Strong Brands and Strategic Marketing€¦ · Brand salience • Brand salience has been defined as...

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Strong Brands and Strategic Marketing


• What are some of the brands you regard as strong brands?

• Why?


Building A Strong Brand

• Brand salience• Brand performance• Brand imagery• Brand judgments• Brand feelings• Brand resonance• Brand-building implications


Brand salience

• Brand salience has been defined as ‘the prominence orlevel of activation of a brand in memory’ (Alba &Chattopadhyay, 1986, p. 363). It has been shown thatmore accessible brands tend to lead to consumer productchoice (Hauser & Wernerfelt, 1990) or reduce theprobability of consumer defection (Romaniuk & Sharp,2003).

• When a consumer recalls a brand name, the brand ishighlighted and then replaced in memory, making itavailable for further recall. The act of recall, in turn,makes associations about the brand more accessible(salient).


• Thus the salient brand has a higher chance of recall tothe exclusion of competing brands (Alba &Chattopadhyay, 1986).


Brand performance

• Brand performance is the result ofdesirability and profitability in a brand.Brand performance delivers top-linegrowth while reducing costs to improve thebottom line (SGK, 2018).


• Describes how well the brand:– Meets customers’ more functional needs– Rate on objective assessments of quality– Satisfies utilitarian, aesthetic, and economic

customer needs and wants in the product or service category


Brand performance• Attributes and benefits that underlie brand performance:

• Primary ingredients and supplementary features.• Product reliability, durability, and serviceability.

• Reliability: Measures the consistency of performance over time and from purchase to purchase.

• Durability: Is the expected economic life of the product.

• Serviceability: The ease of repairing the product if needed.


• Service effectiveness, efficiency, and empathy• Effectiveness: Measures how well the brand satisfies

customers’ service requirements.• Efficiency: Describes the speed and responsiveness of

service.• Empathy: Is the extent to which service providers are seen

as trusting, caring, and having the customer’s interests in mind.

• Style and designDesign has a functional aspect in terms of how a product works that affects performance associations.


Consumers also may have associations with the product that gobeyond its functional aspects to more aesthetic considerations suchas its size, shape, materials, and colour involved. Thus,performance may also depend on sensory aspects such as how aproduct looks and feels, and perhaps even what it sounds or smellslike.

• Price• Consumers may organize their product category knowledge

in terms of the price tiers of different brands.


Brand imagery

• “ Brand imagery is the aesthetic appearance of your brand’s core messaging. Just about anything that you can see, touch, taste, smell or hear is that brand’s imagery. For instance, what does your preferred brand of cologne smell like? How does your favourite fast food burger taste? What does furniture from IKEA look like?


• The idea is to connect the right messages with yourtarget audience so that they will have strong feelingswhen they encounter your brand imagery. When there’sno opportunity to touch, feel, taste, or smell something,sight quickly becomes the most valuable sense. That’swhy these days it is crucial to use images as a part ofyour company’s overall strategy” (Keating, 2016).


User profile/imagery

• Type of person or organization who uses the brand.• Results in customers’ mental image of actual users or

more aspirational, idealized users.• Consumers may base associations of a typical or

idealized brand user on descriptive demographic factors or more abstract psychographic factors.

• Demographic factors: Gender, age, race, income.• Psychographic factors: Attitudes toward life, careers,

possessions, social issues, or political institutions.


Purchase and usage situations/imagery

• Associations that tell consumers under what conditions or situations they can or should buy and use the brand.

• Associations to a typical usage situation can relate to the time to use the brand, location, and type of activity during which to use the brand.


Brand personality and values

Through consumer experience or marketing activities, brands may take on personality traits.

• Five dimensions of brand personality:• Sincerity (down-to-earth, honest, wholesome, and

cheerful)• Excitement (daring, spirited, imaginative, and up-to-

date)• Competence (reliable, intelligent, successful)• Sophistication (upper class and charming)• Ruggedness (outdoorsy and tough)


Brand history, heritage and experiences

• Brands association with its past and with certain noteworthy events in the brand’s history.


Brand judgments

• Are customers’ personal opinions about andevaluations of the brand, which consumers formby putting together all the different brandperformance and imagery associations.Customers may make all types of judgmentswith respect to a brand, but four types areparticularly important: judgments about quality,credibility, consideration, and superiority.


• Quality: Brand attitudes are consumers’ overall evaluations of a brand and often form the basis for brand choice. Brand attitudes generally depend on specific attributes and benefits of the brand.

• Credibility: Customers judge credibility using three dimensions – expertise (which includes innovation), trustworthiness, and likability.

• Consideration: Customers judge how relevant your product is to their unique needs.

• Superiority: Customers assess how superior your brand is, compared with your competitors' brands.


Brand feelings

• Are customers’ emotional responses and reactions to thebrand. Brand feelings also relate to the social currencyevoked by the brand. What feelings are evoked by themarketing program for the brand or by other means?How does the brand affect customers’ feelings aboutthemselves and their relationship with others? Thesefeelings can be mild or intense and can be positive ornegative.


