Strategic Marketing
jenny2000000
chap7.pptx
Chapter 7 - Products, Services, and Brands: Building Customer value
Strategic Marketing, MASY1-GC 1230
Nike: More Than Just Innovative Sports Gear—a Total Brand Experience
Nike House of Innovation, Paris: The 3rd installation of HOI, and Nike’s largest, most digitally connected and immersive retail concept in the world
Provides consumers access to Nike’s best innovations, athlete storytelling and experiences.
Creates an immersive and digitally-powered end-to-end consumer journey.
To customers, the Nike brand means much more than just innovative running shoes and apparel. Deep down, Nike means sports inspiration, a just-do-it attitude, and a total brand experience. Nike draws on a wide range of
experiences to connect with consumers.
Nike’s innovative use of digital marketing recently earned the brand the title of “top genius” in “digital IQ” among 70 activewear companies in one digital consultancy’s rankings. Another firm ranked Nike the number one apparel brand in social media.
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What Is a Product?
A product is anything that can be offered to a market for attention, acquisition, use, or consumption that might satisfy a want or need.
A service is an activity, benefit, or satisfaction offered for sale; it is intangible and does not result in ownership of anything.
A product is anything that can be offered to a market for attention, acquisition, use, or consumption that might satisfy a want or need. Broadly defined, products include services, events, persons, places, organizations, and ideas, or a mixture of these.
Services are a form of product that consists of activities, benefits, or satisfactions offered for sale that are essentially intangible and do not result in the ownership of anything.
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Products, Services, and Experiences
Market offerings include both tangible goods and services.
Companies create and manage customer experiences with their brands or companies.
To differentiate their offers from that of the competitors
A company’s market offering often includes both tangible goods and services. At one extreme, the market offering may consist of a pure tangible good and at the other extreme a pure service. Between these two extremes, however, many goods-and-services combinations are possible. Today, as products and services become more commoditized, many companies are moving to a new level in creating value for their customers. To differentiate their offers, beyond simply making products and delivering services, firms are creating and managing customer experiences with their brands or companies.
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Products, Services, and Experiences (CONT’D)
More than just selling products, Apple’s highly successful retail stores create engaging life-feels-good brand experiences.
Apple’s retail stores are very seductive places, where “life-feels-good” experiences abound. The store design is clean, simple, and just oozing with style—much like an Apple iPad or a featherweight MacBook Air.
The stores encourage a lot of purchasing, to be sure. But they also encourage lingering, with tables full of fully functioning Macs, iPads, and iPhones sitting out for visitors to try.
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Three Levels of Product
Core customer value deals with what is bought by the customer. For example, people who buy an Apple iPad are buying much more than just a tablet computer. They are buying entertainment, self-expression, productivity, and connectivity with friends and family—a mobile and personal window to the world.
At the second level, product planners must turn the core benefit into an actual product. They need to develop product and service features, a design, a quality level, a brand name, and packaging. For example, the iPad is an actual product. Its name, parts, styling, operating system, features, packaging, and other attributes have all been carefully combined to deliver the core customer value of staying connected.
Finally, product planners must build an augmented product around the core benefit and actual product by offering additional consumer services and benefits. For example, when consumers buy an iPad, Apple and its resellers also might give buyers a warranty on parts and workmanship, quick repair services when needed, and a Web site to use if they have problems or questions. Apple also provides access to a huge assortment of apps and accessories.
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Product and Service Classifications
Consumer products are bought by final consumers for personal consumption.
Industrial products are bought by individuals and organizations for further processing or for use in conducting a business.
Materials and parts, capital items, and supplies and services
Products and services fall into two broad classes based on the types of consumers who use them: consumer products and industrial products.
Consumer products are bought by final consumers for personal consumption. Consumer products include convenience products, shopping products, specialty products, and unsought products. These products differ in the ways consumers buy them and, therefore, in how they are marketed. This is explained by the table on the next slide.
