Brand Management Strategies: Audi and Hyundai Case Study Report

This report delves into the intricacies of brand management, focusing on the significance of branding as a marketing tool and its evolution in business practices. It explores key elements of a successful brand strategy, including brand equity management, and examines different strategies of brand hierarchy and portfolio management. The report uses case studies of Audi and Hyundai, two automotive firms with strong global brand images, to illustrate these concepts. It further analyzes collaborative and partnership management of brands, along with techniques for measuring and managing brand value. The report covers brand reinforcement, brand revitalization, and the challenges of brand development, including an overview of Keller's brand equity model. The report also touches upon brand portfolio strategies and the importance of customer-centric approaches to brand management. Overall, the report provides a comprehensive overview of brand management principles, supported by practical examples and case studies, to help organizations build and maintain a strong brand presence.

Brand Management

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
SECTION 1......................................................................................................................................1
P1. Significance of branding as a marketing tool and the way it emerged in business practices
................................................................................................................................................1
P2. Key elements of successful brand strategy for developing and managing brand equity. 4
SECTION 2......................................................................................................................................6
P3. Different strategies of brand hierarchy, portfolio management and brand equity
management............................................................................................................................6
P4. Evaluation of collaborative and in partnership management of brand.............................7
P5. Techniques used for managing and measuring brand value............................................9
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................11
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................13

INTRODUCTION
Brand management is the method in which brand can be improved and managed in terms
of logo, symbol, term and sign. It helps in marketing and promoting the brand. Through this, it
helps in attracting more customers and can increase the market share as well. This helps the
organization to maintain a competitive edge on others (Allman and et. al., 2016). Thus, company
can maintain confidence in the customers. So, firm can maintain a unique and positive image in
the minds of all consumers. It helps the company to expand and diversify the business. In this
report, two companies are mentioned i.e. Audi and Hyundai which are automotive firms. They
have a strong brand image and they operate globally. Report discusses about the significance of
branding as a tool, methods and reasons of emerging it in business. Assignment describes the
components of successful brand strategy for building the trade name equity and various
strategies of portfolio administration with hierarchy, trade name portfolio and brand equity
management. Along with this, it explains the procedures of managing brands in partnership and
collaboratively in national and international level. Project discusses about managing and
measuring the brand value by various examples.
SECTION 1
P1. Significance of branding as a marketing tool and the way it emerged in business practices
Definition of brand
It is the sign, logo, symbol and term which creates a unique identity and differentiates
from another brand. Through this, company can generate more profits and increase their market
share. There are two companies i.e. Hyundai and Audi that provide high quality of products with
the latest features and attributes. Thus, it maintains a distinct and unique position in the minds of
customers (Annie Jin, 2012). Audi can generate more customers due to the parent company and
presently, it has created its own reputation through high quality of goods and services.
Differences between product and service:
Brand Product
 It includes those items which can be
differentiated from others and it cannot
be copied with other products as it
 They are those items which already
exist in market for the purpose of
selling and it can be copied with other
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contains unique features and attributes.
 It is made by customers and includes
both intangible and tangible products.
products.
 It is created by the manufacturer and
includes only tangible products.
Importance of branding:
Branding is crucial for company as it differentiates one product from another. Importance
of branding for Audi is given as below:
 Customer loyalty – Through effective branding, it helps in maintaining the brand loyalty
among all customers. Firm tries to create favourable and distinct image in front of all the
customers (Balmer, Liao and Wang, 2010). Thus, customers repeatedly purchase the
same brand and do not shift to another brand. They give reference to relatives and
friends. Hence, company can generate more profits and can increase the market share.
 No advertisements – Through effective branding, people thought that product launches
with the latest attributes and features. Hence, company do meed the advertising for
marketing. It saves the cost of promotion for firm. Therefore, company can capture more
customers in shorter period of time. This helps in maintaining a unique and distinct image
in the minds of all customers. Thus, organization can earn more revenues and increase the
market share as well.
 Good image – Firm launches new and innovative models of the car. Thus, company can
capture more customers. It can also maintain a strong and favourable image in the minds
of all customers. So, firm can generate more revenues and increase the market share.
Thus they can expand their business. Audi can also maintain a competitive edge on other
rivalry firms. It results in success and growth of company.
Elements of a strong brand:
There are various elements of a strong brand. They are:
 Design and build – Through good design of logo, company can attract many customers in
limited period of time. Audi has different designs in various models and so, it can capture
more consumers. Thus, it can maintain a distinct image in the minds of customers.
