Brand Elements & Roles of Brands

The Brand

• A brand is a name, term, sign, symbol, or design intended to identify and differentiate the goods/services of one seller (or group of sellers) from those of competitors

Brand Elements

• Brand elements encompass any identifying name, term, design, symbol, or feature
• They distinguish a marketer's product from others
• Branding helps buyers identify and evaluate products
• Branding benefits sellers by facilitating product introduction, repeat purchasing, and promotional efforts

Roles of Brands

• Brands serve as touch points for consumers
• They deliver specific benefits associated with products or services

The Role of Branding

• Achieves financial strength
• Achieves greater market share
• Increases perceived quality
• Allows brand extensions
• Enables price premium

Strong Brands

• They occupy a distinct position in consumers' minds based on relevant benefits
• They create an emotional connection between businesses and consumers
• They create a unique identity, perception, emotions, and relationships
• They tell a story and are meaningful, memorable, and likeable

Brand Equity

• Brand equity is the marketing and financial value associated with a brand's strength
• Brand equity includes brand name awareness, brand loyalty, brand associations, perceived brand quality, and brand knowledge
• Brand equity is the value based on loyalty, awareness, perceived product quality, and brand associations
• It reflects long-term trust built in consumers' minds
• It indicates consumers' trust level of a brand
• Brand names can become synonymous with a product category based on strong brand equity

Benefits of Strong Brands

• Provides a signal of quality, reduces risk, serves as a symbolic device for consumers
• Ensures predictability and security of demand, barriers to entry, and financial returns for companies

Measuring Intangible Value

• If Market Value/Tangible Assets is greater than 1, intangible value is created
• Coke's intangible value is derived by taking the stock price, multiplying it by the shares, and dividing by tangible assets, resulting in a value of 5
• Compares brand name value with tangible assets

Brand Equity Models: Aaker Model

• This model includes devoted to brand, values the brand (brand as friend), satisfied & switching cost, satisfied customer (no reason to change), and no brand loyalty (customer will change) as five levels of customer attitude toward a brand

Brand Asset Valuator (BAV)

• Brand equity encompasses differentiation, relevance, esteem, and knowledge

Interbrand’s Brand Equity Formula

• Brand earnings include brand sales, costs of sales, marketing costs, overhead expenses, remuneration of capital charge and taxation
• Brand strength includes leadership (25%), stability (15%), market (10%), geographic spread (25%), trend (10%), support (10%) and protection (5%)

Building Strong Brands

• Marketers use brand image, brand personality, and co-branding to strengthen brands
• Building strong brands project the right message, provide identity, and save time
• Brand image involves salient and feeling-related associations
• Brand personality involves specific "personality-type" traits ascribed to brands

Brand Archetypes (Carl Jung)

• Humans have a combination of universal, archaic patterns and images from the collective unconsciousness which is the psychic counterpart of instinct

Packaging and Labeling

• Packaging and labeling are used in marketing strategies
• Effective packaging offers protection, economy, safety, and convenience
• Labeling is used for identification, promotion, information, and legal purposes

Section 10: Products - Study Guide

• Levels of Products: Core, Actual/Tangible, Augmented
• Types of Consumer Products: Convenience, shopping, specialty products
• Product Line Depth/Extension
• Product Mix Width
• Brand Extension
• Innovation Continuum

New Product Classification

• Disruptive, sustaining, and incremental

New Product Development Process

• Understanding each stage is important

New Products

• Requires recognizing reasons for new product failure/success and why products fail in the long run

Diffusion of Innovations

• Addresses adoption categories along the timeline and characteristics that influence diffusion

Product Life Cycle (PLC)

• Requires identifying transition points and stages where sales/growth curves peak, and understanding if all products go through all stages

Types of Products

• Physical Objects, People, Organizations, Services, Places, Ideas, Information

Levels of a Product

• Core product fulfills a need

Levels of a Product

• Actual product holds tangible features necessary for function

Levels of a Product

• Augmented product includes extra features that make it nicer

Types of Consumer Products

• Convenience products: Water bottle
• Shopping products: Jeans
• Specialty products: Lambo

Product Extensions

• Line Extension: Improvement with new colors (e.g., different Red Bull drinks)
• Brand Extension: Current brand to a new product class (e.g., Cheetos lip gloss)

Successful New Products

• Offer strong relative advantage
• Reflect better understanding of customer needs and beat the competition
• Exhibit higher performance-to-cost ratios and contribution margins
• Show correlation with profitability and sales growth

New Product Development Process

• Involves idea generation, screening, concept development, business analysis, test market, and commercialization

Test Market

• Determines reactions of potential customers in a market situation

New Product Failure: Common Problems

• High failure rates (95% in the U.S., 90% in Europe)
• Ignoring market research
• Overestimating market size
• Marketing mix errors
• Stronger competitive actions

Reasons for New Product Failure

• No discernible benefits and poor market fit

Diffusion

• Diffusion is the process by which innovation spreads through communication to members of a social system over time

Adoption

• Adoption is the stages through which an individual consumer passes in deciding to try, continue, or discontinue using a new product

Traditional Adoption Process

• Awareness, interest, evaluation, trial, and adoption

Rate of Diffusion Factors

• Complexity
• Compatibility
• Observability

Adopter Categories

• Innovators
• Early adopters
• Majority
• Laggards

Product Life Cycle Elements

• Time, dollars, and profits

Section 11: Services Marketing - Study Guide

• Importance of Services
• Product/Services Continuum
• Tangible vs. Intangible
• Characteristics of Services
• Perishability, intangibility, variability, inseparability
• Three Additional P's of Services
• Services Gap Model, Knowledge, Service Gaps, Disconfirmation Paradigm

Services Marketing

• Activities or benefits one party offers to another, essentially intangible and not resulting in ownership

Service as a Product

• Examples: Hotels, telecommunication, banking, consulting, healthcare, and software services

Customer Service

• Examples: Taking requests, answering questions, and responding to complaints

Service as Value-Added

• Examples: Training, installation, and repair services connected with a physical product

Why Services?

• Higher profit margins, customer satisfaction/loyalty, and differentiation strategy

Product/Services Continuum

• Goods are tangible dominant with search attributes
• Services are intangible dominant with experience and credence attributes (credibility)

Adding Service Aspects

• Changing products from commodities

Differences Between Goods and Services

• Intangibility is primary; services cannot be seen, felt, tasted, or touched easily
• Variability occurs, making it impossible to achieve 100% perfect quality
• Inseparability is simultaneous production and consumption -Consumers must be present
• Perishability means services cannot be saved or inventoried and unused capacity is lost
• "Use it or lose it"

Service Quality

• Quality encompasses reliability, responsiveness, assurance, empathy, and tangibles

Managing Service Quality

• Managers must understand customer wants and expectations due to a gap existing if the experience doesn't equal expectation