• Important brand building feelings• Warmth - Soothing feelings that make consumers feel a sense of

calm or peacefulness.• Fun - Upbeat feelings that make consumers feel amused,

lighthearted, joyous, playful, and cheerful.• Excitement - Ability of the brand to make consumers feel energized

and experience something special.• Security - Ability of a brand to produce a feeling of safety, comfort,

and self-assurance.• Social approval - Gives consumers a belief that others look favorably

on their appearance and behavior.• Self-respect - Brand makes consumers feel better about themselves.


Brand resonance

• Brand resonance describes the nature of thisrelationship and the extent to which customers feel thatthey are “in sync” with the brand. Examples of brandswith historically high resonance include Harley-Davidsonand Apple.


• Behavioral loyalty• Attitudinal attachment• Sense of community• Active engagement


• Behavioral Loyalty can be gauged in terms of repeatpurchases and the amount or share of category volumeattributed to the brand, that is, the “share of categoryrequirements.” In other words, how often do customerspurchase a brand and how much do they purchase? Forbottom-line profit results, the brand must generatesufficient purchase frequencies and volumes.


Attitudinal Attachment

• Behavioral loyalty is necessary but not sufficient forresonance to occur. Some customers may buy out ofnecessity—because the brand is the only productstocked or readily accessible, the only one they canafford, or other reasons. Resonance, however, requiresa strong personal attachment. Customers should gobeyond having a positive attitude to viewing the brand assomething special in a broader context.


Sense of Community

• The brand may also take on broader meaning to thecustomer by conveying a sense of community.Identification with a brand community may reflect animportant social phenomenon in which customers feel akinship or affiliation with other people associated with thebrand, whether fellow brand users or customers, oremployees or representatives of the company. A brandcommunity can exist online or off-line.


Active Engagement

• Perhaps the strongest affirmation of brand loyalty occurswhen customers are engaged, or willing to invest time,energy, money, or other resources in the brand beyondthose expended during purchase or consumption of thebrand.

• For example, customers may choose to join a clubcentered on a brand, receive updates, and exchangecorrespondence with other brand users or formal orinformal representatives of the brand itself. Companiesare making it increasingly easy for customers to buy arange of branded merchandise so they can literallyexpress their loyalty.


Brand-building implications

• The brand resonance model provides a road map andguidance for brand building, a yardstick by which brandscan assess their progress in their brand-building effortsas well as a guide for marketing research initiatives.


Figure 3.1- Customer-Based Brand Equity Pyramid


• Brand Identity – Who Are You?• In this first step, your goal is to create "brand salience,"

or awareness – in other words, you need to make sure that your brand stands out, and that customers recognize it and are aware of it.

• You're not just creating brand identity and awareness here; you're also trying to ensure that brand perceptions are "correct" at key stages of the buying process.


• Brand Meaning – What Are You?• Your goal in step two is to identify and communicate what your

brand means, and what it stands for. The two building blocks in this step are: "performance" and "imagery."

• "Performance" defines how well your product meets your customers' needs. According to the model, performance consists of five categories: primary characteristics and features; product reliability, durability, and serviceability; service effectiveness, efficiency, and empathy; style and design; and price.

• "Imagery" refers to how well your brand meets your customers' needs on a social and psychological level. Your brand can meet these needs directly, from a customer's own experiences with a product; or indirectly, with targeted marketing, or with word of mouth.


• Brand Response – What Do I Think, or Feel, About You?• Your customers' responses to your brand fall into two categories:

"judgments" and "feelings." These are the two building blocks in this step.

• Your customers constantly make judgments about your brand and these fall into four key categories:

• Quality: Customers judge a product or brand based on its actual and perceived quality.


• Brand Resonance – How Much of a Connection Would I Like to Have With You? (Relationship)

• Brand "resonance" sits at the top of the brand equity pyramid because it's the most difficult – and the most desirable – level to reach. You have achieved brand resonance when your customers feel a deep, psychological bond with your brand.

• Keller breaks resonance down into four categories:• Behavioral loyalty: This includes regular, repeat

purchases.


Brand Building Implications

• Customers own the brand• Don’t take shortcuts with brands• Brands should have a duality • Brands should have richness• Brand resonance provides important focus


• It is through learning about and experiencing a brandthat customers end up thinking, feeling, and acting in away that allows the firm to reap the benefits of brandequity.

• Although marketers must take responsibility fordesigning and implementing the most effective andefficient brand-building marketing programs possible, thesuccess of those marketing efforts ultimately depends onhow consumers respond and the actions they take.


• This response, in turn, depends on the knowledge thathas been created in their minds and hearts for thosebrands.


Figure 3.5 - Brand Value Chain


• Developing a strong positioning and building brandresonance are crucial marketing goals. To betterunderstand the ROI of marketing investments, however,another tool is necessary.

• The brand value chain is a structured approach toassessing the sources and outcomes of brand equityand the manner by which marketing activities createbrand value.

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