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Product and Brand Management:

 What is marketing?
Marketing is an organizational function and a set of processes for creating,
communicating, and delivering value to customers and for managing customer
relationships in ways that benefit the organization and its stakeholders. The process
through which VALUE is exchanged.

 What is a product?
Anything that can be offered to a market for attention, acquisition, use, or
consumption that might satisfy a need or want.

 Product Essentials:
• Product features and benefits
• Packaging
• Branding
• Warranties and guaranties
• Time to market
• Lifecycles

 Levels of product
 Core product
 Actual product
 Augmented product

 Product Items, Lines, and Mixes


 Product Item- a specific version of a product that can be designated as a distinct
offering among an organization’s products.
 Product Line- a group of closely related product items.
 Product Mix- all products that an organization sells.

 Product Strategy
Defines what the organization does and why it exists. It Involves creating a product
offering that is a bundle of physical (tangible), service (intangible), and symbolic
(perceptual) attributes designed to satisfy customer’s needs and wants. It Strives to
overcome commoditization.
Product Life Cycle
Post
Introduction Growth Maturity Mortem
Decline

$ Sales

Profit Time

Loss/profit
Progression of product “life” stages (sales & time)

Diffusion of Innovations

Source: Rogers, Everett M, Diffusion of Innovations, 4th ed. (New York: Free Press, 1995)

 Innovators represent the first 2.5 percent of all individuals who ultimately
adopt a new product. They are more venturesome than later adopters, more
likely to be receptive to new ideas, and tend to have high incomes, which
reduces the risk of a loss arising from an early adoption.
 Early adopters represent the next 13 to 14 percent who adopt. They are more
a part of the local scene, are often opinion leaders, serve as vital links to
members of the early majority group (because of their social proximity), and
participate more in community organizations than do later adopters.
 The early majority includes 34 percent of those who adopt. These individuals
display less leadership than early adopters, tend to be active in community
affairs (thereby gaining respect from their peers), do not like to take
unnecessary risks, and want to be sure that a new product will prove
successful before they adopt it.
 The Late majority represents another 34 percent. Frequently, these
individuals adopt a new product because they are forced to do so for either
economic or social reasons. They participate in community activities less than
the previous groups and only rarely assume a leadership role.
 Laggards comprise the last 16 percent of adopters. Of all the adopters, they
are the most “local.” They participate less in community matters than
members of the other groups and stubbornly resist change. In some cases,
their adoption of a product is so late it has already been replaced by another
new product.

 New Product Development:


The development of original products, product improvements, product
modifications, and new brands through the firm’s own R&D efforts Or New
products can also come from acquisition of other companies, patents, or licenses

New Product Development Process

 Idea Generation-Sales force, Customers, Employees, R&D specialists, The


competition, Suppliers, Retailers, Independent inventors.
 Screening-Screening separates ideas with commercial potential from those
that cannot meet company objectives.
 Business Analysis-The business analysis consists of assessing the new
product’s market potential, growth rate, likely competitive strengths, and
compatibility of the proposed product with organizational resources.
 Development-Converting an idea into a physical product Requires
interaction among many of the firm’s departments. Prototypes may go
through many changes.
 Test Marketing-Introduction of a trial version of a new product supported
by a complete marketing campaign to a selected city of television coverage.
 Commercialization- is stage, the firm establishes marketing strategies,
and funds outlays for production and marketing.

 Attributes Associated with a Product Offering

• What is Brand?
A brand is a person’s gut feeling about a product, service or organization.

l A brand defines the relationship customers have with us.


l A brand is a promise we make to our customers
and to ourselves.
l A brand is shaped by each experience customers have with the firm.

• A brand differentiates the product from similar offerings.

Traditional view: A brand is a name, term, sign, symbol, or design which is intended
to identify the goods or services of one seller or group of sellers and to differentiate
them from those of competitors.

Recent views:
 Brand is what is experienced and valued by customers in everyday social life.
 Brand is the culture of the product- shared, taken-for granted brand stories,
images and associations.
 Brand is the emotional file we have for a product or a service or entity.
 A brand is a seller’s promise to deliver consistently a specific set of features,
benefits and services to buyers.
 For customer brand is an experience
 Role of Brand:
 Signify quality
 Create barriers to entry
 Serve as a competitive advantage
 Secure price premium
 How Brand works?

