Brand Management Report: Strategies for Brand Management and Equity

This report delves into the multifaceted world of brand management, exploring its importance as a marketing tool and its impact on business practices. It examines the key components of a successful brand strategy, including purpose, consistency, emotions, flexibility, employee involvement, loyalty, and competitive awareness. The report further analyzes different strategies of portfolio management, brand hierarchy, and brand equity management. It also discusses various techniques used to leverage and extend a brand, culminating in a case study of Marks and Spencer, demonstrating techniques for measuring and managing brand value over time. The report covers topics such as the importance of branding in marketing, increasing credibility, building client stability, and increasing the value of a business. The report also includes an analysis of brand equity, portfolio management, and brand hierarchy. The report covers strategies for brand equity management which includes brand strategy, communication, awareness, and reputation. This assignment is contributed by a student to be published on the website Desklib, a platform which provides all the necessary AI based study tools for students.

BRAND MANAGEMENT

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION................................................................................................................................3
LO1.......................................................................................................................................................3
P1 Importance of branding as a marketing tool and influences of it in business practice...............3
P2 Key Components Of A Successful Brand Strategy For Building And Managing Brand Equity4
LO2.......................................................................................................................................................5
P3 Different Strategies Of Portfolio Management, Brand Hierarchy And Brand Equity
Management.....................................................................................................................................5
LO3.......................................................................................................................................................7
P4 Use Of Different Techniques Used To Leverage And Extend Brand.........................................7
LO4.......................................................................................................................................................8
P5 techniques for measuring and managing brand value over time using Marks and Spencer as an
example............................................................................................................................................8
CONCLUSION..................................................................................................................................10
REFERENCES...................................................................................................................................11

INTRODUCTION
Brand management refers to that how brand is perceived in the market and analyse it. Brand
management includes price, packaging and looks. In brand management the organisation has to
improve relationship with target market in which their customer exists.
Marks and Spencer was founded in 1884 Michael Marks and Thomas Spencer. It is a big retailer
company in united kingdom. This company is selling many of the items like -food and beverage,
clothes, home appliance and furniture and many of the things. This report will discuss about
importance of brand management, key components of brand equity, different strategies of portfolio
management, different type of techniques for managing brand management. brand hierarchy on
global level. Further this report will explain components of successful brand strategy like: Purpose:
For any successful brand, its purpose is really important, it is not only a promise, it is a factor which
separates the brand from its competition. It is basically the reason for any companies' existence,
Consistency: Main point of consistency is to avoid takings about things or no wrong message is
passed which do not relate to your brand either from social media post or advertisements. Even a bit
of mistake can off-track your strategy. Emotions: Branding always focuses on customers emotional
side rather than rational side. When someone thinks that how they feel about the brand is all
emotional, rational are only attributes. When a company makes all there customers feel as if they
are a part of large group they consumers feel the desire to build relationship, flexibility: Sometime it
may feel as if flexibility is a contradiction to consistency but its nothing like that, employee
involvement: When a business focusses on building a brand strategy, They shouldn't just focus on
their customer in fact they should also include all their employees because they are on the front line
to implement the strategy. If a business itself isn't following its core values, then its branding will
fail. Like Marks and Spencer are directly involved with their employers, loyality: A company
should focus on keeping a customer rather than only focusing on getting new customers. They
should try to keep their customers happy by rewarding them with discounts or with points or any
other kind of offers. Further this report will explain portfolio management which is basically art and
science of taking decisions about investment policies and mix, matching all its investment to its
policies, allocating assets to individual or institution and risk balancing against performance.
LO1
P1 Importance of branding as a marketing tool and influences of it in business practice
Brand is the big idea to set customers mind towards the product. Many people exist in the
world who only believes in brand and they have positive attitude towards the product associate with
brand. Branding is important as a marketing tool(Oladepo and Abimbola, 2015). Customers have

