Brand Management Report: Marketing Strategies and Brand Equity

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of brand management, focusing on the strategies employed by McDonald's and Optimum Impressions Ltd. It explores key concepts such as brand equity, brand portfolio management, and the Keller brand equity model, illustrating how companies build and maintain a favorable brand image. The report examines different branding approaches like branded house, house of brands, and hybrid models. It also delves into brand hierarchy management, including corporate and family brands. Furthermore, the report discusses brand extension strategies, brand reinforcement, and the importance of marketing in creating and sustaining brand value. The report concludes with an overview of measuring and managing brand value, offering insights into how organizations can optimize their brand management efforts. This report is a valuable resource for understanding the intricacies of brand management and its impact on business success.

Brand Management

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
TASK 1 ...........................................................................................................................................3
TASK 2............................................................................................................................................6
1. Analyse organisation brand portfolio management................................................................6
2. Hierarchy management of brands...........................................................................................7
3. Different strategies used for managing equity of brands........................................................8
TASK 3............................................................................................................................................9
1. Strengths of the brand.............................................................................................................9
2. Weakness that may need attention providing some possible suggestions............................10
3. Collaborative and partnership agreements............................................................................12
TASK 4..........................................................................................................................................12
1. Measuring and managing brand value .................................................................................12
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................15
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................17

INTRODUCTION
Brand management is a process and function of marketing in which different types of
techniques are used to improve the perceived value which customers gets from the product that
company is providing. Main aim of brand management is to improve goodwill of company in the
mind of customers or create a favourable image so as to improve sales and revenue of company
(Abrahams, 2016). For this report, McDonald's and Optimum impressions Ltd is taken for
considerations. It is one of the largest fast food company in the world and has more than 37
thousands stores all over world. Different types of components which helps company to build
successful strategy will be discussed with the help of brand equity model. Concept of portfolio
management will be explained with functional examples. Methods used by company to leverage
and extend their brand in different markets will be elaborated with functional example. Tools
which is used by the organisation to manage their value of brands will be explained.
TASK 1
Brand Is Power
Brand is a combination of symbol, logo, name or any sentence used by company so as to
differentiate their products they have been offering from other competitors. One more term
which is connected to brand is brand equity; which refers to extra money which could be charged
by company due to positive goodwill of organisation and their products in the market. Like if
any customer listens or see I am loving it then they will recognize the brand McDonald's as its
their tag line which is widely famous. There are three components on which brand equity is
based on which are; consumer's perception from the brand, its effect on the customer which
could be positive and negative and at last value which is perceived by them (Barrow and Mosley,
2011). Optimum impressions Ltd marketing department's crucial work is to handle brand and
scan the environment and find out perceive value customers is getting from their product and
how it could be improved so as to increase profitability over time. There are different types of
benefits to branding as company can charge premium pricing for their product, company can
launch different types of products and chances of getting success is high, enhanced credibility of
brands which leads to improve in sales and profitability.
Brand and its goodwill plays an important part in the success of any organisation in any
industry. For instance, company like McDonald's charged premium pricing for their products due

to their high brand image in the market. Due to this most of the competitors set their prices lower
so to attract more customers. Most of the organisation generally use Keller brand equity model
so as to create a favourable image of organisation in the mind of customers.
First phase of equity model i.e., states that company should increase their brand
awareness so to sell their product in the market as if people does not recognize their products
then they would not buy it by considering it a inferior brand over other. For instance,
McDonald's invest heavily in promotion activities so that people of UK would be aware about
their brand. After this, company enters into a new stage which is divided into two phase, in
which first is performance of the product (Buil, De Chernatony and Martinez, 2013). Company
should make their products reliable and durable so that maximum value of money which
customers have paid for the products would be achieve. Other part is imagery which depicts that
products which a company offers should meet their psychological needs so that they would feel
proud when using their product. Best example of this is McDonald's product, as they provides
best quality of food with delicious mixture of vegetables which other competitors does not
provide. After these two phases, customers is in the position of buying company's product due to
effective marketing activities implemented by the company to increase awareness in the market.
Once the product has been bought by customers then expectations of it comes along with that.
Next phase is made up of judgements and feelings in which judgement is based on the features of
products i.e., quality, credibility, considerations and superiority. If customer is satisfied from the
above mentioned factors then they will feel positive towards their brand which creates a positive
impact on the brand performance. For instance McDonald's customer does not prefer to go and
visit any other fast food companies. (Burmann and König, 2011). Word of mouth marketing
plays an important role in this. At this phase customers are fully satisfied by the product they
have bought. In this model, resonance is the last stage which focuses on the relationship between
company and customer. This phase is attained by few companies in which customers are
connected with a brand on social and psychological level. Customers love to recommends those
product which they are using to other customer resulting in indirect improvement in sales of
company. For example, once a McDonald's user will always be a their user as customer won't
like to change their brands it satisfying all the needs and wants. Optimum impressions Ltd can
use this technique to improve their performance over time. Role of marketing department started
at the time of launching a brand in the market, they have to create an attractive logo, make an