Level-1: Identification-Brand name and logo ensure the product can be recognized
and distinguished from the competition.
Level-2: Security- You get what you expect.
Level-3: Added value- individual “laddered” benefits.
Level-4: Transformation-the brand actually invokes change in the consumer.

Brand: A brand is a mixture of attributes, tangible and intangible, symbolized in a


trademark, which, if managed properly, creates value and influence.

• Branding:
The purpose of branding is to transform a product. Transforming a commodity like
product into customer satisfying value added propositions is the essence of
branding.

 BRANDING IS A:
A physical product is combined with something else- symbols, images and feelings to
produce an idea or concept. The two grow with and live on one another in a
mutually enhancing partnership.
• Branding is “emotional product development”.

Two routes of brand building:


1. from product advantage- intangible values
2. from values-products

• Promotion is the vehicle that allows us to access the consumer’s mind, to


create a perceptual inventory of imagery, symbols and feelings that come to
define the perceptual entity “we call a Brand.”

The Brand and Value

The brand is a focal point for all the positive and negative impressions created by
the buyer over time as he comes into contact with the brand’s products, distribution
channel, personnel and communication...

The value of a brand comes from its ability to gain an exclusive, positive and
prominent meaning in the minds of a large number of consumers” (Kapferer 1997,
pg. 25).

What is brand equity?


 The differential effect that brand knowledge has on consumer response to the
marketing of that brand.
 The unique “brain space” that your brand occupies in the minds of your
customers.

Brand equity is defined in terms of the marketing effects uniquely attributable to the
brand.

Sources of Brand Equity

Brand
Non-Product-Related
Recognition (e.g., Price, Packaging,
User and Usage
Brand Imagery)
Awaren
ess
Brand Attributes
Recall Product-Related
(e.g., color, size,
Brand design features)
Knowle
dge
Types of
Brand Associations Benefits Functional
Brand
Image Symbolic
Favorability, Overall
Strength, and Evaluation
Uniqueness of Experiential
(Attitude)
Brand Association

Brand image: A strong brand Image is created by marketing programs that link
strong favorable and unique associations to the brand in the memory.

Brand image reflects the linking of strong, favorable and unique associations to the
brand in memory.

Four steps in building brand equity:


1. Who are you?
2. What are you?
3. What about you? What do I think or feel about you?
4. What about you and me?
KELLER’S BRAND RESONANCE PYRAMID

4.  RELATIONSHIPS = 
4.  RELATIONSHIPS =  INTENSE, 
INTENSE, 
What about you & me? 
What about you & me?  RESONANCE ACTIVE LOYALTY 
ACTIVE LOYALTY 

POSITIVE,
POSITIVE,
3.  RESPONSE = 
3.  RESPONSE =  ACCESSIBLE 
ACCESSIBLE 
What about you? 
What about you?  JUDGMENTS FEELINGS REACTIONS 
REACTIONS 

STRONG, FAVORABLE
POINTS­OF­PARITY
2.  MEANING = 
2.  MEANING =  & UNIQUE BRAND
What are you? 
What are you?  PERFORMANCE IMAGERY & DIFFERENCE
ASSOCIATIONS 

DEEP, BROAD
DEEP, BROAD 
1.  IDENTITY = 
1.  IDENTITY = 
SALIENCE BRAND 
BRAND 
Who are you? 
Who are you?  AWARENESS
AWARENESS 

 This pictorial jargon is also called as consumer-based brand equity


pyramid(CBBEP)

Brand imagery: It is how people think about a brand abstractly, rather than what
they think the brand actually does. It is more a kind of intangible stuff.

Q. What is the most valuable brand dimension in the CBBE Model?


Ans. Brand resonance
Q. When does brand resonance happen?
Ans. When all other core brand values are “in sync” with respect to customer
needs, wants and demands.
Q. What does brand resonance reflect?
Ans. A completely harmonious relationship between the brand and the customer.

Ways to differentiate:
 Being first
 Leadership
 Heritage
 Preference
Brand Identity

 Brand identity is a unique set of brand associations that the brand strategist
aspires to create or maintain.
These associations represent what the brand stands for and imply a promise
to customers from organizational members.

 A brand identity provides direction, purpose and meaning for the brand. It is
central to a brand’s strategic vision and the driver of one of the four principal
dimensions of brand equity: associations, which are the heart and soul of the
brand.

