Brand Development Strategy of Amazon.com: A Report Analysis

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Amazon.com's brand management strategies. It begins with an executive summary highlighting Amazon's dominance in the e-commerce retail industry and its evolution from an online bookstore to a diverse product marketplace. The report delves into Amazon's company background, emphasizing its growth and technological innovations. It critically examines the justification behind Amazon's brand development decisions, focusing on brand positioning, brand equity, and customer retention strategies. The report evaluates the role of the marketing mix, including product development, pricing, placement, and promotion, in supporting Amazon's success. It also explores brand extension and advertising strategies. The report uses the Keller's CBBE model to analyze the brand equity and highlights the significance of customer satisfaction and accessibility. The report also offers insights into Amazon's product development, fast delivery, and transparency strategies. The evaluation of the marketing mix provides a detailed analysis of how Amazon has used cost leadership, promotional pricing, and strategic placement to achieve its goals. The report concludes by summarizing key findings and emphasizing the importance of brand management in maintaining market share and customer loyalty.

Running head: BRAND MANAGEMENT
Brand Management
Name of the student
Name of the University
Authors note

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Executive summary
The report is about the brand management strategies of Aamzon.com. E-commerce retail
industry has been ruled by Amazon since past few years. The company has immensely grown
in its sales and reputation. This company started its journey by selling books online. Later it
introduced a wide range of products on their websites. Delivery speed and product
convenience are the major characteristics of the company that attracts the attention of the
consumers. There are a number of companies that have entered the market, but they are not
able to compete with the brand image of Amazon in any aspect. This study shows how the
company has used the brand management techniques to maintain its share in the market. The
evaluation of the marketing mix for this company is also included in this report.

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Table of Contents
Introduction....................................................................................................................3
Company background....................................................................................................3
Justification of brand development decisions................................................................4
Brand Positioning.......................................................................................................4
Brand Equity..............................................................................................................5
Customer retention.....................................................................................................5
Product development..................................................................................................6
Brand extension..........................................................................................................6
Advertising and digital branding................................................................................6
Evaluation of the role of Marketing Mix.......................................................................7
Conclusions....................................................................................................................9
References....................................................................................................................10

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Introduction
The perceived value of a brand is increased through the effective management of
brand name and equity. Using several marketing techniques to increase brand value is known
as brand management. Brand management is crucial in building a loyal customer base and
raising product price. The brand image and brand awareness related to a product line result in
consumer trust and loyalty. Present-day companies are aware of the importance of brand
management, and they invest their resources in developing strategic planning for their brand
name building. The impact of the brand is huge on the customer, market competition survival
and company management. Effective management of brand enhances brand awareness and
brand equity. The brands that have already established their power in the market manage their
place through brand management. This report analyses brand management aspects of the
reputed company Amazon.com. The prime discussion would be on how this company has
been able to establish itself strongly in a highly competitive market. The strategies that
Amamzon.com is using for brand awareness and launching new product lines would be
examined critically through this study.
Company background
An American multinational company, Amazon.com.Inc is a big name in e-commerce,
digital streaming, cloud computing and artificial intelligence industry. This company is one
of the Big Four of the technology business, the other three being Apple, Google and
Facebook. The headquarter of this company is based in Seattle, Washington. Amazon has the
title of the world' largest online company in terms of revenue. This company is the second
highest in terms of employment in the USA. The revenue of the company in the year 2018
was 23,288 crore USD. A total number of employee as in 2018 was 647,500 throughout the
world (amazon.com, 2019).

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Amazon started its journey as an online book marketplace in 1994. This was founded
by Jeff Bezos in Washington. Later, the company started to expand its business by selling
electronics, apparel, toys and other household goods as well (amazon.com, 2019). The
business and brand name of Amazon has extended drastically in the past few years. This
surpassed Walmart in market capitalisation in 2015. This company is known for its
technological implementation in operations. This makes the company presence unique in the
highly competitive market of online trading. Amazon has been the trendsetter in online
business for a long time and is quite successful in maintaining its brand value and equity.
Justification of brand development decisions
Brand Positioning
The positioning of a brand in customers mind is the first step in brand name
development. A company should set its branding strategy depending on how a brand wants to
establish its image in consumer’s memory. Amazon has started its journey by selling books
online. The founder Jeff Bezos has followed a strategic positing of products among the target
audiences. The founder wanted to establish an online retail line for launching an “everything
store” because of the fast internet revolutions. But he first chose to sell books to the niche
market for strong reasons. Online business was a new concept to the consumers, and they
might have the 'fear of unknown' while buying things from the internet (Bhati & Verma,
2018). But the book is the only commodity that would be authentic in online or offline
buying. At that time, there were two big suppliers of books and this cut short Bezos’ time for
searching publishers.
Amazon positioned itself as a brand that has offered value product to its customer at a
low price. The founder said that he has decided to keep the product prices low because high
profitable markets easily attract new competitors. Amazon keeps the quality of the products