interesting headlines so that it would be easier for customer to recognize their products and
company. After that they have to create a brand awareness and maintain favourable image of
company in the mind of customers so that chances of sales would get increased to a certain level.
Marketing plays an important role in creating or demolishing the brand name.
When company's brand has favourable image in the market then it would be easier for
them to extend or stretch their product line so to capture more market and customer share. Brand
extension refers to selling a new product under existing brand name as it would help them to
publicize their product into the market under their parents company brand name and besides this
chances of getting brand loyal customer is also high due to their image in the market. For
instance, McDonald's sells different types of burgers like Big tasty burger but then they have to
increase their sales so to cope up with that they have launched a Big Tasty with Bacon so to
acquire non vegetarian customer. (Solomon, M.R. And et. Al., 2014). On the other side if
company's name is not good in the market then it would create a negative impact on the new
product which could be tackle with the help of brand reinforcement. It refers to constantly
investing money on promotions activities so that brand name would be alive in the mind of
customers. Optimum Impressions could attain this phase by creating awareness for their products
and differentiate their products with other company's with the help of promotion,, advertising,
sales promotions, social media marketing etc. Different types of strategies which could be use by
companies is conducting market research so to find out the needs and modify their product
accordingly. Other than that company can invest more on promotion activities so that company
can revitalise their brands and improve their awareness to some extent. Besides this they can
improve their quality of products by investing in latest technology and techniques (Chauhan and
Pillai, 2013).
It can be concluded from the above mentioned information that branding work as a
marketing tool for any company as it creates credibility of product which is directly connected to
the sales of product. Apart from that, it also assist company to survive in critical situations which
is the reason behind the sustainable business performance of many companies. If company has
better brand image as compare to their competitors then they can charge extra or premium cost
for their product which customers can easily pay for if and only if they are getting maximum
perceived values from the product. Optimum can improve their brand equity if they could
continuously satisfying their customers need and preferences.

TASK 2
1. Analyse organisation brand portfolio management
Brand portfolio is a collection of different types of products with different name which
comes under the single parent company. More products under the umbrella helps company to
acquire more customer and market share which leads to increase in sales and profitability of an
organisation. There are two dimension of brand portfolio which are mentioned below,
 Breadth: It refers to number of different types of product company has for their
customers (DiMartino and Jessen, 2016). For example, McDonald's has different types of
breadth like burgers, ice cream, drinks etc .
 Depth: It states that number of products which comes under different types of product.
For instance, McDonald's products like double cheeseburger, big mac, chicken BLT
comes under burger category vis a vis dipped cone, toffee sundae comes under ice cream.
Different models for brand portfolios is explained with the help of different examples,
 Branded House: It states that when an organisation launch different types of products
and services under the single name i.e., parent's company name. McDonald's is one of the
most suitable example of this as all the products of McDonald's comes under the same
brand name. There are many benefits of this as company does not have to invest in
marketing activities of all the products separately. On the other side, favourable brand
image of parent company helps the new or existing product to grow enormously. Though
there are also drawbacks of branded house like brand dilutions which means if any
product of company has negative or worst image in the market then it will also affects the
sales of other products in a negative way. All the products image is connected to each
other and if any product does not provide the value of money to customers then company
image in whole will also hampered. For example, most of the beverages which offers by
McDonald's starts with their name like Maltesers Reindeer McFlurry or Oreo McFlurry
etc.
 House of brands: It is opposite as compared to branded house as in this, different name
is assigned to the different products which company is offering but all products comes
under the same parent company. In other words when a single company owns a different
types of products in different category's. Main advantage of this technique is that
company can target different types of customers and their needs easily. It also reduces the