Industrial products are those products purchased for further processing or for use in conducting a business. The three groups of industrial products and services are materials and parts, capital items, and supplies and services.
Materials and parts include raw materials as well as manufactured materials and parts. Raw materials consist of farm products and natural products. Manufactured materials and parts consist of component materials and parts.
Capital items are industrial products that aid in the buyer’s production or operations, including installations and accessory equipment.
Installations consist of major purchases such as buildings and fixed equipment.
The final group of industrial products is supplies and services. Supplies include operating supplies and repair and maintenance items. Supplies are the convenience products of the industrial field because they are usually purchased with a minimum of effort or comparison.
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Convenience AND shopping products
| Product type | Description | Examples? |
| Convenience products | Consumer products and services that customers usually buy frequently, immediately, and with a minimum of comparison and buying effort | |
| Shopping products | Less frequently purchased consumer products and services that customers compare carefully on suitability, quality, price, and style |
Marketing Considerations, Convenience and Shopping Products
| Marketing Considerations | Convenience | Shopping |
| Customer buying behavior | Frequent purchase; little planning, little comparison or shopping effort; low customer involvement | Less frequent purchase; much planning and shopping effort; comparison of brands on price, quality, and style |
| Price | Low price | Higher price |
| Distribution | Widespread distribution; convenient locations | Selective distribution in fewer outlets |
| Promotion | Mass promotion by the producer | Advertising and personal selling by both the producer and resellers |
| Examples | Toothpaste, magazines, and laundry detergent | Major appliances, televisions, furniture, and clothing |
This table illustrates the marketing considerations for convenience and shopping products.
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specialty and unsought products
| Product type | Description | Examples? |
| Specialty products | Consumer products and services with unique characteristics or brand identifications for which a significant group of buyers is willing to make a special purchase effort. | |
| Unsought products | Consumer products that the consumer either does not know about, or knows about but does not normally think of buying. |
Marketing Considerations, Specialty and Unsought Products
| Marketing Considerations | Specialty | Unsought |
| Customer buying behavior | Strong brand preference and loyalty; special purchase effort; little comparison of brands; low price sensitivity | Little product awareness or knowledge (or, if aware, little or even negative interest) |
| Price | High price | Varies |
| Distribution | Exclusive distribution in only one or a few outlets per market area | Varies |
| Promotion | More carefully targeted promotion by both the producer and resellers | Aggressive advertising and personal selling by the producer and resellers |
| Examples | Luxury goods, such as Rolex watches or fine crystal | Life insurance and Red Cross blood donations |
This table illustrates the marketing considerations for specialty and unsought products.
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Other Market Offerings
Organizations: activities undertaken to create, maintain, or change the attitudes and behavior of target consumers toward an organization
Persons: activities undertaken to create, maintain, or change attitudes or behavior toward particular people.
Places: activities undertaken to create, maintain, or change attitudes or behavior toward particular places.
Social Ideas: use of commercial marketing concepts and tools in programs designed to influence individuals’ behavior to improve their well-being and that of society. (social ideas)
In addition to tangible products and services, marketers have broadened the concept of a product to include other market offerings.
Organization marketing consists of activities undertaken to create, maintain, or change the attitudes and behavior of target consumers toward an organization. Business firms sponsor public relations or corporate image marketing campaigns to market themselves and polish their images.
Person marketing consists of activities undertaken to create, maintain, or change attitudes or behavior toward particular people. The skillful use of marketing can turn a person’s name into a powerhouse brand. For example, The Food Network’s celebrity chef, Rachael Ray, is a one-woman marketing phenomenon, with her own daytime talk show, cookware and cutlery brands, dog food brand, and even her own brand of EVOO (Extra Virgin Olive Oil.)
Place marketing involves activities undertaken to create, maintain, or change attitudes or behavior toward particular places.
