Marketing - Chapter 7

Services Marketing and Brand Equity

• The service profit chain links service firm profits with employee and customer satisfaction through five links: internal service quality, satisfied and productive service employees, greater service value, satisfied and loyal customers, and healthy service profits and growth.
• Wegmans, a supermarket chain, believes that happy, well-trained employees create a superior customer experience.
• Services marketing requires more than traditional external marketing using the four Ps; it also requires internal marketing and interactive marketing.
• Internal marketing means orienting and motivating customer-contact and supporting service employees to work as a team for customer satisfaction. For example, Zappos hires the right people and inspires them to provide unparalleled customer service.
• Interactive marketing highlights that service quality depends heavily on the buyer-seller interaction during the service encounter. Zappos provides a four-week customer-loyalty training regimen for all new hires.
• Service companies face three major marketing tasks: increasing service differentiation, quality, and productivity.
• Differentiation is achieved through a unique offer, delivery, and image, such as Dick’s Sporting Goods’ interactive in-store experiences.
• Service quality is delivered consistently higher than competitors' and good service recovery can turn angry customers into loyal ones.
• Service productivity can be increased through better training, hiring new employees, or harnessing technology, but without compromising quality.
• Brand equity is the differential effect that knowing the brand name has on customer response to the product or its marketing. Positive brand equity leads to more favorable customer reactions.
• Brand equity is measured along four consumer perception dimensions: differentiation, relevance, knowledge, and esteem, and brands with strong brand equity rate high on all four dimensions.
• High brand equity provides competitive advantages, including high consumer awareness and loyalty, and forms the basis for building strong and profitable customer relationships.

Brand Management and Strategy Decisions Summary

• Marketing should focus on building customer equity, with brand management being a major marketing tool.
• Google's brand value is estimated at $159 billion, while Apple's is estimated at $148 billion.
• Brand strategy decisions include brand positioning, brand name selection, attributes, benefits, beliefs and values, selection, protection, brand sponsorship, brand development, manufacturer’s brand, private brand, licensing, co-branding, line extensions, brand extensions, multibrands, and new brands.
• Brands are powerful assets that require careful development and management.
• Major brand strategy decisions involve brand positioning, brand name selection, brand sponsorship, and brand development.
• Marketers should establish a mission and vision for the brand when positioning it.
• Desirable qualities for a brand name include being based on the product’s benefits and qualities, easy to pronounce, recognize, and remember, distinctive and extendable, easily translated into foreign languages, and capable of registration and legal protection.
• Marketers need to position their brands clearly in target customers’ minds at three levels: product attributes, desirable benefit, and strong beliefs and values.
• Brand sponsorship options include national brands, store brands, licensing, and co-branding.
• Companies must manage their brands carefully through communicating the brand’s positioning, managing all brand touch points, training employees to be customer-centered, and auditing the brand’s strengths and weaknesses.
• Major brand marketers often spend huge amounts on advertising to create brand awareness and build preference and loyalty.
• Brand audit may turn up brands that need more support, brands that need to be dropped, or brands that must be rebranded or repositioned due to changing customer preferences or new competitors.

Brand Management and Strategy Decisions Summary

• Marketing should focus on building customer equity, with brand management being a major marketing tool.
• Google's brand value is estimated at $159 billion, while Apple's is estimated at $148 billion.
• Brand strategy decisions include brand positioning, brand name selection, attributes, benefits, beliefs and values, selection, protection, brand sponsorship, brand development, manufacturer’s brand, private brand, licensing, co-branding, line extensions, brand extensions, multibrands, and new brands.
• Brands are powerful assets that require careful development and management.
• Major brand strategy decisions involve brand positioning, brand name selection, brand sponsorship, and brand development.
• Marketers should establish a mission and vision for the brand when positioning it.
• Desirable qualities for a brand name include being based on the product’s benefits and qualities, easy to pronounce, recognize, and remember, distinctive and extendable, easily translated into foreign languages, and capable of registration and legal protection.
• Marketers need to position their brands clearly in target customers’ minds at three levels: product attributes, desirable benefit, and strong beliefs and values.
• Brand sponsorship options include national brands, store brands, licensing, and co-branding.
• Companies must manage their brands carefully through communicating the brand’s positioning, managing all brand touch points, training employees to be customer-centered, and auditing the brand’s strengths and weaknesses.
• Major brand marketers often spend huge amounts on advertising to create brand awareness and build preference and loyalty.
• Brand audit may turn up brands that need more support, brands that need to be dropped, or brands that must be rebranded or repositioned due to changing customer preferences or new competitors.