Introduction:

Branding has been around for centuries as means to distinguish the goods of one product
from those of another. According to American marketing Association, a brand is 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 the
competitors. Thus, the key to creating a brand is to be able to choose a name, logo,
symbol, package design, or other characteristic that identifies a product and distinguish it
from others.

Why Do Brands Matter?

An obvious question is, why are brands important? What functions do they perform that
make them so valuable to marketers? We can take a couple of perspective to uncover the
value of brands to both customers and firms themselves. Figure 1-3 provides an overview
of the different roles and brands play to these two parties. We will talk about consumers
first.

Consumers prospective:

As with the term product, this book uses the term consumer broadly to encompass all
types of customers, including individuals as well as organizations. To consumers, brands
provide important functions. Brands identify the source or maker of a product and allow
consumers to assign responsibility to particular manufacturer or distributor. Most
important, brands take on special meaning to consumers. Because of past experiences
with the product and its marketing program over the years, consumers find out which
brands satisfy their needs and which ones do not. As a result, brands provide a shorthand
device or means of simplification for their product decisions.

If consumers recognize a brand and have some knowledge about it, then they do not have
to engage in a lot of additional thought or processing of information to make a product
decision. Thus, from an economic perspective, brands allow consumers to lower the
search costs for products both internally ( in terms of how much they have to think ) and
externally ( in terms of how much they have to look around ). Based on what they already
know about the brand-its quality, product characteristics, and so forth-consumers can
make assumptions and form reasonable expectitions about what they may not know about
the brand.

Meteorology:

Mainly it an expletory survey. Here we mainly choose 20 respondent those who use
Toyota and get there opinion on that particular brand though questionnaire. Onward we
just summarized the survey and note it down in this report. Our main focus of this survey
was to get the customer opinion on the Brand Toyota based on the important function of a
brand to consumer prospective.
Findings:

Identification of the sources of product: This particular point mainly refers to the origin
of the brand. Here we need to identify if users are commonly aware about the source of
the brand that we selected. We set the below question to find that answer:

a) Do you know the country of origin of the brand Toyota?

Yes No
20 0

Among 20 respondents, we came to know that all of them are fully aware about the origin
of the brand Toyota.

Assignment of responsibility to product maker: A manufacturer must take the

responsibility of the co-incident of its brand. We had to set to question in order to identify
the responsibility undertaken by the company for its brand Toyota.

b) Do you think company will take responsibility of any in failure take place by any
product made by Toyota?

Yes No
20 0

c) Do you think the company take necessary steps to protect there brand “Toyota”?

Yes No
20 0

So we found out that the consumer things if any failure comes from any product of
Toyota, the responsibility fully goes to the parent company. That is why Toyota is taking
necessary steps to protect its brand.

Risk reducer: Risk reducer of a brand is particularly concerning with the safety aspect of
consumer. We set the below question to judge the opinion of consumer about this regard.

d) Do you think Toyota is a car which will make you feel safe when you are in it?

Yes No
17 3

e) Do you think meets the safety requirement that is necessary for a family ride?

Yes No
15 5
So we came to find out that among 20 respondent 17 of them are feeling that Toyota
makes them feel safe and 3 of them disagreed with that point. And for the second
question 15 of them things the safety requirement is adequate for the family uses and 5 of
them disagreed with that point.

Search cost reducer: This specially identify the perception of consumer towards the cost
of the brand and its perceive value received. We set the below the question to take
consumers opinion on this particular issue for the brand Toyota.

f) When you buy Toyota, do you think it offers you a competitive price compare to your
competitors?

Yes No
17 3

g) Do you think Toyota gives you good value against money?

Yes No
7 13

So from the above table we can see that the consumer of Toyota gets competitive price
but not as the higher value as they want.

Promise, bond or pact with makers of product: a brand represents certain promisies and
bond that is always associate with its maker. To identify Toyota brand association with
its maker, we asked the below question to the respondent.

h) Do you think the brand Toyota offers the proper value that was promises by its maker?

Yes No
10 10

So from the above survey, we can see that in some case Toyota meets the requirement
promised by its maker and in some cases it is not.

Symbolic device: Symbolic device mainly represent a brand actual symbol that it
represent to it customer. By asking the below question we will understand what kind of
image Toyota has for itself in the mind of its consumer.

i) How do you rate the brand the brand Toyota?

Highly related Moderate Low related

0 17 3
j) When you buy a Toyota, do you believe that your self esteem is high?

Yes No
7 13

So from the above table, we can see that most of the customer takes Toyota as moderate
rated brand. And very less people believe that there self-esteem is high when they buy
Toyota.

Signal of quality: a brand represents a certain quality. Here we mainly try to identify the
level of quality that a brand offers to its customer. Through the below question, we try to
judge the quality level that Toyota offers to its customer.

k) What kind of driving comfort level you generally found in the brand Toyota?

High Moderate Low

5 10 5

l) Generally what kind of riding comfort do you find when you Toyota?

High Moderate Low

3 12 5

So after analyzing the above table, we can say that consumer normally takes Toyota as a
moderate level brand.

Conclusion:

So from the above analysis, we can say that in some point, Toyota has a strong brand
reputation and in some case it is not. The host company must pay attention to those points
and take certain steps to improve the brand reputation. After all it’s the brand that
represents the company image to the customer. If they can protect their brand value, their
sales will go high and eventually the company will make profit.