risk of getting failed as diversification of products minimizes the risk to a certain level.
One of the cons of house of brands is that more money, strategy, time will be incur while
launching any new product in the market.
 Hybrid model: It is the combination of branded house and house of brands portfolios.
There is advantage of this model as different strategies is implemented for the different
brand but the sub brands does not requires separate marketing activities which assist
company to save their cost and time (Dinnie, 2015).
2. Hierarchy management of brands
Brand hierarchy refers to elaborates all the different types of elements which are
equipped by products.
 Corporate brand: In this type of approach, all the products which a company owns is
launched under the name of company (Sola, 2012). It helps products to get the maximum
awareness of products due to goodwill of the parent company. For instance, different
types of products like McFluffy, Maltesers Reindeer McFlurry, Chicken McNuggets etc.
 Family brand: In this approach, groups of different types of products are given the same
name as their company name. Advantage of using these techniques is that company does
not have to individually invest money on different types of products. They rather invest
on marketing activities of whole company and benefit is distributed among different
types of brands.
 Individual brand: In this types of brand, company launches a different category of brand
which does not falls in the existing product line. Main purpose of this approach is to
capture more customer share so to increase their availability in various areas. For
instance, McDonald's has started selling donuts so that they can attract the customers of
Dunkin donuts.
 Modifiers: In this approach, single product is launched with different types of taste and
shapes so that customer would buy the product according to their needs and wants. For
example, different types of burgers are offer by McDonald's so that they can acquire
different types of customers.
3. Different strategies used for managing equity of brands
It is company and their management responsibilities to handle their brand and its image
in the market as sales of product is directly proportionate to goodwill of company. As if

company has negative image in the market then customer will switch their brand to other
company which has positive image in the market (Elliott, R.H. And et. Al., 2015). Different
types of strategies which McDonald's can use to manage their image will be explained below:
 Continuous differentiation: Customer can only identify products if they are different
from their competitors on the basis of many factors like cost, quality, quantity,
packaging, promotion activities etc (Gromark and Melin, 2011). There are many big
players in fast food sector which are giving tough competitions to McDonald's due to
which they have to stand out from them so to attract customers. McDonald's can extend
their product line so to acquire more customers with different taste like launching spicy
products for Indian etc.
 Legal and ethical laws: Company image is directly linked to working style, culture,
climate of the company. If McDonald's is paying less to the employees or not following
the rules which are set by the local authority then it would attract legal issues which is not
healthy for company's goodwill. Other than that, they should opt those strategies which
are not against any ethical laws. It would enhance the image of McDonald's in the mind
of employees which will leads to better performance thus better quality of products
offered to the customers (Santos-Vijande, M.L. And et. Al., 2013).
 Corporate social responsibilities: Each and every company in the world should pay to
the society as they are using different types of natural resources to run their business like
water, environment, raw materials etc. McDonald's should regularly donate in charities,
schools, society so that every needy person would live their life in a healthy manner.
Apart from that it would also enhance their image in the market which would attract more
customers, investors, shareholders etc which will create a positive impact on the balance
sheet of McDonald's.
 Expansion of business operation: Expanding business is one of the techniques which is
used by many companies to attract more customer and market share but it also helps
company to increase their brand image in the mind of potential customers. Expansion
ensures customers that company has potential and capabilities to cover more market by
giving best quality with lesser price than their competitors.
Aaker Brand Equity model can be used by McDonald's to maintain their brand equity
which is explained below,

 Brand loyalty: Company should try to transform their customers to brand loyal with the
help of different techniques like personalized item, providing best quality, giving extra
discounts extra.
 Brand awareness: Brand equity will only achieve its pinnacle if products or brand
awareness in the market is high. If customers easily recognize company's product in the
market then it would surely create a positive impact in the sales and revenue of product.
It is hard to achieve as unique and effective techniques is used to create brand awareness
in the mind of customers. They can opt different types of marketing activities like sales
promotions, penetration pricing, social media marketing etc. to create brand awareness.
 Perceived quality: McDonald's should try to change their technology constantly as then
only it would be possible for them to improve their quality and decrease there price so to
increase profit margin. They should cope up with the quality their customers demanded.
 Brand associations: Company should try to make a relationship with customers and
products they are offering so to improve their loyalty towards brand. Promotions,
advertising, campaign etc can be use by company to attain brand associations.
 Other proprietary: Patents and intellectual property rights should be maintain by
company so that no other company can copy their uniqueness.
TASK 3
1. Strengths of the brand
Brand leveraging is an approach through which company uses their existing brand value
to support their new product which they are about to launch in the market. For instance, if
McDonald's is launching any new products then it would not requires and special marketing
activities as company brand equity will help that product to create their impact in the market.
Besides this, if company has strong brand equity then customer will easily recognized
McDonald's products which is a positive sign for company's balance sheet. Brand can be
leverage with the help of two techniques i.e., line extension and brand extension.
Line extension Brand extension
It refers to expansion of products line so as to
capture more market share. For example,
McDonald's can introduce new types of drinks
It refers to launching a new products in the
market which they did not have in the product
breadth or depth. For instance, McDonald's can

