Brand Management Report: M&S Brand Management Analysis and Evaluation

This report provides a detailed analysis of brand management principles, using Marks & Spencer (M&S) as a case study. It explores the importance of branding, key factors in successful brand strategy, and the role of brand equity. The report examines portfolio management strategies, brand hierarchy, and brand equity management models, including the Keller model. It evaluates collaborative brand management approaches at both domestic and global levels. Furthermore, it assesses techniques for measuring and managing brand value, referencing examples of companies and M&S's strengths and weaknesses in brand leverage. The report concludes with an overview of the application of these concepts and their impact on M&S's business practices, ultimately highlighting the significance of adapting to changing market dynamics and customer needs for brand success and sustainability.

Brand Management

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION ..........................................................................................................................3
LO1..................................................................................................................................................3
P1 Importance of branding as a potential technique for marketing and the way it is used in a
business practice.....................................................................................................................3
P2 The key factors of successful brand strategy for building and managing brand equity....4
LO 2.................................................................................................................................................6
P3 Analysing various strategies of portfolio management, brand hierarchy and brand-equity
management through the use of theories................................................................................6
LO3 .................................................................................................................................................8
P4 Evaluation of different ways through which brands are managed collaboratively and in
partnership both at domestic and global level........................................................................8
LO4..................................................................................................................................................9
P5 Various types of techniques for measuring and managing brand value with the examples of
companies...............................................................................................................................9
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................11
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................12

INTRODUCTION
Brand Management is related with marketing function that uses different tools in order to
increase the overall perceived value of different product line. In order to achieve brand value a
complete understanding is required with respect to the brand and its target market. Present study
is based on the organization Mark and Spencer which is a retail company established in the year
1884 by M. Marks and Thomas Spencer having its head quarter at London, UK. Presently
company is having 80,787 employees at 1463 locations with over all revenue of about
£10,3777.3 million. The report will include the role of branding as a measuring tool and the way
has emerged in the business practices of M&S. Furthermore the report will include key
components of successful brand strategy to manage brand equity of the company. Report will
also include different techniques of portfolio management, brand hierarchy and brand equity
management(Gaustad and et.al., 2019). Further report will evaluate the way brands are managed
collaboratively and in partnership both domestically and internationally. Finally report will
evaluate different kinds of techniques for measuring and managing brand value used by different
organization.
LO1
P1 Importance of branding as a potential technique for marketing and the way it is used in a
business practice.
Branding is concerned with creating a name, logo and design that creates a separate
identity for the product or service and distinguishes it from its competitors in the market. It is
extremely crucial to establish a brand name for the product as it helps in attracting customers and
maximise company's profits. The Marks & Spencer created a separate brand name for itself
which made them successful but the company failed to create a brand strategy and that led to its
ultimate failure. Importance of branding includes
 Recognition: Branding promotes recognition which means that it makes it easy for the
customers to recognize the product and purchase it accordingly. It is imperative for every
business to create a brand value as it would help in increasing their growth and
sustainability.
 Competitive advantage: The advantage of branding is that it helps a business in achieving
competitive advantage. A good brand name and logo speaks for itself and further attracts

the customers to buy it. Marks and Spencer created a strong brand value especially in the
United Kingdom which gave them a competitive advantage but unfortunately the
company failed to keep up with the changing needs and wants of the public and that
resulted in their overall failure and shutting down of stores(Çifci and et.al., 2016).
Evaluating successful management of brands using branding theory
The three stage theory of branding focuses on creation of a brand and it successful
positioning towards the target audience. The three steps in the branding procedure includes
 Design: Design is an important aspect of a product or service. It includes the colour,
shape and size of the product. For this purpose, it is important for a company to develop
and design products according to the needs and wants of their customers. Marks and
Spencer used to design dynamic range of products by performing market research but
within the past few years the company faced downfall as it did not performed market
research and now it is finding difficult to survive in this extremely competitive market.
 Value proposition: Value proposition is concerned with what the company has to offer.
Value proposition may include the values attached with the product. It is important to
provide unique and additional values in order to develop a brand name for product or
service(Davis, 2017).
 Positioning: Positioning means what the company wishes to portray in consumer's mind
regarding the product. It is imperative to create a strong image ion the minds of consumer
which leads them to buying the product every single time.
P2 The key factors of successful brand strategy for building and managing brand equity.
Strong brand names cannot be easily created, it takes a complete brand strategy to build
them. In the view point of author, it is essential to have successful brand strategy as it can help a
company in building strong brand name for their goods and services which will further help in
increasing their profits and market share accordingly. The key elements of successful brand
strategy involves:
 Customer satisfaction: Customer satisfaction is the most important thing to achieve for
any organization. It is the first step for any company if they wish to create a brand name
for themselves(Gaustad and et.al., 2019). The Marks and Spencer company focused on
creating customer satisfaction which helped them in establishing a brand name for
themselves.