Ideas can also be marketed. We will narrow our focus to the marketing of social ideas. This area has been called social marketing, which consists of using traditional business marketing concepts and tools to create behaviors that will create individual and societal well-being. Social marketing involves much more than just advertising. It involves a broad range of marketing strategies and marketing mix tools designed to bring about beneficial social change.
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Individual Product Decisions
This figure shows the important decisions in the development and marketing of individual products and services.
Developing a product or service involves defining the benefits that it will offer. The characteristics of a product or service that bear on its ability to satisfy stated or implied customer needs is known as product quality, one of the marketer’s major positioning tools. Total quality management (TQM) is an approach in which all of the company’s people are involved in constantly improving the quality of products, services, and business processes. A product can be offered with varying features. Another way to add customer value is through distinctive product style and design.
A brand is a name, term, sign, symbol, or design or a combination of these that identifies the maker or seller of a product or service. Consumers view a brand as an important part of a product, and branding can add value to a consumer’s purchase. Brand names help consumers identify products that might benefit them. Brands also say something about product quality and consistency.
Packaging involves designing the container or wrapper for a product. Increased competition means that packages must now perform many sales tasks—from attracting buyers to communicating brand positioning to closing the sale.
Labels help to identify and describe the product or brand as well as promote the brand, support its positioning and engage customers.
The first step in designing product support services is to survey customers periodically. Once the company has assessed the quality of various support services, it can take steps to fix problems and add new services that will both delight customers and yield profits to the company.
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Product and Service Decisions
Individual Product Decisions
Product Line Decisions
Product Mix Decisions
Marketers make product and service decisions at three levels: individual product decisions, product line decisions, and product mix decisions. Each of these decisions is discussed in greater detail in the following slides.
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Product and Service Attributes
Product quality is one of the marketer’s major positioning tools.
A product can be offered with varying features.
Another way to add customer value is through distinctive product style and design.
Developing a product or service involves defining the benefits that it will offer. The characteristics of a product or service that bear on its ability to satisfy stated or implied customer needs is known as product quality, one of the marketer’s major positioning tools. Total quality management (TQM) is an approach in which all of the company’s people are involved in constantly improving the quality of products, services, and business processes. A product can be offered with varying features. Another way to add customer value is through distinctive product style and design.
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Branding
Consumers view a brand as an important part of a product, and branding can add value to a consumer’s purchase.
A brand is a name, term, sign, symbol, or design or a combination of these that identifies the maker or seller of a product or service. Consumers view a brand as an important part of a product, and branding can add value to a consumer’s purchase. Brand names help consumers identify products that might benefit them. Brands also say something about product quality and consistency.
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Packaging
Innovative Child Guard safety packaging likely saved P&G’s fast-growing Tide PODS and other unit-dose laundry detergent brands.
Packaging involves designing the container or wrapper for a product. Increased competition means that packages must now perform many sales tasks—from attracting buyers to communicating brand positioning to closing the sale.
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Product Line Decisions
A product line is closely related products that:
Have similar functions and customer groups
Are sold through similar outlets or fall within given price ranges
Product line length is the number of items in the product line.
Product line filling: adding more items within the present range of the line.
Product line stretching: lengthens its product line beyond its current range.
A product line is a group of products that are closely related because they function in a similar manner, are sold to the same customer groups, are marketed through the same types of outlets, or fall within given price ranges. For example, Nike produces several lines of athletic shoes and apparel.
The major product line decision involves product line length, which is the number of items in the product line. A company can expand its product line in two ways: line filling and line stretching.
Line filling involves adding more items within the present range of the line. There are several reasons for product line filling. These reasons include reaching for extra profits, satisfying dealers, using excess capacity, being the leading full-line company, and plugging holes to keep out competitors.
Line stretching occurs when a company lengthens its product line beyond its current range. The company can stretch its line downward, upward, or both ways. A reason for downward product line stretching is to plug a market hole that would attract a potential competitor. The reason for upward product line stretching is to add prestige to the current product.