many expectations with the product which used by them. People have alternative choices but a little
time so they penetrate towards brand.
Increase Credibility- Brand management helps in increasing credibility of any brand and it
also increases purchasing power of customer and selling power of brand. Brand management
includes many of the thing like price, logo, comfort and all the things which used by customer and
understanding the need of consumer that what they want from the brand and also know about their
positivity and negativity of the brand.
Stability of clients- Brand is an idea to penetrate the target market and brand know about
the customers that what things make them comfortable with brand and it increases stability of the
customers because if brand gives them what they want then why they have to switch it. Marks and
Spencer have to use swot analysis for improve their brand and to make relations with consumers.
Increase value of business- Value of brand depends on the relation with customer that how
Marks and Spencer use their opportunities to make consumer comfortable with the brand. They use
online forms and social media to increase good relations with customers and once they build
positioning in the mind of customer then no one switch the brand because relation is the big thing to
achieve goals and increase business value.
Stable with expectations and standard- Expectations is very big thing and it is critical for
any brand to stable with expectations of customer. Customers know very well about the brand
because the use their product but the people who are not using that product don't know that what
really that brand is(Ottman, 2017). They know about the brand through social media and what other
users feel about that, they put their review on social media and other people make their review on
the bases of it. So brand also make comfort with it and know about the weakness and they will do
something for it. Benefits of branding are Increase in trust, loyal customers, Improving image of
brand and a relatable identity.
Marks and Spencer have to use these ideas to improve brand -Create the best logo which is
attractive and memorable, Use of social media, make people aware about brand, look for different
media strategies. Spend on the brand logo because it is the first thing from which customers
penetrate and also work for awareness of people and use media strategies to make brand popular
and use advertisement which provide customer something different in comparison to other brands.
P2 Key Components Of A Successful Brand Strategy For Building And Managing Brand Equity
For development of a particular successful brand and to achieve all its goals a long term
plan is needed which is called brand strategy. If a brand strategy is well-defined and executed then it
will affect the business in all aspects because it is directly connected to competitive environment,
customer's need and emotions(Elliott and et.al, 2015). So it is clear that it is important to have a

strong brand strategy for a brand to be guided properly. There are seven components for a
successful brand strategy:
 Purpose: For any successful brand, its purpose is really important, it is not only a promise,
it is a factor which separates the brand from its competition. It is basically the reason for any
companies' existence. There are two ways a purpose can be viewed as: Functional: In this
concept success evaluation is done in terms of commercial and immediate reasons for
example the basic purpose of a business can be to make money. Intentional: In this concept
success is related to all the abilities useful for making money and doing good worldwide.
Purpose of Marks and Spencer is to serve people as a general store for middle class people
to lower-upper class people by producing quality products.
 Consistency: Main point of consistency is to avoid takings about things or no wrong
message is passed which do not relate to your brand either from social media post or
advertisements. Even a bit of mistake can off-track your strategy. This doesn't mean that
same template should be followed and everything looks same, plane and simple. But in all
of these emotions should remain same. In 2017 Marks and Spencer sales decreased because
of lack of consistency and authority because shoppers didn't understand the message they
wanted to deliver.
 Emotions: Branding always focuses on customers emotional side rather than rational side.
When someone thinks that how they feel about the brand is all emotional, rational are only
attributes. When a company makes all there customers feel as if they are a part of large
group they consumers feel the desire to build relationship.
 Flexibility: Sometime it may feel as if flexibility is a contradiction to consistency but its
nothing like that. Its more related to tactics and execution of a brand. Company should never
be afraid to try new means to communicate with audience. Instead of sticking to the old
methods of communication, they should try to meet them where they are.
 Employee involvement: When a business focusses on building a brand strategy, They
shouldn't just focus on their customer in fact they should also include all their employees
because they are on the front line to implement the strategy(Godey and et.al., 2016). If a
business itself isn't following its core values, then its branding will fail. Like Marks and
Spencer are directly involved with their employeers.
 Loyalty: A company should focus on keeping a customer rather than only focusing on
getting new customers. They should try to keep their customers happy by rewarding them
with discounts or with points or any other kind of offers.

 Competitive Awareness: Last part of the brand strategy is to know who their competition is
and how they are representing themselves in the market and move forward accordingly.
LO2
P3 Different Strategies Of Portfolio Management, Brand Hierarchy And Brand Equity
Management.
 Portfolio Management:
It is basically art and science of taking decisions about investment policies and mix, matching all its
investment to its policies, allocating assets to individual or institution and risk balancing against
performance. Main roots of portfolio management process model lies in quality management cycle
is plan, do, check, act. Further it was modified as plan, act do check which in portfolio management
can be said as portfolio planning, portfolio prioritization, portfolio Execution, portfolio
monitoring.
Portfolio management Framework:
It can be separated into Four main layers. First layer is Primary layer which consist of portfolio
planning, portfolio prioritization, portfolio Execution, portfolio monitoring. Then comes the
support layer which is the second layer which provides main management processes which ensures
successful execution of risk management, technology, project management and financial
management. Then comes the organization layer which is supported by all the above processes and
utilize techniques, matrix and terminology across the whole organization. At last comes the
Architecture layer which describes all the software tools required for the support of portfolio
management.