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intact and offers the target customers a low price for their purchases online. Instant access
and extraordinary convenience are the two main positioning strategy of Amazon. Therefore,
this company applies differentiation through quality and low price in the market positioning.
Brand Equity
Amazon.com has been immensely successful in building its brand equity. It is one of
the most trusted and known brands in online business. The company has based its brand
equity on the CBBE model of Keller. There are a number of consumers who would buy the
products from this site because of its nominal value (Wheeler, 2017). This brand gives utmost
importance to customer satisfaction and accessibility. The products range is huge, that gives
its consumers to choose from. The complaints and negative feedbacks are posted on the
company websites so that the consumers could make their buying decisions accordingly.
Amazon Prime membership is another strategy of the company to increase its brand equity.
This brand was the first online bookseller, and that has marked it unique in the mindset of
customers. After that, the company has introduced various products in their websites and
developed its brand identity through reasonable pricing, easy accessibility and customer-
centric branding strategies.
Customer retention
Amazon.com CEO believes that the brand needs to make some sacrifices that would
affect the business in a short time period, but it would definitely help in customer retention on
a long time basis. The style of operation of the company idealises this thought of Jeff Bezos.
As opined by Rosenbaum-Elliott, Percy & Pervan (2015), the positioning of the company is a
major reason for customer attraction, and the quality that the company provides are effective
for retention. The site of Amazon regularly shows some discounts and offers all through the
year for its consumers. Another important thing influencing the high customer retention of
this brand is its transparency. This company also posts a negative review of their products by

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the buyer. Fast delivery and fund return helped the company to have a loyal customer base
(Bhati & Verma, 2018). All the problems and product-related issues are solved by the
customer care services with the highest priority by amazon executes.
Product development
Jeff has been unique in his product development and selection right from the initial
days. This company first chose to sell books as their product online so that they could achieve
a different place in the market. Once the company saved its identity in the online market, it
gradually started to extend the range and variety of the products (Lin, 2015). The decision of
starting their business with books reduced the fear of the unknown among the consumers and
got them a trusted consumer base. Later, the company used it's brand identity is developing
and introducing new products and services in the market. The services like Amazon Prime
and Kindle gained huge success after launch. All the product development decision made by
this company have been finalised after effective market analysis.
Brand extension
Amazon.com has efficiently used its brand name to introduce new products in its
name in the market. Brand extension is the strategy to use the trademark of an established
brand identity to get increased sales (Balmer, 2017). This company has launched a number of
products and services after gaining a reputation as bookselling websites. Some of them are-
Kindle, IMDb, Amazon Fresh, Amazon Cloud, Amazon web series, Amazon warehouse
deals, Alexa and online retail and clothing store
Advertising and digital branding
Amazon uses social media, electronic media and offline methods to promote their
websites and services. The operations of this company are completely based on online
platforms. Amazon products advertisements could be seen on Facebook, Youtube and various

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other websites (Dessart, Veloutsou & Morgan-Thomas, 2015). The brand has established its
leadership in the e-commerce market. It takes good care of its advertising and promotion to
maintain its position in the market effectively.
Evaluation of the role of Marketing Mix
The marketing mix is the evaluation of the important components of the market that
could influence the buying decisions of the customers. Most of the companies consider the
evaluation of marketing mix before starting their venture or developing it in a new direction
(Išoraitė, 2016). The marketing mix of Amazon is designed to get the highest outcome in its
e-commerce business. The competitive advantages is another context that the marketing mix
aims in Amazon’s case.
Product
After starting its e-commerce journey with a single product- books, this company has
extended its product range massively. In the present time, Amazon sells thousands of
products. It mainly acts as a selling platform for various sellers. At the same time, the brand
has launched its privately levelled products. The product development strategy has made the
brand unique in the online retail market (Wang, He & Barnes, 2017). Statistics says that most
sold products of this company are shoes, clothing, electronics, jewellery, outdoor accessories,
books, fine arts and so on. This e-commerce giant is adding new products to its inventory
regularly. This is increasing product diversity in the website. Product variety and reliability
makes the company sustain in the highly competitive market of online selling.
Price
Companies often use more than one strategy of price setting to sell their products.
Amazon has chosen cost leadership method to gain competitive advantages. Some of the
prominent competitors of this company are E-bay, Flipkart, Etsy and Walmart. The brand