 Aspects of Brands:

BRAND IMAGE
How the brand is now perceived

BRAND IDENTITY
How strategists want the brand to be perceived

BRAND POSITION
The part of the brand identity and value proposition to be actively
Communicated to a target audience.

Brand identity and Brand equity:

Brand Brand Brand


Identity Associations Equity
Brand Identity System

Brand Identity

Brand as Brand as Brand as Brand as


Product Organization Person Symbol

Value Proposition Credibility

Brand-Customer Relationship

The Kepferer brand identity prism:

 Six Facets of Brand Identity


1. A brand has physical qualities or a ‘physique’
What does it do?
What does it look like?
2. A brand has its own personality
Spokesperson or figurehead role
What brand would be if it were a person
3. A brand has its own culture
Set of values feeding the brand’s inspiration
Country of origin
4. A brand has its own relationship
Exchanges between people and brand
Service sectors and retailers.
5. A brand is a reflection
Produces a reflection or image of the buyer or user.
Different from target the describes brand’s potential buyer or user.
Customer is reflected as s/he wishes to be seen from using the brand.
Consumers use brands to built their own identities.
6. A brand speaks to our self image
Self image is the target’s own internal mirror.
Attitude toward the brand fosters an inner relationship with self.

Brand positioning:

The idea that each brand if at all noticed occupies a particular point of space in the
individual customer’s mind.
A point which is determined by the consumer’s perception of the brand in question
and in relation to other brands. It is this concept of Perceptual space that forms the
theoretical basis for Brand Positioning
• Positioning is what you do to the minds of the consumers.
 Perceptual Mapping:
Techniques that use consumer perceptions to identify similarities and differences
between brands. Produces a visual representation of how the target market views
competing alternatives.

 In order to position a brand you must decide,


– Who the Target Consumer is
– Who your main competitors are
– How the Brand is similar to your competitors (POP)
– How the Brand is different from you competitors (POD)

 Point of Parity: required to include your product as a member of certain product


category
 Point of Difference: properties which places your product distinctly in that
product category.
 Brand Position: how a brand is perceived by a target audience so that it is
distinguished from competition as being the best at satisfying a particular need.

 Developing and communicating a positioning strategy

 Attribute positioning
 Benefit positioning
 Use or application positioning
 User positioning
 Competitor positioning
 Product category positioning
 Quality or price positioning

• “Products increase the customer’s choices brand simplifies it.”

 Generic format for positioning statements:

For (target market) our (brand) is the (concept) that (point of difference).

Brand Elements:

Brand
URLs
names

Slogans Elements
Logos

Characters Symbols

Brand name: Most of the time managers want the brand name to describe what the
product does.
 Brands don’t describe the products
 Brands distinguish the products
The name must serve to add extra meaning to convey the spirit of the brand.
A brand is not a product. Therefore it should not describe what a product does but
reveal a difference. Its better to chose some abstract brand name and then develop a
meaning of its own.

 Brand element choosing criteria: Memorable, meaningful, adaptable,


appealing, protectable, transferable etc

Brand Extension: it involves using an existing brand name to launch a product in


a different category.
Category extension: parent brand is used to enter a different product category from
that currently served by the parent brand.
Line extension: parent brand is used to brand a new product that targets a new
market segment within a product category currently served by the parent brand.

 Advantages of brand extension:

 Reduce risk perceived by customers & distributors


 Decrease cost of gaining distribution & trial
 Increase efficiency of promotional expenditures
 Avoid cost (and risk) of developing new names
 Allow for packaging and labeling efficiencies
 Variety-seeking

 Disadvantages:
 Extensions have risks, too.
--They can fail.
 Moreover, extensions can potentially result in the following costs:
--Cannibalize sales of the parent brand
--Hurt the image of the parent brand

 Forego the chance to develop a new brand name or market the parent brand
differently (opportunity cost)

 Brand Extendibility:
 The Product Brand
 Formula Brand
 Know-how Brand
 Interest Brand
 Philosophy

Product Brand It is a situation where there is very little difference between


the brand and the product. Brand is a close approximation
of the product. Passively, the brand is used to identify the
product, maybe for internal purposes. The brand does not
play any role from the customer’s point of view
Formula Brand Formula means a set procedure (used to make the product).
This type of brand may be find in categories like cooking oil,
food, and pickles
Know-how Know-how is an expertise that a firm develops in a
Brand specialized area of activity. Sony is know to have expertise in
miniaturization and robotics. Honda has know-how in
engines. Amul has developed expertise in milk processing
Interest Brand It’s the centre of interest or the core spirit of the brand.
Gillette brand maintains its focus on men’s grooming in all
its brands. Nike’s focal point is winning. Whirlpool’s centre
of interest is the home (‘homemaker’)
Philosophy The brand at this level acquires more intangible character
and orientation. This generally happens in case of designers
and artists. The Armani signature on the product provides a
higher philosophical meaning – a meaning proudly expresses
in Armani’s creatively styled products

Branding Strategy: Brand Architecture


 Branding strategy: Leveraging the power of the brand name to cover the market
more effectively.