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Product Line Decisions
Product line stretching (cont’d)
Companies located at the upper end of the market can stretch their lines downward.
Companies located at the lower end of the market can stretch their product lines upward.
Companies located in the middle range of the market can stretch their lines in both directions.
A product line is a group of products that are closely related because they function in a similar manner, are sold to the same customer groups, are marketed through the same types of outlets, or fall within given price ranges. For example, Nike produces several lines of athletic shoes and apparel.
The major product line decision involves product line length, which is the number of items in the product line. A company can expand its product line in two ways: line filling and line stretching.
Line filling involves adding more items within the present range of the line. There are several reasons for product line filling. These reasons include reaching for extra profits, satisfying dealers, using excess capacity, being the leading full-line company, and plugging holes to keep out competitors.
Line stretching occurs when a company lengthens its product line beyond its current range. The company can stretch its line downward, upward, or both ways. A reason for downward product line stretching is to plug a market hole that would attract a potential competitor. The reason for upward product line stretching is to add prestige to the current product.
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Product Line Decisions (CONT’D)
Through skillful line stretching and filling,
BMW now has brands and lines that successfully appeal to the rich, the super-rich, and the hope-to-be-rich.
Over the years, BMW Group has transformed itself from a single-brand, five-model automaker into a powerhouse with three brands, 14 “Series,” and dozens of distinct models. The company has expanded downward with its MINI Cooper line and upward with Rolls-Royce.
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BMW PRODUCT LINE: https://www.bmwusa.com/all-bmws.html
Product Mix (or Product Portfolio)
“Colgate World of Care”—products that “every day, people like you trust to care for themselves and the ones they love.”
Colgate is a $15.2 billion consumer products company that makes and markets a full product mix consisting of dozens of familiar lines and brands. Colgate divides its overall product mix into four major lines: oral care, personal care, home care, and pet nutrition. Each product line consists of many brands and item.
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Product Mix Decisions
Width
Number of different product lines the company carries
Length
Total number of items a company carries within its product lines
Depth
Number of versions offered for each product in the line
Consistency
Relativity of the various product lines in end use, production requirements, distribution channels, or some other aspect
A company’s product mix has four important dimensions: width, length, depth, and consistency.
The mix width refers to the number of different product lines the company carries. Product mix length refers to the total number of items a company carries within its product lines. Product mix depth refers to the number of versions offered for each product in the line. Finally, the consistency of the product mix refers to how closely related the various product lines are in end use, production requirements, distribution channels, or some other aspect.
A company can increase its business in four ways. It can add new product lines, widening its product mix. The company can lengthen its existing product lines to become a more full-line company. It can add more versions of each product and thus deepen its product mix. Finally, the company can pursue more product line consistency or less depending on whether it wants to have a strong reputation in a single field or in several fields. Finally, a company can pursue more product line consistency—or less—depending on whether it wants to have a strong reputation in a single field or in several fields.
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Services accounted for 64% of US GDP in 2020, ABOUT 65% GWP. There are Four Service Characteristics:
FKA THE FOUR I’S OF SERVICE: INTANGIBILITY, INCONSISTENCY, INSEPARABILITY, INVENTORY
This figure depicts the four special service characteristics a company must consider when designing marketing programs: intangibility, inseparability, variability, and perishability.
Service intangibility means that services cannot be seen, tasted, felt, heard, or smelled before they are bought. To reduce uncertainty, buyers look for signals of service quality. They draw conclusions about quality from the place, people, price, equipment, and communications that they can see.
Service inseparability means that services cannot be separated from their providers, whether the providers are people or machines. Customer coproduction makes provider–customer interaction a special feature of services marketing. Both the provider and the customer affect the service outcome.
Service variability means that the quality of services depends on who provides them as well as when, where, and how they are provided. For example, within a Marriott hotel, one registration-counter employee may be cheerful and efficient, whereas another standing just a few feet away may be grumpy and slow.