 Logo – Audi has a distinct logo which differentiates it from another brand. So,
organization can capture more customers as many users can easily recall it (Baumgarth,
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2010). Thus, it can maintain a favourable and unique image in the minds of all consumers
which increases the goodwill of company in market.
 Quality – If company is providing good quality of products then it can capture more
number of customers that results in increasing the brand value of company in future
(Bergkvist and Bech-Larsen, 2010). Hence, firm can generate more profits and increase
the market share.
Reasons for emerging the brand -
Various reasons of emerging the brand of AUDI are-
 Quality – AUDI can maintain unique, innovative and luxury products with different
features in the brand. Hence, it can capture more customers in less time. It also results in
maintaining a unique and distinct image in the minds of all customers. Thus, firm can
generate more profits and increase the market share as well.
 Premium pricing – Audi charges high prices for their luxury and innovative products so
that it can capture many customers. Thus, firm can generate more profits and increase the
market share. It results in increasing the reputation of the firm. Organization can maintain
the unique and distinct image in minds of all the customers.
 Promotion – Audi promotes the products through social media and advertisements. It
creates innovative webpages which attracts many customers. Consumers also give
reference to their relatives and friends. So, firm can generate more revenues and can
increase the market share. It results in expansion and growth of the firm.
Methods of managing and developing the brand over time:
Company has to manage and develop the brand in an efficient manner so that it can
capture more customers. For this, firm has to include recent attributes and trends in various
models of the car. Thus, firm conducts the research in market. Organization has to evaluate the
competitive activities also through which company can create policies and plans for promoting
their brands (Braun, Kavaratzis and Zenker, 2013). Thus, it can increase the brand image and
awareness among customers. This helps the organization in maintaining and strengthening brand
equity through various marketing programmes. Through this, firm can also maintain the brand
loyalty among customers. Hence company can increase the profits and market share. It results in
expansion, growth and success of the firm.
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P2. Key elements of successful brand strategy for developing and managing brand equity
How brands are built and managed over time:
Main issue confronted by brand administrators of Hyundai and Audi is to keep brand
updated according to the market trends. It requires research to know or analyse the position of
market and its trends (Burmann, and König, 2011). Firms also need to have close watch on rivals
and the goods that are offered by them. For Audi, managers need to know about new
technologies which make more advanced cars that highly attract the customers. Therefore, it is
important for the firm to strengthen its brand equity in order to manage it over time. It can be
done by creating and executing various marketing programmes by which their knowledge
regarding brand will be expanded and they would get confused among brands.
Brand reinforcement: It refers to an activity that is associated with acquiring those
customers who have tried a specific brand to become reiterate purchasers along with pulling new
users.
Brand reinforcement strategy: In order to reinforce the brand in market, administrators
use various strategies. These are:
Brand awareness: It refers to the process of making customers aware about a particular
brand. By using this strategy, firms can place their goods in the minds of customers. In case of
Hyundai and Audi, they don't need to create brand awareness as they have a good market share
and customers already know about the brand.
Brand image: It is the image of product that is made in market as well as in customer’s
mind. Company attain this by providing quality services to customers on continuous basis and
gain high loyalty of consumers.
Brand revitalisation strategy:
It is the strategy that is employed by firm when brand has reached at top and then started
to decline. This makes products obsolete from the minds of users. Here, changes are included in
features such as logo, packaging, styling, etc. Some strategies that are used by company to
revitalize the brand are:
Becoming customer centric: It is important for the firms to know their customer's
importance as they highly contribute in its success (Freling and Forbes, 2013).
Renaming brand: In this strategy, firm will start from starting. It is one of the strategies
that is used by the firm to revitalize their brand.
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Exaggerate the brand story: In order to connect the brand with customers, firm needs to
do something creative and unique in order to attract customers more.
Challenges in developing brand:
For developing brand in a new market, some challenges that can be faced by Audi and
Hyundai are:
Expensive: The process of developing brand is costly and it requires sufficient amount of
funds to invest in the activities related to that (Gatti, Caruana and Snehota, 2012).
Barriers to entry: Due to various reasons, sometimes, companies are not allowed to do
business in a specific country. So, it is required to keep in view these situations.
Winning consumer loyalty: It is a big challenge for organisations to win customer’s
loyalty as many competitive brands are available in the market.