 Brand hierarchies:
Brand hierarchies is useful when dealing with portraying a companies branding strategy graphically
either by displaying numbers or by displaying nature of all brand elements across its products. It's
basically to realize that in how many ways we can brand a product which depend upon use of
number of brand elements used weather new or old and how they are combines for any
product(Keller, 2014). We can construct hierarchy to see how all the products are nested according
to their brand elements. There are many ways to define hierarchy levels and brand levels such as :-
company brand, family brand, individual brand, modifier and product description.
 Strategies for Brand equity management: Each brand have some measures of brand
equity. Its a factor of ability of a brand of attracting or able to keep customers(Davcik,
Vinhas da Silva and Hair, 2015). There are 8 strategies for maximizing brand equity such as:
Brand Strategy: To create a brand which is respected and recognized and for that successful brand
strategies should be developed. For developing brand strategies excellent planning, communication
and coordination is required at manufacturing level, sales and distribution level.
Communication: Without a powerful communication strategy brand equity cannot be achieved. If
Figure 1: Portfolio Management Framework
(Source: Andrew Maker, 2018)

we talk about communication service company its important to ensure professional and accurate
communication in market.
Awareness: Awareness in brand is means to make customers remember about the brand. It is
important if the company is competing to many products. Brand awareness can be done through
advertisement, promotion on social media and content marketing.
Reputation: In today's world a companies' reputation can be build or destroyed within minutes.
Any brands' reputation can be protected by hiring a skilled communicator who will respond to
customers questions and negative comments quickly, professionally and efficiently.
Legal and ethical decision making: These are the main aspects of a brands' equity. If brands
operates legally and ethically then it will help in building long term relationship and build trust.
LO3
P4 Use Of Different Techniques Used To Leverage And Extend Brand.
Brand leveraging is a strategy which uses existing brand powers to support companies' entry
to the new market but related to its product category. Brand leveraging helps a company to
communicate its new product information to its customers. Brand leveraging has many advantages
such as:- more product means more space to the brand and more opportunities to sale, cost of brand
leveraged products need less cost to be introduced as compared to ta completely new product, if
products are in grater number then it increases the manufacturing efficiency and raw
materials(Zhang, Bhattacharyya and Ram, 2016). With the help of brand leveraging brand
extension can be done easily. In simple words we can say that advantage of using same brand name
gives companies advantage of the power and value that brands already have rather than building a
completely new brand which will take both time and cost.
Ansoff's Matrix: It is basically a strategic planning tool that provides framework which helps senior
managers, leaders and marketers to make strategies for further growth. It has four growth
alternatives like- market penetration: In this strategy organizations tries to grow using existing
market and product. Market development: In this strategy a firm tries to expand into new market
using existing products this is done by Marks and Spencer. Product development: in this company
try to extend using new products in existing market. Diversification: In this an organization tries to
grow using new products in new market.
This can further be explained using three different ways of leveraging a brand such as:-
 Brand extension: Using same brand name for new product categories is called brand

extension. It is not necessary that the extended product should be related or unrelated to
existing product categories. Brand extension is done by Marks and Spencer. But before
doing this a company need to find product category in which the established brand name
will work and in which category it will not work(Ambrose and Harris, 2017). For doing this
first the company need to find out why the brand name established is successful in its
current business. Advantage of brand extension is that it reduce risk of releasing new
products and is even less costly then other launch strategy.
 Line extension: New variation in products such as product formulation, flavours, size,
model, or colours within same product are launched under same brand name. This can be
useful when company wants to reach new customer segment, who want to see new benefits
not being offered until now in the same brand category. But this leads to manage focus on
minor changes like packaging, modification etc. rather than focusing on real innovation.
 Brand stretching or vertical extension: The company might see opportunities in the main
or value segment of the market also besides its existing market. These movements are
called downscaling or up scaling respectively. Brand stretching may be done because of
intense competition in existing market or they sense new opportunities in new segments like
premium or popular segments in market. It can also be done in three ways such as: scaling
entire brand, totally new product to be introduced for up scaling or downscaling position or
in the last one thing can be done such as keeping the original brand as the main brand and
treating others as sub brands.
LO4
P5 techniques for measuring and managing brand value over time using Marks and Spencer as an
example
Every organization knows that their brand is valuable. So, there are few techniques to
measure and manage their brand value over time. Few of them are explained below such as:
 Clarify their perspective: There are different perspective to view brand value. Company
should know that how much more can a customer pay for the same product or service. It is
the main hard perspective(Keller and Brexendorf, 2017). There is also a soft perspective
which focuses on value due to which new products are introduced. There is also another
perspective in which customer based brand equity is checked i.e. what customer think, feel