 Brand Architecture: How an organization structures and names the brands


within its portfolio.

Definition: The organization and structure of the brand portfolio by specifying brand
roles and the nature of brand relationships between brands
and between different product-market contexts”.

Brand architecture

Corporate Mixed brand Brand dominant


dominant strategy strategy strategy

Dual brand Endorsed brand


strategy strategy

Brand Hierarchy: Definitions; in Keller, K. L (1998), Strategic Brand Management,


Chapter 11 Branding Strategies, pp. 428-431.

 Building a strategic brand architecture:


 The logical, strategic and relational structure for all of the brands in the
organization’s brand portfolio
 The objective is to maximize clarity, synergy and leverage to maximize customer
value and internal efficiencies
 Should clarify what role each of your brands and products play in different
markets, and may result in a brand rationalization.

Three main brand architecture systems:

1. Monolithic-where the corporate name is used on all products and services


offered by the company.
2. Endorsed-where all sub-brands are linked to the corporate brand by means
of either a verbal or visual endorsement.
3. Freestanding-where the corporate brand operates merely as a holding
company, and each product or service is individually branded for its target
market.

Brand
Relationship
Spectrum

House of Endorse Sub- Branded


Brands d Brands Brands House

House of brands: Independent Brands, Each working in their own right, belonging
to a “Remote” parent firm.
 Targets Niche Markets
 Highlights new offerings
 Avoids incompatibility
 Allows powerful names tied to benefit
 Avoids channel conflict
 Shadow Endorser: “A Known organization is backing this brand”

Endorsed brands: Strong Brands on their own, strengthened in a customer-relevant


way by an association with the parent brand.
 Independent
 Can provide Relevant Support – Degree of relevant support determines level:
Token, Linked Names, Strong
 Can Build Strength for both brands

Sub-brands: Separate, Strong Brands – tied to and synergistic with – the parent
brand.
 Connected directly to the master brand --modify the emotional takeaway or
proposition.
 Substantial potential impact on the master brand
 Critical: Degree to which they “Co-Drive” the buying process/decision
Branded house: Parent Brand Drives, products under it are named following their
benefits or specifications.
 Master Brand is driver across Multiple categories
 Under that – primarily “Product Descriptors”/ Highly descriptive
trademarks.
 Master brand should be in a position to add to – and be strengthened by – all
the firms offerings.

 Branding policies:

 Individual Branding
 A policy of naming each product differently
 Avoids stigmatizing all products due to a failed product
 Family Branding
 Branding all of a firm’s products with the same name
 Promotion of one item also promotes all other products
 Brand-Extension Branding
 Using an existing brand name for an improved or new product
 Provides support for new products through established brand name
and image
 Co-Branding
 Using two or more brands on one product to capitalize on the brand
equity (customer confidence and trust) of multiple brands
 Brands involved must represent a complementary fit in the minds of
consumers.
 Helps differentiate a firm’s product from those of its competitors
 Helps take advantage of distribution capabilities of co-branding
partners
 Generic Brands: A no-frills, no-brand-name, low-cost product that is simply
identified by its product category.

 Brand Licensing: A practice allowing other companies to use a brand name


in exchange for a payment.

 Multibrand strategy:

 In this strategy, the company has more than one brand of product, competing
with each other, in a given market.
 Under multibrand strategy there may not even be manufacturer
identification, unless required by law.
 This contrasts with the strategy of family brands where the separate items
are given a common line identity and are usually each directed to one
segment within the market.
 Multi product strategy:

 A strategy where a brand is used on two or more individual products.


 The product group may or may not be all of that firm's product line.
 The individual members of the family also carry individual brands to
differentiate them from other family members.
 In rare cases there are family brands that have as members other family
brands, each of which has individual brands.

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