Brand Management: Building and Leveraging Brand Equity

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Brand Management
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Table of Contents
Introduction..................................................................................................................... 3
Task 1............................................................................................................................... 4
Task 2.............................................................................................................................. 8
Task 3............................................................................................................................ 12
Task 4............................................................................................................................ 16
Conclusions:..................................................................................................................21
Reference list................................................................................................................ 22
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Introduction
Brand management involves the technique by which the perceived value can be
increased. This study analyzes the importance of brand management. The
organization must have a good bonding with their target market segmentation,
which is very essential to enhance the effectiveness of brand management.
Effective brand management helps the organization to gain higher revenue by
enabling the product prices to rise. Brand management is the strategic plan, which
helps the company to find out their target market and developing brand equity
(Christodoulides et al., 2015). The plan also plays an important role in setting the
overall vision of that organization.
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Task 1
Building and managing brand over time (LO1)
“Brand is power”
Introduction
In this section of the study, the
importance of branding is discussed in
the context of Optimum Impression
Ltd. Branding involves the processes
through which the company can
achieve their own identity and brand
equity in the market. Brand equity
covers three important steps such as
customer perception, impact, and
result. The organization should try to
collect information about customer’s
perception about their product and
their brand. The company should use
their knowledge and experience to
achieve brand equity. There are some
stages through which an organization
can be successful in market (Stobart,
2016).
The first step is that the organization
should research and find out the target
customer segment, which will help to
earn customer loyalty and build a
strong customer base. The second
step should be the mission statement.
A mission statement will help the
organization to determine the brand
building strategy from each and every
aspect. The company should also
gather information about other
competitive organization and their
strategies. There are many other
brands dealing with same products in
the market so the organization should
figure out the benefits and qualities of
their product and try to make it better.
The most important stage of building a
brand is to create a unique brand logo
and tagline.
Brand logo plays a key role in
improving the brand personality and
tagline forms the brand voice so the
organization should invest in creating
such an exceptional logo that will
easily be recognizable by public. The
marketing department of Optimum
Impression Ltd plays an important
role in building brand equity. Marketing
programmes mainly involve activities
like promotion, pricing, supply chain,
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and others, which helps to create a
strong awareness amongst the
audience. Promotion helps to create
the brand image that helps to build the
brand equity. The marketing
department should conduct campaigns
to deal with the audience and monitor
their perception about the brand,
which will help to develop the brand
equity more in the longer term.
Main body
Optimum Impression Ltd. is a private
limited company, located at West
Yorkshire. The brand is one of the
strongest brands in the UK. The strong
brand name of this company has
helped the brand to differentiate
themselves from other brands
(Grabowski et al., 2014). The
organization has a unique logo, which
is easily recognizable by their
customer. The backbone of the
company is their product line. They
deliver a quality product to their
customers that have helped the brand
to build a loyal customer base. The
brand has a consistent brand image
and the marketing department gives
importance to their customer
feedback, which has lead the company
towards customer satisfaction.
Branding is very essential for
generating the future value of an
organization. The company has used a
strategic plan to improve their
branding. Good branding can unlock
many new opportunities for the
company as the brand does not have
to worry about attracting customers
and investors. Strong brand influences
the choices of their customers that
help the brand to leave other
competitive brands behind and lead
the market. Optimum Impression
Ltd. also takes care of the employees.
Working with a good brand can be the
reason of employee pride and
satisfaction.
It is said that the employees are the
first consumer of any brand and the
satisfied employees also take part in
promoting the brand by spreading the
awareness. The organization already
has a strong customer base in the UK
and to build the company more
successful the company should follow
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some business strategy model (Pike
and Bianchi, 2016). A strategic plan
can enhance the brand value of the
organization and accomplish the sales
goals. In this section, the Aaker’s
business strategy model is conducted
to plan a strategy for the company.
David Aaker created this model to
prepare a set of liabilities of an
organization that is responsible for
adding or subtracting the value from a
band. Aaker identified five brand
equity components so it is also called
as five asset model. The model
involves components such as brand
loyalty, brand awareness, perceived
quality, brand association, and another
proprietary. Brand loyalty measures
the loyalty of customers and suggests
the company to follow steps, which
can be beneficial to earn loyal
customer base (Lee et al., 2015). The
organization should focus on their
existing customer’s demand rather
than trying to attract new customers.
The company should reduce their
product price so that they can
generate a steady source of revenue
from the existing customers.
Existing customers can bring new
customer by spreading awareness.
The organization will be able to avoid
the brand switching threats by
developing customer base as they
take time to switch from one brand to
another brand. Brand awareness
helps to attract new customers. The
organization should attach multiple
associations depending upon their
strength that will be helpful for
influencing a customer’s choice. The
organization should monitor their
customer’s feedback to make the
commitment more strong. Perceived
quality plays an important role in
building a strong brand. Quality of the
product is the main reason for buying
any product so the organization should
try to improve their product quality.
The marketing department of the
brand should keep in mind that the
consumers take price as the indicator
of the quality of the product so they
should price their product according to
that. Brand extensions also influence
customer’s mentality. Brand
association can help to recognize a
specific product from the customer’s
memory. The brand association will
influence customers positively and the
extension of the brand will lead to
brand association. This shows that
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brand extension is important for a
company (Kim et al., 2014).
Proprietary assets are some essential
factors such as intellectual property,
copyrights, and others. Implementing
this method will help the company to
overcome the possibilities of crisis.
The brand should maintain
consistency to reinforce itself
(Beverland et al., 2015).
Conclusion
This section of the study concludes
that branding plays a vital role as a
marketing tool. Optimum Impression
Ltd. should use their brand name in
order to promote their products and
services. Branding delivers a clear
message to the consumer segment.
