Fareast International

University

Subject: Brand management

Assignment On:

Tactics for brand elements for a

Renowned branded company

Prepared for

Ms. Shohana Siddique

Lecturer

Faculty of Business Administration

Prepared By:

Md. Moinuddin Khan kafi

ID:17201002

Submission Date:11.09.2018

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Contents page number

1. Introduction……………………………………………………………………………………………………….………….. 3

2. Brand and brand management………………………………………………………………………..…………….. 3

3. Company overview…………………………………………………………………………………………………….….. 4

4. Customer based brand equity analysis……………………………………………………………………………..4

5. Tactics for brand elements………………………………………………………………………………………..……..6

6. SWOT analysis………………………………………………………………………………………………………………....9

7. Brand challenges……………………………………………………………………………………………………………...10

8. Recommendations……………………………………………………………………………………………………………11

9. Conclusion………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..12

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Introduction:
Brand management is a process that involves every part, bit and employee of the company to
capture the true essence of the brand. Brand Value cannot be built in a day. It is a long process of
building inseparable attributes in consumers mind. Consumers take time to adjust and bond well
with a brand. They, like any other child, need to be taken care of, served well and be communicated
as well as educated with the correct knowledge at every touch point. Over a period of time, as the
brand ages, the loyalty within their minds evolve into an inseparable bond. Hence, brand Value
cannot be created by the company alone; it requires to be co-created by the consumers too. The
process of brand management is not the role of the marketing department but of the top
management of the company. The assignment will discuss the theory of creating a brand element
strategy for a company as a tool for managing a brand and developing it. Now at Present the role
of branding is of great importance in the business world and its role is quite hard to ignore.
Branding helps differentiate goods or services of one firm from another. It is because of branding
that customers are able to identify and prefer the products and services of one firm over another.

Brand and Brand Management:

A brand is a product, service, or concept that is publicly distinguished from other products,
services, or concepts so that it can be easily communicated and usually marketed. A brand name
is the name of the
distinctive product,
service, or concept.
Branding is the process of
creating and
disseminating the brand
name. Branding can be
applied to the entire
corporate identity as well
as to individual product
and service names.
Brands are usually
protected from use by

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others by securing a trademark or service mark from an authorized agency, usually a government
agency. Before applying for a trademark or service mark, one need to establish that someone else
hasn't already obtained that name. A company's brands and the public's awareness of them is often
used as a factor in evaluating a company. Brand management is a function of marketing that uses
techniques to increase the perceived value of a product line or brand over time. Effective brand
management enables the price of products to go up and builds loyal customers through positive
brand associations and images or a strong awareness of the brand. Developing a strategic plan to
maintain brand equity or gain brand value requires a comprehensive understanding of the brand,
its target market, and the company's overall vision.

Company Overview:

Vodafone Group Plc engages in telecommunication services in Europe, Africa, the Middle East,
and the Asia Pacific. The company’s consumer products include mobile services, such as call, text,
and data; broadband; television offerings and voice; mobile money services through M-pesa; Giga
TV, an advanced digital service; and converged communication solutions, such as GigaKombi,
Vodafone One Net Enterprise, Vodafone One, and Vodafone Meet Anywhere. It also offers
Internet of Things connections to communicate securely with network; and cloud and security
services for public and private cloud, as well as cloud based applications and products for securing
networks and devices. In addition, the company offers carrier services, such as international voice,
IP transit, and messaging. Further, it provides renting of mobile virtual network services. Vodafone
Group Plc serves approximately 536 million mobile customers and 20 million fixed broadband
customers. The company was founded in 1984 and is based in Newbury, the United Kingdom.

CBBE analysis:

The first level of the pyramid deals with establishing the identity of the brand. Keller suggests a
single building block for this phase and terms it brand salience. In building a highly salient brand,
Whether it is zoo-zoos advertisements or the M-Pesa movement in the African market,
these vital steps and products have helped the company in creating high TOMA (Top of
mind awareness), increasing ARPU (average revenue per user), and customer pulls in the
market. As per Forbes list of brands globally, Vodafone has been ranked 395 out of 2000

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brands with a market capitalization of $ 87.3 billion. Vodafone is got extremely high
recognition, strong breadth and moderate depth. IT is within top 5 recall brand.