in their cold drinks line (Hanna and Rowley,
2011). Or in other words, adds variety of
products to the existing line.
launch a new product like pizza in their food
menu.
It helps company to provide different types of
products to their existing customer so that they
won't get bored while eating same kind of
products.
It assist company to acquire new customer and
market share as launching a new product in the
market will also create chances of increase in
sales and profitability (Hanna and Rowley,
2013).
Chances of getting failed is less as customers is
aware about the products and its quality
company offers.
Chances of getting failed is high as customer
are not aware about the products and its quality
so they will hesitate it while using it for the
first time.
Strengths of McDonald's:
 It is one of the oldest and trusted brands in fast food industry as is the reason due to
which they have capture the market leader position from past many years. McDonald's is
operating their business in more than 100 countries in the world due to which their
number of customers is more than any fast food country in the world. McDonald's has
positive balance sheet which depicts that they can invest in marketing activities or
technology advancement which could help them to acquire more customers or improve
their quality to its fullest respectively.
2. Weakness that may need attention providing some possible suggestions
To overcome from the weakness it is important for an organisation so that it can
generates its profits by maximizing the sales. It is important for a company to take weakness as a
chance of opportunities or growth so that it can be converted as a strength for the corporation. To
analyse it is important for a organisation so that it can take necessary steps to overcome from it.
With the help of swot analysis weakness of company can be identify and it can take necessary
steps to overcome so that it can survive for a long time in the market.
There are various weaknesses of McDonald's which are as :

 Gap in the products range sold by the corporation, not much good as the product demand
forecasting, price of some products are high as compare to its competitors.
 Apart from this marketing strategy has not much effective because it focuses to only big
cities of the nations and less innovation in products, negative publicity and high
employee turnover.
Suggestion :
 To overcome from these various weaknesses organisation can minimize the products gap
so that choices can be increase in front of consumers and they can select products as per
their wants as needs.
 Prices should be reasonable so that more numbers of consumers can attract towards the
corporation which leads to maximize the sales and profits (Heding, Knudtzen and Bjerre,
2015). Organisation can forecast the demand so that it can provide those products which
are highly demanded by the consumers. It can do effective planning for the marketing
strategy so that more number of persons can attract towards the company as a result its
market share can be enhanced which leads to maximize the sales as well as profits.
 McDonald's should try to capture those areas which are untapped by the fast food
organisation and it can operates its business in those areas where persons has good
standard of living and income. Company can do publicity in that manner so that persons
does not think that they are eating fast food and include some healthy ingredients in
products so that perception of people can be change about the products of organisation
(Rauschnabel, P.A. And et. Al., 2016).
 High employee turnover can be minimize by hiring skilful and knowledgable employees
so that they will able to work as per the needs of company and bring more productivity.
The needs and wants of workers can be satisfy so that they can survive for a long time in
the corporation.
3. Collaborative and partnership agreements
Collaborative agreement: Collaborative agreement refers to those agreements which
accomplish among two or more persons working together on a project. It is important for an
organisation so that it can find more opportunities in the market which help it to grab more
market share. It is necessary that two or more persons works on same topic and projects so that
effective outcome can be produce. For example, McDonald's can do collaborative agreements

with those companies who are doing same project. If organisation wants to enter in a new market
and it does not know about the food habits and culture of that specific country in that case it can
do collaborative agreements with other organisation who is dong same thing. As a result cost of
research and time can be save and McDonald's can be do extra efforts to know the culture and
food habits of persons in a specific nation.
Partnership agreements : Partnership agreements refers to the agreements among two
or more persons about a same thing which objectives are the same. It involves nature and type of
business, profit sharing ratio, capital contribution etc. It it a written agreement in which roles and
duties are decided as per the rules of partnership deed (Iglesias, Singh and Batista-Foguet, 2011).
McDonald's can make partnership agreements with shops in shopping malls and with the mutual
consent shops can sells the products of organisation on the behalf of McDonald's. Organisation
gives franchises when it wants to open its store in a country and make agreement with the
businessman who can run the business of McDonald's. It is beneficial for both because sales of
corporation can be enhanced which leads to generate more profits and shops can get commission
on the sales of products of company and if sales will maximize than commission will also
increase for the shops. This agreement can benefit the brand by maximising the revenues and
profits of organisation and help to create good image in the market.
TASK 4
1. Measuring and managing brand value
Brand value : Brand value refers to the premium that accrues to a brand from consumers
who are willing to pay extra for it. It can be considered as the net present value of the estimated
future cash flows attributes to the brand. In simple words, the value of brand in the market at
present time is known as brand value. Organisations use it as corporate strategy so that it can
grab more share in the market. It helps to increase the goodwill of company as a result it can
generate more market share and survive in the market for a long term. It is the responsibility of
marketing manager to enhance the brand value of corporation (Johansson and Carlson, 2014). So
that more number of persons can know about the products of organisation and it can be increase
by providing the quality products and services to the consumers as a result they feel satisfy
because consumers will get the value for their spending. For example, organisation can know its
brand value by analysing its growth in sales and profits.