Branding motivates the customers to
buy a product from that particular
brand. In longer-term branding will
help to generate more revenues.
Branding is responsible for corporate
respect. Optimum Impression Ltd.
should use proper strategy and
planning to promote their brand.
Branding will unlock multiple
opportunities for the brand.
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Task 2
Brand portfolio and hierarchy management (LO2)
Introductions
In this section, PepsiCo is chosen for the discussion. PepsiCo is a multinational
beverage and snack company. The brand is one of those leading beverage brands
all over the world. Brand portfolio strategy is one of the most complex and important
strategies in business world. Brand portfolio is the collection of small brands under
the control of a parent company.
PepsiCo has brands such as Frito-Lay Quaker oats and others in their brand
portfolio. The Frito-Lay and the Quaker oats contribute 23% and 4% of PepsiCo’s
net revenue (Caloyeras et al., 2014). PepsiCo gives same importance to all brands
and makes sure that each brand can get a well-defined role. The brand manages
the other brands actively. The organization provides enough funding so that the
brands can accomplish their role. PepsiCo understands the role of sub-brands while
deciding the launch of any new product. Brand portfolio strategy is related to
business strategy. It has brought the opportunity of business extension to the
PepsiCo. The sub brands have helped PepsiCo by reducing the risk of brand
extensions. The organization is a powerful master brand as it deals with
organizational heritage and others. PepsiCo only adds those brands which are
required. Other competitive brands do not focus on adding selective brands which
are leading them towards less production.
Hierarchy management of brands within an organization’s portfolio
Hierarchy is used to structure an organization. Brand management hierarchy
manages the performance and growth of particular brands. There are four levels of
brand hierarchy management which includes corporate brand, family brand,
individual brand and modifier (Keller and Brexendorf, 2017). The hierarchy manages
the design of a logo and brand image. It helps to establish some points that are
useful for separating one brand from other competitive brands. PepsiCo is one of
the leading corporate brands. Corporate branding involves the practice of naming a
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product same as the brand’s name (Biraghi and Gambetti, 2015). The brand has
used their equity to spread awareness about their products. Corporate branding has
broadened the scopes of PepsiCo. Corporate branding is a different activity from the
product and services marketing. Corporate brands and other brands connect by the
brand architecture. Brand architecture is a structure of brands within a corporate
entity. PepsiCo focuses on the branding of every product by involving its own brand
elements. Brand architecture has helped the company to enhance their brand
equity. The brand should use a different brand for different entities to ignore the
problematic association and conflict in the longer term. In this hierarchy, the lower
level is monitored by the higher level. There is a strong bond between PepsiCo and
other companies that help them to face the tough times together (Grandi, 2016).
Figure 2: Brands Model
(source: Huang and Cai, 2015)
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Brand management helps to bring out tangible and intangible features for
customers. Brand equity plays a major role in managing the brand in the
organization portfolio. The main motive of managing brand as a group is to generate
more revenues. The brand portfolio needs a marketing head or central head
depending upon the size and growth of an organization. The goal of all sub-brands
of PepsiCo should be the same. There are some tangible and intangible benefits of
brand equity. Brand equity helps to distinguish between other products available in
the market. Brand equity models help to create strategic plan for an organization.
The backbone of brand equity model involves the energized differentiation, esteem,
relevance (Huang and Cai, 2015). Differentiation is very important for distinguishing
between two products or brands. Relevance covers the marketing segmentation by
perceiving the importance of a brand (Yang et al., 2015). Esteem indicates the
growing and declining popularity of organizations through the customer’s
perspective. Knowledge refers to the customer’s awareness of a product or a brand.
If a brand has well-established brand equity they will easily attract customers. There
are two types of techniques by which the branding equity can be measured.
The techniques include quantitative and qualitative research technique (Uggla,
2015). The first research technique covers the identification of possible brand
associations. The second technique measures the unstructured approaches in order
to monitor customer responses. PepsiCo should align their brand management
strategy with brand equity so that they can extract the best result from those brands.
There are lists of things which can be availed by using brand equity. If PepsiCo
wants to launch a new product it will be easier to promote that as the organization
already has good brand equity. PepsiCo will be able to protect itself from the
competitive edge in the market. The most important achievement will be customer
loyalty, which will benefit the company in the longer term. The brand equity will also
help the sub-brands to be recognized easily.
Conclusion
Brand management will help PepsiCo. PepsiCo is a strong brand and to build the
company more strong the brand should use strategic brand management. Marketers
should consistently convey the brand’s meaning in order to reinforce their brand.
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The section of the study concludes that PepsiCo should maintain their strategic plan
to monitor its sub-brands. Those brand associations will bring more opportunities for
the company.
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Brand Extension
Related Unrelated
Parent and Brand
extension different
Product different
Category related Image related
Parent Brand
Same Product
New Variant
Parent Brand
Different Product
Comparable
Benefit
Task 3
Brand extension and leverage (LO3)
Brand leveraging is adding a new product to an existing company to take entry to a
new product category. It is a marketing strategy for the existing brand. This can be
in terms of any new flavor, package size, color, form, nutritional content or special
fragment to attract some set of consumers. Variety attracts people, which satisfy
consumers, as they demand more variety for any particular product. Brand
leveraging strategy mainly used by the strong and existing brand to get less
competition value (Brexendorf et al., 2017). This brand leveraging and extension
can expand the product class and help the organization to get entry into a new
product category. The brand extension always helps the brand to increase their
visibility. The brand expansion enables the parent to mark likewise from numerous
points of view; first, it gets clearness mark significance, second brand augmentation
can add to the parent brand's relationship by either including or fortifying this
affiliation (Romeo et al., 2015).
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