Global Brand Marketing

Developing a brand architecture strategy

• Brand architecture strategy: Helps marketers determine which products and services to introduce, and which brand names, logos, and symbols to apply to new and existing products.
• Role:
• To clarify brand awareness.
• To improve brand image.

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The brand vision

• Management’s view of the brand’s long-term potential.
• It is influenced by how well the firm is able to recognize the current and possible future brand equity.
• Brand vision needs to be aspirational, so the brand can improve in the future, yet it cannot be unobtainable.
• It transcends the brand’s physical product category descriptions and boundaries.

The brand boundaries

• Based on the brand vision and positioning, identifying the products or services the brand should offer, the benefits it should supply, and the needs it should satisfy.
• Broad brand - One with an abstract positioning that is able to support a higher-order promise relevant in multiple product settings.
• It has a transferable point-of-difference.
• To improve market coverage, companies target different segments with multiple brands in a portfolio.
• Top marketing companies in recent years has been to focus on fewer, stronger brands.

The brand positioning

• Four key ingredients:
• Competitive frame of reference
• Points-of-difference
• Points-of-parity
• Brand mantra

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Branding new products and services

• Brand architecture strategies can be distinguished if:
• A firm is using branded house strategy - Business-to-business industrial firms.
• Siemens, Oracle, and Goldman Sachs.
• A firm is using house of brands strategy - Consumer product companies.
• Procter & Gamble, Unilever, and ConAgra.
• Sub-brands
• Signal to consumers to expect similarities and differences in the new product.
• Sub-branding should be adopted only when there is a distinctive, complementary benefit.

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Brand portfolios

• Includes all brands sold by a company in a product category.
• Reasons for introducing multiple brands in a category:
• To increase shelf presence and retailer dependence in the store.
• To attract consumers seeking variety who may otherwise switch to another brand.
• To increase internal competition within the firm.
• To yield economies of scale in advertising, sales, merchandising, and physical distribution.
• Maximize market coverage - So that no potential customers are being ignored.
• Minimize brand overlap - So that brands aren’t competing among themselves to gain the same customer’s approval.

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Brand hierarchies

• Graphically portraying a firm’s branding strategy by displaying the number and nature of common and distinctive brand elements across the firm’s products, revealing their explicit ordering.
• Brand elements and levels of the hierarchy:
• Corporate or company brand
• Family brand
• Individual brand
• Modifier (designating item or model)
• Product description

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Family brand level

• Marketers may apply family brands instead of corporate brands for several reasons:
• Distinct family brands can evoke a specific set of associations across a group of related products.
• Efficient means to link common associations to multiple but distinct products.
• Cost of introducing a related new product can be lower and the likelihood of acceptance higher when marketers apply an existing family brand to a new product.
• Failure of one product may hurt other products sold under the same brand.

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Designing a brand hierarchy

• Challenge in setting up a brand hierarchy is to decide:
• Specific products to be introduced for any one brand.
• Number of levels of the hierarchy to use.
• Desired brand awareness and image at each level.
• Combinations of brand elements from different levels of the hierarchy.
• Best way to link any one brand element to multiple products.

Specific products to introduce

• Principle of growth: Firms must make cost-benefit calculations for investing resources in selling more of a brand’s existing products to new customers versus. launching new products for the brand.
• Principle of survival: Brand extensions must achieve brand equity in their categories.
• Principle of synergy: Brand extensions should also enhance the equity of the parent brand.

Number of levels of the brand hierarchy

• Most firms choose to use more than one level.
• Each successive branding level allows the firm to communicate additional information about its products.
• Developing brands at higher levels is an economical means of communicating common information.
• Developing sub-brands also allows for the creation of brand-specific beliefs.
• Sub-brands help organize selling efforts.
• Principle of simplicity: Need to provide the right amount of branding information to consumers.
• Low-involvement products require fewer levels of hierarchy and complex products require more levels of hierarchy.

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Designing a brand hierarchy

• Challenge in setting up a brand hierarchy is to decide:
• Specific products to be introduced for any one brand.
• Number of levels of the hierarchy to use.
• Desired brand awareness and image at each level.
• Combinations of brand elements from different levels of the hierarchy.
• Best way to link any one brand element to multiple products.