Stages of brand development:
Keller's brand equity model is utilized to access the stages of development of brand. It is also
called customer based brand equity model. It is developed by Kevin Lane Keller and the concept
behind developing this model is very simple. For building strong brand, it is required to shape
how customers feel and think about product of firm. It is necessary to develop right experiences
around brand so that users have particular feelings, opinions, positive thoughts, perceptions and
beliefs about it.
CBBE Model:
This model is commonly used for customers based brand equity. It is represented in four levels
of pyramid. The prime purpose behind developing this model is to strengthen a brand and build it
strong on the basis of consumers. The steps included in this model are as follows:
Brand identity: In this stage, administrators use market segmentation and tools such as
unique selling proposition in order to aware consumers about brand and build their identity in the
market.
Brand meaning: Under thisstep, the main objective of marketers is to determine and
convey meaning of brand and its value.
Brand response: At this stage, marketing manager tries to know the response of
customers towards brand. In this, brand is fall into 2 categories: feelings and judgements.
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Brand resonance: By this, firm tries to develop a strong bond of brand with customers.
They try to attain brand resonance by connecting brand with consumers.
SECTION 2
P3. Different strategies of brand hierarchy, portfolio management and brand equity management
Portfolio strategy:
A portfolio of brand refers as an umbrella in which brands as well as brand lines of a
specific firm doing their operations in order to satisfy needs and requirements of customers
(Gyrd-Jones, Helm and Munk, 2013). In other words, brand portfolio refers to a document in
which the goods of a specific firm is placed at single place. But, the portfolio can only be made
by those organisations who produce distinct types of goods and services.
This strategy is formulated by the firms in order to use their brand and branding elements
for getting higher profits in the market (Iglesias, Singh and Batista-Foguet, 2011). Via this, firms
try to answer the below defined questions:
 Does company require to add a new brand in its existing portfolio?
 Is prioritization of brand necessary for company?
By the use of this strategy, firm comes to know the way to develop brand structure via
using various factors like endorser brands, sub brands and branded ingredients.
Portfolio management strategies for Hyundai and Audi:
In order to manage portfolio, the strategies used by Audi and Hyundai are define below:
Active portfolio management strategy: It is required by the manager of firm to consider
this strategy. For this, high potential is needed to bear risk in market. By this, company is able to
attain better outcomes. The other essential component that is require to consider is that, active
portfolio strategy is used by those organisations who have high strength and good market share.
So, this strategy depicts about market research in order to gain improved returns and better
performance.
Passive portfolio management strategy: The strategy is utilized by those firms that don't
want to take much risk. They want high growth and development in market without taking high
risk. In order to gain suitable returns, it is necessary for the company to apply relevant factors.
Brand architecture of Hyundai and Audi:
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Brand architecture refers to a structure related to brand of the company. It depicts the way
in which brand of the firm within its portfolio are differentiated or related with each other. It is
an integrated procedure of developing brand by making relationships between options of
branding.
Branded house: In this, single brand is used by brand administrators across all the
different categories and products (Kapferer, 2017). By this, they are able to easily develop full
emphasize on brands as well as maximize scale.
House of brands: In this, brands do not relate with each other and are independent or
disconnected. The model is considered to be a most powerful one for brand portfolio. In house of
brands, different brands of same category are owned by the company.
Basis Umbrella brand Products
AUDI AUDI is a popular brand name and there
are various kinds of vehicles that are sale
by the company with this single brand
name. This is considered as umbrella.
Product refers to an item that satisfy
needs and requirements of consumers
in effective manner. Brand and
product are different from each other.
For example, AUDI is a brand name
and its different products are A4, A6
etc.
Hyundai The products and services of Hyundai are
also consider under one umbrella. By this,
all the products of company are sell in the
market.
Various elements are used by the
company to keep their position in
minds of customers in order to ensure
proper development and satisfy
client’s requirements. For example,
brand name is Ford and its products
are Fiesta, Edge, Flex etc.
P4. Evaluation of collaborative and in partnership management of brand
Brand expansion is important for developing large customer base and gain their loyalty.
The main purpose of expanding a brand to grow and earn high profits in market (Keller,
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Parameswaran and Jacob, 2011). For making a brand effective, it is necessary that it should be
known by customers. Brand expansion is done by those organisations who see growth
opportunities in market. It administer chances to users to buy products according to the
requirements. It is a common method utilized by firms for launching their new products via use
of existing brand name. It is basically a marketing strategy that relates with marketing of product
with a fully developed image by using same brand name in distinct product category. Expansion
approaches of brand management are as follows:
Line extension: In this approach, firm focuses on new segment of customers. It occurs
when firm introduce additional items of similar product category. This is doing with same brand
name. In this, firm lengthens product line on the far side of its current range. It is a process in
which companies with established brand change the product factors to satisfy customers in
market. Use of this strategy helps the company in attaining growth and sustainability in market.