The second layer of the pyramid deals with giving meaning to the brand and here Keller presents
two building blocks: brand performance and brand imagery. Brand performance is the way the
product or service attempts to meet the consumer’s functional needs. Brand performance also has
a major influence on how consumers experience a brand as well as what the brand owner and
others say about the brand. Vodafone got s a good Network, good Call rates, good availability and
very good services.

Brand imagery deals with the way in which the brand attempts to meet customers’ psychological
and social needs. Brand imagery is the intangible aspects of a brand that consumers pick up
because it fits their demographic profile (such as age or income) or has psychological appeal in
that it matches their outlook on life (conservative, traditional, liberal, creative, etc).. The bright red
and light white combination of Vodafone’s appearance evokes a strong imagery.

Having dealt with brand identity and meaning, we move upwards to the third tier of the pyramid
to develop a consumer response to the brand. Keller proposes two building blocks for this tier,

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namely brand judgments and brand feelings. Judgments about a brand emerge from a consumer
pulling together different performance and imagery associations. Vodafone Maintains brand
judgments on brand extension as what counted as quality, credibility, consideration and superiority
in one market can evaporate as the brand extends its product line and/or market reach. Vodafone’s
brand judgments can be fairly logical, brand feelings are consumers’ emotional responses to the
brand. Vodafone often depict the emotional rewards of making a call such as a child bringing joy
to his or her geographically-distant grandparents by speaking to them on the phone.

The final tier of the pyramid deals with the consumer’s relationship with vodafone and here Keller
introduces the sixth building block which he calls brand resonance. Resonance is characterized
by the intensity of the psychological bond that customers have with the vodafone and their level
of engagement with the brand. For reliable network and cheap rate it is everyone’s favorite mobile
network brand who delivers service at affordable prices. The legacy and history of Vodafone has
got a ring to it. Day-after brand recall for Vodafone was 80%. Brand type has an effect on: brand
that customers are loyal to.

Brand Elements:

Brand elements are those trademarked devices that serve to identify and differentiate the brand.
These are also sometimes known as brand identities. Items like brand name, logo, mnemonics,
characters, spokespersons, slogans and jingles are some items that can be characterized as brand
elements. All or most of them are trademarked and registered by the parent company of the brand
and these are what appear in front of the consumer in the brand’s communication and help increase
recall of the brand as these are things that the consumers remember a brand by. According to
theory, there are some specific criteria which need to be kept in mind while deciding on the brand
elements. These are points which when satisfied help in serving the full purpose of brand elements.
Some of these criteria are:

1. Memorable – These elements should be easily recognized and can be easily recalled.
2. Meaningful – If not all then most of the brand elements should have a meaning and
should associated in some or the other way with the culture and values of the brand.
3. Likeable – In simple terms brand elements should be fun, interesting or may be
aesthetically pleasing so that the consumers like it and attach positive connotations with
these elements.

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4. Transferable – Brand elements need to be the same for different markets and
geographies, for different product or service categories. So transferability across these
boundaries are critical.

5. Adaptable – They must be flexible, company should be able to update them as

and when required.

6. Protectable – They should be legally protected from counterfeiting and copyrights

violation.
Now keeping these criteria in mind, let us have a look at the brand elements associated with
Vodafone and according to the consumers, how well do these elements stand up to the criteria
defined above.

Brand Name:

Vodafone

Vodafone is one of the biggest telecom operators in the world along with other big names like
China Mobile and AT&T. It carries with itself a reputation of being one of the finest telecom
service providers across the world and the name carries an element of desire with it. It is easy in
terms of memorability and meaning and having a long history attached to it along with the
geographies Vodafone is now operating in, it has proved its adaptability and transferability.

Brand Logo:

Vodafone calls it the “Speech mark Logo”. It is a quotation mark in a circle. The quotation marks
before and end of a conversation is depicted in the logo and Red color has been its corporate color
for long. The name is written below the design. It is the same logo as is used globally although in
some areas like Portugal Vodafone has used a different logo. This is vital as it shows to the
consumer that the company will offer the same level of quality in service as is being provided
globally. Overall the logo has been there for a long period of time. So from the consumer’s point
of view, it is memorable and the red color is liked by one and all. It is protected from any violation

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like copying or faking. It is a likeable logo which helps in increasing the recall of the brand as soon
as the logo appears in from of the consumer.