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name of Amazon has surpassed all its competitors. The low cost and high quality product are
the main USP of Amazon. Consumers visit the site to get the best deal which adds the highest
value to their money (Zhang, 2015). Some of the experts have the opinion that Amazon is
using a competitive pricing strategy to get its set targets is sales. Amazon consistently
assesses the pricing of competitive companies and set their pricing accordingly. This gives
the customer a broad range of products at the lowest price in the market. The company also
uses promotional pricing and psychological pricing strategies whenever needed.
Place
Fast and effective delivery is one of the main components of Amazon’s success. The
company has recently expanded its business in different parts of the world. This expansion
has made it possible for more numbers of customers to get access to the products of the
company business. AmazonGlobal has been launched by the company to ship its products in
the farthest locations. The number of inventory offices and warehouses has been increased in
the past few years. All these have enabled the company to serve its customer in a more
convenient way than earlier (Steenkamp, 2017). Amazon has established bases for customer
services in many countries where it sales its products. The employee services in these centres
are satisfactory and consumer-friendly.
Promotion
Promotion plays an important part in the success of any organisations. Amazon
understands the importance of it and puts the effort in communication with the consumers.
The company communicates with the buyers through various channels. The company also
does its promotions through a billboard and other smaller advertising methods. The company
regularly executes promotional ads on various websites (Kim & Peterson, 2017). Another big
way of promotion is by offering discounts for sales promotion. The company uses different

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types of promotional discounts for its buyers. These offers are designed according to the
nature of customers in different countries. Amazon also invests in search engine marketing. It
smartly promotes the website by getting the name high up at the search engines.
Conclusions
Brand management is the phenomena through which a company engages in different
strategies to maintain its name in the market. The awareness of a brand increases its brand
equity and retention of customers. Amazon is the highest-grossing company in e-commerce
and has managed to retain its place for a long time. Their unique brand management
strategies lie in the back of these results. As discussed in this report, this company follows
customer based branding. This has gained it a loyal customer base and increased its brand
equity. The founder of the company has understood the importance of internet back in 1994
and used it potentially. Amazon has now one of the four highest revenue earning company in
the e-commerce chain. The branding of this company product relies on low cost and quality
product. Also, the expanded range of products made it one-stop station for the buyers. One
can get almost everything they want for their use from this website and with a good deal. As
mentioned by Jeff Bezos, the strategic sacrifices have led the company to secure the top place
in the consumer’s preference list. The company has used the marketing mix carefully for their
product designing and marketing.

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References
amazon.com (2019), Amazon.com, retrieved from: https://www.amazon.com/
Balmer, J. M. (2017). Corporate brand orientation: What is it? What of it?. In Advances in
Corporate Branding (pp. 175-202). Palgrave Macmillan, London.
Bhati, R., & Verma, H. V. (2018). Online Brand Building: Lessons from Top Brands.
Journal of Business Thought, 8, 71-82.
Dessart, L., Veloutsou, C., & Morgan-Thomas, A. (2015). Consumer engagement in online
brand communities: a social media perspective. Journal of Product & Brand
Management, 24(1), 28-42.
Išoraitė, M. (2016). Marketing mix theoretical aspects. International Journal of Research–
Granthaalayah, 4(6), 25-37.
Kim, Y., & Peterson, R. A. (2017). A Meta-analysis of Online Trust Relationships in E-
commerce. Journal of Interactive Marketing, 38, 44-54.
Lin, Y. H. (2015). Innovative brand experience's influence on brand equity and brand
satisfaction. Journal of Business Research, 68(11), 2254-2259.
Rosenbaum-Elliott, R., Percy, L., & Pervan, S. (2015). Strategic brand management. Oxford
University Press, USA.
Steenkamp, J. B. (2017). Global Brand Management. In Global Brand Strategy (pp. 181-
208). Palgrave Macmillan, London.
Wang, C. L., He, J., & Barnes, B. R. (2017). Brand management and consumer experience in
emerging markets: directions for future research. International Marketing Review,
34(4), 458-462.
Wheeler, A. (2017). Designing brand identity: an essential guide for the whole branding
team. John Wiley & Sons.

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Zhang, Y. (2015). The impact of brand image on consumer behavior: A literature review.
Open journal of business and management, 3(1).