Service perishability means that services cannot be stored for later sale or use. Some doctors charge patients for missed appointments because the service value existed only at that point and disappeared when the patient did not show up.
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Service Profit Chain
Links service firm profits with employee and customer satisfaction
The chain consists of five links:
Internal service quality
Satisfied and productive service employees
Greater service value
Satisfied and loyal customers
Healthy service profits and growth
Successful service companies focus their attention on both their customers and their employees. They understand the service profit chain, which links service firm profits with employee and customer satisfaction. This chain consists of five links: internal service quality, satisfied and productive service employees, greater service value, satisfied and loyal customers, and healthy service profits and growth. For example, the supermarket chain Wegmans believes that happy, superbly trained employees create a superior customer experience.
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Three Types of Services Marketing
Services marketing requires more than just traditional external marketing using the four Ps. This figure shows that services marketing also requires internal marketing and interactive marketing.
Internal marketing means that the service firm must orient and motivate its customer-contact employees and supporting service employees to work as a team to provide customer satisfaction. For example, Zappos starts by hiring the right people and carefully orienting and inspiring them to give unparalleled customer service.
Interactive marketing means that service quality depends heavily on the quality of the buyer-seller interaction during the service encounter. In services marketing, service quality depends on both the service deliverer and the quality of delivery. All new hires at Zappos —at all levels of the company—complete a four-week customer-loyalty training regimen.
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Service Profit Chain (CONT’D)
Zappos knows that delivering customer happiness begins with happy, dedicated, energetic employees. Zappos is “Powered by Service.”
Marketing Tasks for Service Companies
Managing service differentiation
Developing a differentiated offer, delivery, and image
Managing service quality
Delivering consistently higher quality than the competitors
Managing service productivity
Training current employees or hiring new ones
Increasing the quantity of service by giving up some quality
Harnessing the power of technology
Service companies face three major marketing tasks: They want to increase their service differentiation, service quality, and service productivity.
In these days of intense price competition, service marketers often complain about the difficulty of differentiating their services from those of competitors. The solution to price competition is to develop a differentiated offer, delivery, and image. For example, Dick’s Sporting Goods’ customers can sample shoes on Dick’s indoor footwear track, test golf clubs with an on-site golf swing analyzer and putting green, shoot bows in its archery range, and receive personalized fitness product guidance from an in-store team of fitness trainers.
A service firm can differentiate itself by delivering consistently higher quality than its competitors provide. Service providers need to identify what target customers expect in regard to service quality. As hard as they may try, even the best companies will have an occasional late delivery, burned steak, or grumpy employee. However, good service recovery can turn angry customers into loyal ones.
With their costs rising rapidly, service firms are under great pressure to increase service productivity. They can do so in several ways. They can train current employees better or hire new ones who will work harder or more skillfully. Or they can increase the quantity of their service by giving up some quality. Finally, a service provider can harness the power of technology.
However, companies must avoid pushing productivity so hard that doing so reduces quality. For example, many airlines in their attempts to improve productivity, have mangled customer service.
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Brand Equity
The differential effect that knowing the brand name has on customer response to the product or its marketing
With positive brand equity, consumers react more favorably to the brand than to an unbranded version of the same product.
Brands are a key element in a company’s relationships with consumers. Brands represent consumers’ perceptions and feelings about a product and its performance. A powerful brand has high brand equity. Brand equity is the differential effect that knowing the brand name has on customer response to the product and its marketing.
A brand has positive brand equity when consumers react more favorably to it than to a generic or unbranded version of the same product. It has negative brand equity if consumers react less favorably than to an unbranded version.
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Brand Equity (CONT’D)
Consumer perception dimensions:
Differentiation
Relevance
Knowledge
Esteem
Brand value is the total financial value of a brand.
Customer equity is the value of customer relationships that the brand creates.
Ad agency Young & Rubicam’s Brand Asset Valuator measures brand strength along four consumer perception dimensions: differentiation, relevance, knowledge, and esteem. Brands with strong brand equity rate high on all four dimensions.
