lektion)