and act towards the brand. It can be helpful only if the company clear first that which
perspective they want to follow and what are the outcomes they want to achieve. Like in
Marks and Spencer company focuses on customer based brand equity and take decisions
accordingly
 Determine their research goals: Research for brand value falls under tracking, extending
brand power or exploring that what all changes can be done. These measures affect social
media or interactive media and have impact on advertising campaigning. Tracking based
market research may compare competitive brands or product against bench mark.
 Understand Customers brand attitude: In the measurement of brand equity of customer
based perspective experience of customers towards the brand is focused(Gensler and et.al.,
2015). If the brand is stronger than customers' attitude towards the service or product is also
stronger. In today's worlds customer can easily communicate their brand attitude strength to
others via social media, social sharing or customers reviews. Marks and Spencer always
focuses on any customer review or any social media sharing so that it doesn't impact their
brand value.
 Identify brand equity components to measure: Awareness, image association and reach
are all measures of brand equity and may reflect the impact of advertisement campaigns
(traditional) and also influence interactive or social media. It is basically an indicator which
focus on how products or services comes into spotlight because of branding.
 Measure perceived brand differentiation: Product differentiation is really important for
brand loyalty, Switching brand potential and confidence in a brand. Costumers perception is
the strongest about brand differentiation, when any experience has occurred about service
or product has occurred. But a company needs to keep in mind that product differentiation
is not immune to advertising, so it may be possible that it may lead itself to measurement
around multiple media channels.
 Use both Qualitative and quantitative approaches: Both the approaches are included in
brand equity. In qualitative focus groups are included which may provide exploring
customers motivation and perspective. On the other hand in quantitative approach
numerical methods can reveal customers decision making power like conjoint analysis.
Marks and Spencer always does qualitative analysis.
 Brand Awareness: First and the foremost thing to increase brand value is to increase brand
awareness. Only if customers will know about the brand only then they will think about
your brand. So first technique is to increase brand awareness.

 Preference matrix: preference of customer is a powerful factor for increasing company's
brand value by setting brand relevance in which customers agree to company values, then
customer should be able to access all the products and services of the company, customer
should be able to connect emotionally with companies products and at last measure how
many customers are willing to pay how much for your products.
 Financial matrix: For this four measures should be kept in mind which are prices should be
set according to the quality and competition in the market, transaction value should be
average, customers should be valued for lifetime and offered many offers which companies
provide and at last rate of sustained growth should be measured..
CONCLUSION
From the above study it has been summarised that brand management is an important part of
Marks and Spencer. Brand management included with many things like logo, price, understanding
power of customer. This file had talked about the importance of branding and necessity of brand
management for improving credibility, stability of clients and many more. Report has talked about
key components of a successful brand strategy for building and managing brand equity. Above
talked about different strategies of portfolio management, brand hierarchy and brand equity
management, that all are important for sustainable performance of Marks and Spencer. Described
that how a brand had measured with some techniques.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Oladepo, O.I. and Abimbola, O.S., 2015. The influence of brand image and promotional mix on
consumer buying decision-a study of beverage consumers in Lagos State, Nigeria. British
journal of marketing studies, 3(4). pp.97-109.
Ottman, J., 2017. The new rules of green marketing: Strategies, tools, and inspiration for
sustainable branding. Routledge.
Elliott and et.al., 2015. Strategic brand management. Oxford University Press, USA.
Godey and et.al., 2016. Social media marketing efforts of luxury brands: Influence on brand equity
and consumer behavior. Journal of business research, 69(12). pp.5833-5841.
Keller, K.L., 2014. Designing and implementing brand architecture strategies. Journal of Brand
Management. 21(9). pp.702-715.
Davcik, N.S., Vinhas da Silva, R. and Hair, J.F., 2015. Towards a unified theory of brand equity:
conceptualizations, taxonomy and avenues for future research. Journal of Product &
Brand Management. 24(1). pp.3-17.
Zhang, K., Bhattacharyya, S. and Ram, S., 2016. Large-Scale Network Analysis for Online Social
Brand Advertising. Mis Quarterly.40(4).
Ambrose, G. and Harris, P., 2017. Packaging the brand: the relationship between packaging design
and brand identity. Bloomsbury Publishing.
Keller, K.L. and Brexendorf, T.O., 2017. Measuring brand equity. Handbuch Markenführung. pp.1-
32.
Gensler and et.al., 2015. Listen to your customers: Insights into brand image using online
consumer-generated product reviews. International Journal of Electronic
Commerce. 20(1). pp.112-141.
Online References
Andrew Maker, 2018. Portfolio Management Framework. [Online]. Available through
<https://www.tacticalprojectmanagement.com/it-portfolio-management-framework/>