URL (Uniform Resource Locator):

The website link or URL for the global website is http://www.vodafone.com. This is registered
domain name so protection is taken care of. As there are provisions of checking and making bill
payments online, going through various tariff rates and value added services details on the website,
the online interface is a very vital component among the brand elements. The URL simply has the
name of the brand. It is easy to remember and use, hence making it an effective brand element.

Characters:
Characters represent a special type of brand
symbol, one that takes on human or real-life
characteristics. Since Vodafone entered into
the market, there have been two primary
characters associated with the brand. The first
is the famous pug which was used in the
earlier advertisements and portrayed the
consistency of service in the tagline
“Wherever you go, our network follows”. The
second and extremely popular character
which Vodafone created was the Zoozoo. Real people wore grey suits to portray comical characters
in a major communication campaign aimed at increasing awareness about the value added services
provided by Vodafone. The campaign includes every channel from television and print advertising
to billboards and hoardings at the point of sale. Zoozoos as a character have been loved by one and
all and have helped tremendously in increasing the brand awareness among consumers.

Slogans:

Slogans can contribute to brand equity in multiple ways. They can play off the brand name to
build brand awareness and image and can also contain product related information and other
meanings. Vodafone’s current slogans in the 2010 advertising campaign is “Isn’t it nice when
someone makes you feel special” and “Power to you”. The ads focus on the close friendship of

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two school girls and the care each one shows for the other. The company wishes to communicate
to the consumer the various value added services it offers, which it terms as “Vodafone
Delights”, to indicate their services intend to delight the consumer in every possible way and the
slogan powerfully conveys that Vodafone is a brand that cares about its consumers and believe in
doing the small little things to delight them and make them feel special always.
Their previous slogans like “Happy to Help”, “Power to you” and “Wherever you go our
network follows” have been equally successful in associating different meanings with the brand;
meanings like consistency of service, the consumers‟ power to choose what service to avail and
what to pay for and the brand being ever present in case of any need for the consumer.

Jingles:
Most consumers remember the “You and I in this beautiful world” jingle, which ran as
background in the communication campaign consisting of the pug following the kid, helping him
and doing chores for him. The current campaign has the jingle “The little things you do”, a
sweet and melodious song which portrays the intended message quite well. Vodafone’s jingle’s
strongest point is their likeability and consumers tend to remember them very conveniently.
Jingles, have hence always been a critical brand element for Vodafone.

SWOT Analysis:

Weaknesses
Strengths
 Strong international presence and brand
recognition
 Well-defined cost reduction initiatives, managed
outsourcing
 Stable operating profit expertise and diversified
geographical portfolio.
 Sharing of network infrastructure
 Brand value built by delivering a superior,
consistent and differentiated customer experience.
 Benefits of investment in technology are
not realized
 Little penetration in rural market
 Have not entered broadband services,
smart phones segment
 Advertising campaigns do not have the
emotional connect to the lower income
classes and rural customers
 Perception of customers in lower segment
that Vodafone is a costly brand

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  Vodafone’s customer strategy endeavors to
ensure that customers’ needs are at the core of all
products and services.

Opportunities
Focus on capturing rural sector through cost
Threats
reductions improving returns
 Existing competitive market
 Research and development of new mobile
 Entry of many new players in immediate future
technologies
 Government regulations
 Mobile Broadband
 Change in technology
 Improve accessibility to wide range of
 Change in consumer preference
customers
 Adverse macroeconomic conditions like
 Vodafone can offer voice, messaging, data and
recession and economic slow down
fixed broadband services through multiple
 non-supply of equipment and support services
solutions  The advancements in 3G networks and
by a major supplier
download speeds, handset capabilities and the
 Emergencies like war, terrorism, natural
mobilization of internet services, could contribute
calamity etc.
to an acceleration of data services usage

Brand Challenges:

The challenges of new and existing competitors, the power of suppliers and buyers and the threat
of substitutes - in economics of mobile phone market, in the following analysis, the attractiveness
of the Vodafone Group will be examined by elaborating upon Porter's five forces model.

The bargaining power of suppliers:

In the case of Vodafone Germany, the only network service provider to all mobile companies is
the government. This makes the government monopolise of providing this service which build up
a power of supplier over Vodafone. As a result, Vodafone consider this as a fixed cost, which it

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applies on the customer service charge. Porter (2008) argued that, in a monopolistic suppliers
market, supplier has the power over companies, as it is the only provider of the product or the
service they offer and there is no substitute of them. As a result, it has the authority to control the
prices and the quality of the product or service. Supplier is serving many companies.