A brand with high brand equity is a very valuable asset. Brand value is the total financial value of a brand. High brand equity provides a company with many competitive advantages. A powerful brand enjoys a high level of consumer brand awareness and loyalty.
A powerful brand forms the basis for building strong and profitable customer relationships. The fundamental asset underlying brand equity is customer equity. This refers to the value of customer relationships that the brand creates. The proper focus of marketing is building customer equity, with brand management serving as a major marketing tool.
According to one estimate, the brand value of Google is a whopping $159 billion and Apple is at $148 billion.
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Best 100 global brands, 2020: cumulative brand value
Source: “Best Global Brands, 2020”, Interbrand
Best 100 global brands, 2020: brands 1-25
Source: “Best Global Brands, 2020”, Interbrand
Best 100 global brands, 2020: brands 26-50
Source: “Best Global Brands, 2020”, Interbrand
Best 100 global brands, 2020: brands 51-75
Source: “Best Global Brands, 2020”, Interbrand
Best 100 global brands, 2020: brands 76-100
Source: “Best Global Brands, 2020”, Interbrand
Best 100 global brands, 2020: brand strength
Source: “Best Global Brands, 2020”, Interbrand
INTERBRAND 2021 BREAKTHROUGH BRANDS
30 brands that best exemplify Interbrand’s tenets of brand growth: understanding human truths, creating exceptional brand experiences, and delivering superior business results.
Major Brand Strategy Decisions
Brands are powerful assets that must be carefully developed and managed. As this figure suggests, building strong brands involves many challenging decisions.
This figure shows that the major brand strategy decisions involve brand positioning, brand name selection, brand sponsorship, and brand development.
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Major Brand Strategy Decisions (CONT’D)
Kroger’s store brands—from Private Selection to Simple Truth—account for 25% of the grocery retailer’s sales.
Kroger’s private brands—the Kroger house brand, Private Selection, Heritage Farm, Simple Truth (natural and organic), Psst, Check This Out (savings), and others—add up to a whopping 25 percent of the giant grocery retailer’s sales, nearly $23 billion worth annually.
Kroger even offers a Kroger brand guarantee—“Try it, like it, or get the national brand free.”
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Target’s private label strategy
45 private labels ("owned brands")
Differentiating with owned brands and a curated selection of national brand products is core to their strategy
What guests expect from Target: there's something for everybody to love
Target’s largest owned food brand. Products are 10-30% less expensive than national brand equivalents
Target’s 1st owned food brand. High-quality, delicious and unique foods at affordable prices
This brand offers delicious ways to eat well through great-tasting products made with simple, recognizable ingredients. More than 50% of the assortment is organic..
Great food for real life. All the good stuff guests love, without artificial flavors, colors, sweeteners or high fructose corn syrup.
Brand Positioning and Brand Name Selection
Marketers should establish a mission and vision for the brand when positioning it.
Desirable qualities for a brand name should be
Based on the product’s benefits and qualities
Easy to pronounce, recognize, and remember
Distinctive and extendable
Easily translated into foreign languages
Capable of registration and legal protection
Marketers need to position their brands clearly in target customers’ minds. They can position brands at any of three levels. At the lowest level, they can position the brand on product attributes. At the next level, a brand can be better positioned by associating its name with a desirable benefit. In the final level, the strongest brands go beyond attribute or benefit positioning. They are positioned on strong beliefs and values and engage customers on a deep, emotional level.
Finding the best brand name begins with a careful review of the product and its benefits, the target market, and proposed marketing strategies. There are a number of desirable qualities for a brand name. It should suggest something about the product’s benefits and qualities, and it should be easy to pronounce, recognize, and remember. The brand name should be distinctive, be extendable, translate easily into foreign languages, and be capable of registration and legal protection.