This strategy can be effectively used by Audi for their expansion of brand (Kunerth and Mosley,
2011). But, before doing this, they require to find out suitable area in which they can do
expansion. Audi is operated in many countries and successfully run their operations as well.
Category augmentation: In this, the company increase the category of its brand. In order
to enter into new market, marketers use parent brand. Firm directly introduce new product line in
the market under the umbrella of parent company. This enable them to take the advantage of
higher competitiveness in the market over their rivals. Also they can capture the market share of
untouched or developed economy. For instance: Audi is trying to get themselves indulge in new
market with an aim of increasing their overall market share. In-fact not only Audi, Hyundai also
following the same path. The main advantage of entering into new market is, firm does not create
its goodwill. They already have strong brand image in the market which automatically attracts
the attention of ample customers. This is often used by organisation to enter into contract with
other parties. Currently both respective companies is doing well in terms of yielding higher
profitability.
So, above mentioned are the 2 strategies that can be used by Hyundai and Audi in order
to make good position in market and maximize their profits and revenues. It will help the
company in maintaining good brand image in market and acquiring large group of customers.
Both the firms, i.e., Audi and Hyundai is a well-known and big company. But still, Hyundai
requires to develop themselves in area of luxury vehicles. The vehicles of Audi are designed with
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latest technology and having excellent design and features as well and it is needed by Hyundai to
build these features and make better brand image. Presently, there are so many cars that the
company offer to all segments of customers but, they needs to emphasize on sports car segment
in order to get opportunity in this area.
So, for managing good image in market, firms use partnership in viable way. The brands,
Audi and Hyundai are well known in market and are operated successfully from long period of
time. Audi is the subsidiary brand of Volkswagen and is operated in various countries (M'zungu,
Merrilees and Miller, 2010). Hyundai is an individual or separate brand and also performs its
operations in many countries. Both the companies provides high quality products to its
customers. It is believed that, if both the companies will join together then even better products
can be produced for their potential customers.
P5. Techniques used for managing and measuring brand value
Business have to underpin each and every individual demand and interest in
consideration properly so that better and effective working could be promoted. Brand
management is a major thing which need to understand by managers of a company properly so
that effective and appropriate gains lead to get optimise (McDowell, 2011). Thus, to get sustain
into market world, business managers have to formulate several aims and objectives properly for
modifying their product and services in a suitable manner so that all possible gain could be
manage and maintain. Brand need to get manage with over time by introducing and managing
new product and services at market world.
AUDI and Hyundai are two major competitors at market world whom have to manage
and concrete their strategies with define course of time so that they lead to get sustain at
competitive world more properly and effectively. Management need to compare their working
with each other so that appropriate and suitable working lead to get manage in order to
accomplish their targets and goals properly and effectively for better and appropriate working as
well as to get sustain into world more appropriately.
Several strategies which associated with both business AUDI and Hyundai stated as
follow which consider as important function for business in order to reflect keen competition to
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each other (Meskendahl, 2010). This will support them to get maintain into world properly as
well as such action plan will going to reflect positive aspect towards business and its working:
Audi Hyundai
 Need to deliver quality products to
National and International customers
according to determine needs and
wants.
 Have to introduce new and innovative
technological automotive to every
client so that better and suitable
outcome could be gain for managing
working.
 Deliver goods and services as per the
requirement of each and every client
properly so that interest get fulfil in an
appropriate and absolute frame.
 Produce high standard goods which
enables in better and appropriate gain
product and services so that competitive
advantage could be gain.
SWOT analysis of Audi:
Strengths:  Using new and emergent technology for manufacturing and
producing cars
 Automotive are as per requirement of individual which consider
recent trends as well
Weaknesses:  Cost of manufacturing is too high in frame as it includes quality
feature
 More and more competition in automotive industry
Opportunities:  They will expand their market into some other countries which enable
them to improve market share.
 Positive influence of foreign direct investment.
Threats:  Huge risk at global marketplace.
 There are various competitors of company, such as Ford.
Instead of this, above described companies, i.e. Audi and Hyundai is utilizing many kinds
of methods which help them to run business in an effective manner. This will be defined as
below:
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