Specific products to introduce

• Principle of growth: Firms must make cost-benefit calculations for investing resources in selling more of a brand’s existing products to new customers versus. launching new products for the brand.
• Principle of survival: Brand extensions must achieve brand equity in their categories.
• Principle of synergy: Brand extensions should also enhance the equity of the parent brand.

Number of levels of the brand hierarchy

• Most firms choose to use more than one level.
• Each successive branding level allows the firm to communicate additional information about its products.
• Developing brands at higher levels is an economical means of communicating common information.
• Developing sub-brands also allows for the creation of brand-specific beliefs.
• Sub-brands help organize selling efforts.
• Principle of simplicity: Need to provide the right amount of branding information to consumers.
• Low-involvement products require fewer levels of hierarchy and complex products require more levels of hierarchy.

Desired awareness and image at each hierarchy level

• Principle of relevance: Based on the advantages of efficiency and economy.
• The more abstract the association, the more likely it is to be relevant in different product settings.
• Principle of differentiation: Based on the disadvantages of redundancy.
• Without restraint, brand variations get out of control.
• Flagship product: Embodies the brand to consumers.
• Important in brand portfolio in that marketing them can have short- and long-term benefits.

Combining brand elements from different levels

• Principle of prominence
• Branding strategy screen

Linking brand elements to multiple products

• Principle of commonality: States that the more common brand elements products share, the stronger the linkages between them.

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Corporate branding

• Corporate brand equity: Differential response by consumers, customers, employees, other firms, or any relevant constituency to the words, actions, communications, products, or services provided by an identified corporate brand entity.
• Powerful means for firms to express themselves in a way that isn’t tied to their specific products or services.

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Common product attributes, benefits, or attitudes

• High-quality corporate image association: Creates consumer perceptions that a company makes products of the highest quality.
• Innovative corporate image association: Creates consumer perceptions of a company as developing new and unique marketing programs, especially with respect to product introductions or improvements.

People and relationships

• Corporate image associations reflect characteristics of the employees of the company.
• Consumers may themselves form more abstract impressions of a firm’s employees, especially in a services setting.
• Customer-focused corporate image association: Creates consumer perceptions of a company as responsive to and caring about its customers.

Values and programs

• Corporate image associations may reflect company values and programs that do not always directly relate to the products.
• Socially responsible corporate image association: Portrays the company as contributing to community and attempting to improve the welfare of society as a whole.
• Environmentally concerned corporate image association: Projects a company whose products protect or improve the environment and make more effective use of scarce natural resources.

Corporate credibility

• Depends on three factors:
• Corporate expertise
• Corporate trustworthiness
• Corporate likability

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Corporate social responsibility

• Consumers are increasingly using their perceptions of a firm’s role in society in their purchase decisions.
• Consumers want to know how a firm treats its employees, shareholders, local neighbors.
• Some firms are putting corporate social responsibility at the very core of their existence.
• TOMS Shoes

Corporate image campaigns

• Designed to create associations to the corporate brand as a whole.
• Ignore or downplay individual products or sub-brands.
• A strong campaign can provide invaluable marketing and financial benefits by allowing the firm to express itself.
• Objectives of an brand campaign:
• Build awareness of the company and the nature of its business.
• Create favorable attitudes and perceptions of company credibility.
• Link beliefs that can be leveraged by product-specific marketing.
• Make a favorable impression on the financial community.
• Motivate present employees and attract better recruits.
• Influence public opinion on issues.
• Brand line campaigns: Promote a range of products associated with a brand line.

Corporate name changes

• Reasons
• Rationale - Merger or acquisition is often the impetus to reevaluate naming strategies.
• Divestitures, leveraged buyouts, or the sale of assets.
• Correct public misperceptions about the nature of the company’s business.
• Significant shifts in corporate strategy.
• Desire to create distance from scandal.
• Guidelines - Guidelines that encourage uniformity and consistency in the brand’s appearance and usage help make the implementation effective.
• Name changes are typically complicated, and firms should undertake them only when compelling marketing or financial considerations prevail.
• Firms should evaluate candidate names in terms of memorability, meaningfulness, likability, protectability, adaptability, and transferability.
• Corporate rebranding is a time- and resource-intensive process that demands a company’s total commitment to succeed.
• In updating brand architecture, the goal is to preserve brand equity.

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