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Brand Sponsorship
Four sponsorship options
Marketed under the manufacturer’s own brand name: National or Manufacturer’s brand
Created and owned by a reseller of a product or service: Private or Store brand
Use names and symbols created by other companies or well-known movie characters or celebrities for a fee: Licensing
Use the established brand names of two different companies on the same product: Co-branding
A manufacturer has four sponsorship options:
National brands or manufacturers’ brands are marketed under the manufacturer’s own name. The Samsung Galaxy tablet or Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes are examples of national brands.
An increasing numbers of retailers and wholesalers have created their own store brands or private brands To compete with store brands, national brands must sharpen their value propositions, especially when appealing to today’s more frugal consumers.
Some companies license names or symbols previously created by other manufacturers, the names of well-known celebrities, or characters from popular movies and books. For a fee, licensing any of these can provide an instant and proven brand name. For example, consider the Kodak brand with its familiar red and yellow colors, which has retained its value even after the company went bankrupt and discontinued its consumer products.
Co-branding occurs when two established brand names of different companies are used on the same product. Because each brand dominates in a different category, the combined brands create broader consumer appeal and greater brand equity. For example, Taco Bell and Doritos teamed up to create the Doritos Locos Taco.
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Brand Development Strategies
This figure illustrates the four choices that a company has when it comes to developing brands. It can introduce line extensions, brand extensions, multibrands, or new brands.
Line extensions occur when a company extends existing brand names to new forms, colors, sizes, ingredients, or flavors of an existing product category. A company might introduce line extensions as a low-cost, low-risk way to introduce new products. Or it might want to meet consumer desires for variety, use excess capacity, or command more shelf space from resellers.
A brand extension extends an existing brand name to new or modified products in a new category. It gives a new product instant recognition and faster acceptance. But an extension may also confuse the image of the main brand.
Multibranding offers a way to establish different features that appeal to different customer segments, lock up more reseller shelf space, and capture a larger market share. A major drawback of multibranding is that each brand might obtain only a small market share, and none may be very profitable.
A company might believe that the power of its existing brand name is waning, so a new brand name is needed. Or, it may create a new brand name when it enters a new product category for which none of its current brand names are appropriate. For example, Toyota created the separate Lexus brand aimed at luxury car consumers and the Scion brand, targeted toward Millennial consumers.
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Managing Brands
Nest has extended its line to include a host of its own smart-home products.
A brand extension extends a current brand name to new or modified products in a new category. For example, Google-owned Nest—which began as a maker of stylish, connected, learning thermostats that can be controlled remotely by phone—has extended its line with a host of smart and stylish smart-home products, including a smoke and carbon monoxide
alarm, home monitoring cameras, a home security alarm system, and a video doorbell that lets you know who’s calling.
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Arm and hammer product lines
Managing Brands (CONT’D)
Communicate the brand’s positioning
Manage all brand touch points
Train employees to be customer centered
Audit the brand’s strengths and weaknesses
Companies must manage their brands carefully.
First, the brand’s positioning must be continuously communicated to consumers. Major brand marketers often spend huge amounts on advertising to create brand awareness and build preference and loyalty.
Today, customers come to know a brand through a wide range of contacts and touch points. These include advertising but also personal experience with the brand, word of mouth, social media, company Web pages, mobile apps, and many others.
The brand’s positioning will not take hold fully unless everyone in the company lives the brand. Therefore, the company needs to train its people to be customer centered. Many companies go even further by training and encouraging their distributors and dealers to serve their customers well.
Finally, companies need to periodically audit their brands’ strengths and weaknesses. The brand audit may turn up brands that need more support, brands that need to be dropped, or brands that must be rebranded or repositioned because of changing customer preferences or new competitors.
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Kendra Scott Brand: How to Scale a Small Business into a Billion Dollar Brand
https://youtu.be/WmqPQn6SyOU
W Hotels' Brand Leader Has Cracked the Code in Scaling Boutique-Style Luxury
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1sNrszsCw0