Rivalry of existing competitors:

Vodafone has to cover its fixed costs. So when Vodafone gets the service from the government, it
pays this cost even much of these costs are not only fixed cost but also sunk cost.

Shifting threat of new entry:

One of the major forces, which made a great threat to Vodafone, is that the new market entrants'
offers lower prices to reach as fast as they can a critical mass. However, the low price offered by
the new entrant causes a problem to Vodafone in order to cover the high cost of the service
provider. Therefore, Vodafone should stick with the prices, which make them able to cover their
costs and sustain their profitability. As a result, customers may shift to the entrants who offer the
service with lower prices. (Chen & Chong 2001) argued that, any changes of the prices or qualities
will have an optimistic or pessimistic effect on the threat of new entrant.

The bargaining power of customer:

When a new entrant or even existing competitors makes more offers such as free text messages
and downloads offers, Vodafone has to follow up with the market or customers will switch to the
company, which has the best offers. However, this makes vigour in Vodafone to retain its
customers. So it has to manage its costs to follow the competitors' offers and even try to make
more offers so it can be able to attract more customers.

The threat of substitute product or service:

When the price of cell minute decreases, customer substitutes their fixed line with the cell line. So,
if Vodafone incurs costs, it will still have to keep the prices low or customers will look for another
substitute that builds up a force to Vodafone that should take it into consideration. Major brands
such as O2 and T-Mobile are building a stronger image and incidence in the market (Banzhaf &

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Som 2006). It is argued that, if the price or quality of the services decline, customers will look for
substitutes.

Recommendation:

1. Marketing strategy:
The analysis has shown that Vodafone currently have a weak marketing strategy, mostly
in terms of its advertising. Based on generational marketing theory and the demographics
which Vodafone target as its main customers, the recommendation is that they invest in a
celebrity endorsed campaign. This will fit in with Vodafone's motto 'Power to you!' which
will be enhanced by a global persona advertising their services, in addition to making their
own brand handsets better known.

2. Health and Safety RJVs:

Research Joint Ventures with associations such as Cancer Research and other independent
associations to join knowledge for R&D in safer handsets. Vodafone uses part of its
resources for the Vodafone Foundation, therefore a proportion can be used in such RJVs
as it enhances brand image.

3. Strategy in emerging markets:

'Mobile companies everywhere in the developing world are coming to grips with the fact
that virtually all of their future customer growth will come from rural areas' (Hammond,
A. 2008). The recommendation is that Vodafone implement a Bottom of the Pyramid
strategy by providing an internet-based phone service with advanced Wi-Fi technology so
that rural areas in developing countries can be connected.

Conclusions:
In conclusion, over the years the Group has made exceptional evolution in executing against their
strategic goals and has remained innovative. They have restructured the business to intimately
align themselves to their goals, contributed by their outstanding and passionate leaders and people
in the organization (Huvard et al. 2006). Vodafone Group is operating the leading mobile network
worldwide with presence in both developed and developing market. From the analyses, Vodafone

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and its environment, the major risks that are critical in terms of the future profitability of the Group
are 3G market take up, level of regulations and new entrants in the market. The Vodafone Group
has established a global existence and having invested highly in marketing, leads competition.
Vodafone is the second largest telecommunication company in the world with 435miliion
subscribers. Vodafone carries out its operations in many countries across all continents. There are
various factors that contribute to the large customer base of the company. The strengths that make
Vodafone a successful company includes, marketing, Number of Subscribers, Geographical
diversification, Developed and advanced network and having a recognized brand. Vodafone can also
tap into opportunities such as emerging markets and the rural market. Brand elements of the
Vodafone Company gives shape a successful strategy. Different products of the Vodafone are
reliable because of their quality and brands. Vodafone stores are located on those place which
customers can access easily at the time of need.

Reference:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vodafone

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-07-25/vodafone-rides-out-italy-spain-rivalry-as-
sales-growth-holds-up

https://www.slideshare.net/apurvasam/brand-management-vodafone-project

https://phdessay.com/on-the-brand-elements-of-vodafone/

https://www.marketing91.com/marketing-mix-vodafone/

https://www.marketingweek.com/brands/vodafone/

https://www.vodafone.com/content/index.html

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