 Transparent narrative: It is imperative for a business to be transparent with its
customers. Also, it is the fundamental duty of every company to disclose all the necessary
details and information regarding the quality of products and services as it would increase
the trust between consumer and the company and also help in smooth functioning of the
business in the long run(Keller and Brexendorf, 2017). Marks and Spencer company also
communicates with additional information to their stakeholders in order to maintain close
relation with them. Some of the information shared by the company involves Business in
the community index (BITC) CR index and CDP. The company also talks about their
social roles and responsibilities and sustainability at various events in order to establish
their brand image.
 Personalized customer experience: In today's dynamic and competitive environment, it
has become important for every company to provide personalized attention to the
potential customers. Also, the companies must use artificial intelligence and other means
of digital technology which can help them by providing an overall better experience to
the customers and answering their problems in a better manner. A good and smooth
customer experience and relationship also enhances the brand image of an organization.
The Marks and Spencer has been warded as the best company in Britain to provide
smooth customer experience at Loyalty magazine's annual awards.
 Human interaction: In contrast to above statement, human interaction is still the closest
thing available to make customers buy the product. It has been identified that the
customers feel ignored with extensive E-mails and internet promotion(Scott and Walker,
2017). Therefore, it is necessary that a company also provides real human touch and build
relationships even further.
Brand Equity can help a company in many ways and it is mainly concerned with the
profits and success achieved by the company by the help of their brand name. The brand equity
also gives freedom to charge a premium price for the product because the customers feel loyal
towards the product. Thus, brand equity can be built only if a company adopts and implement
brand strategy successful(Toms and Zhang, 2016).

LO 2
P3 Analysing various strategies of portfolio management, brand hierarchy and brand-equity
management through tuse of theories.
Portfolio management is mainly concerned with arty and science of making investment
decisions, mix and policies and also emphasises on matching decisions with objectives, business
allocation and balancing of risks against the business performance.
Harry Markovitz Model Portfolio management theory: The Markovitz model theory was
discovered in the year 1952 by Harry Markovitz and it mainly focuses on analysing various
portfolios of number of securities and finally selects the most suitable and appropriate portfolio.
The model uses statistical and mathematical analysis for optimum allocation of assets. It is the
theory of risk return choices and based on the simple concept of 'efficient portfolios'(Zhang,
2015).
Brand hierarchy is a component of branding strategy that emphasises on displaying the
characteristics and number of common brand elements across company's products thus revealing
the ordering of brand elements. Brand hierarchy involves various elements like corporate brand,
family brand, single individual brand and modifiers.
 Corporate brand: Corporate branding is concerned with using company's name as a brand
name. It is used by various companies like Coca-Cola, IBM, Heinz and Apple.
 Family brand: When a group of products are given similar brand name which means that
different products of an organization are marketed and promoted under a single family
name. Marks and Spencer company uses family brand name strategy to market their
products.

 Individual brand: Individual branding includes marketing and selling of products under
different name as it helps in creating separate identity for each product. This helps in the
overall growth of the company. Unilever and Proctor & Gamble are great examples that
signify the importance of individual branding.
 Modifiers: Modifier level branding states that despite of how he company chooses to
market its products and name given by them, the customers distinguish according to their
wish and choices. Major example of modifier includes Mercedes and BMW.
Brand equity management means the additional premium value received by a company
by the customers in the name of its brand value. In order to achieve brand equity, it is imperative
for a business to provide good quality products that are easily recognizable, reliable and superior
in quality. Brand equity of an organization also gives them competitive advantage and also helps
the company to make bigger profit with their continuous growth(Zhang, 2015).
The appropriate model for brand equity is Keller's model.
 Salience: Salience is considered with looking at the brand from customer's point of view.
It analyses reasons that why should consumers associate themselves with the product.
 Performance and imagery: The second point is associated with the overall performance
of the product. It analyses the quality of the product, its design, shape and size and
whether it meeds customer needs or not.
Imagery is concerned with creating an image in the minds of consumer regarding their satisfied
needs both socially and psychologically. It can also be promoted through word of mouth and
targeted marketing.
 Judgement and feelings: The third step is concerned with the thoughts and opinions of
the customers after using a product. It can either be actual or perceived and also based on
the relevancy of the product. This is majorly concerned with the personal thoughts and
opinions of customers.
 Resonance: It is the last stage in Keller's model that is concerned with identifying
whether the consumers have become loyal to the product or service or not. Resonance is
the man objective for performing the Keller model for a company there are various
factors like price, product, quality, customer service and previous experiences that help in
achieving customer loyalty and further defines the success of an organization.

Companies like Marks&Spencer failed to adopt Keller model which resulted in their downfall
and finally the company decided for closing down of more than 100 stores all over the Britain by
the year 2022.
LO3
P4 Evaluation of different ways through which brands are managed collaboratively and in
partnership both at domestic and global level
Brand Leverage:- It is a strategy that is used by different companies in order to use the power of
existing brand name in order to support the new entry of product that is related to same product
category by having a proper communication to the customers with respect to products
information.
Strength and weaknessof M&S brand:-
Strength:- Powerful offerings in line with the latest industry trends:- Company launched WOW
range in order to promote healthy foods. For the same TV and print campaign showcased
the new ranges of products that was further supported by coordinated campaign in M&S
stores and also on its official site M&S.com.
 Highly effective CSR:- Company is having strong partnership with communities, charities
and NGOs and M&S is having the leading sustainability agenda that have positive impact
on well being and communities by what they do.
Weaknesses:- Public perception:- There is a perception that company is not focusing on teenagers and
young people and is only working to provide products to older people. This perception of
young people is creating different problems for its brand image as most of the customers
are old citizens of the country.
 Need more investment for technology:- At present investment is not at par with respect to
the technology improvement. More money is required to integrate the process across the
board and create its brand awareness.
Ways brands managed collaboratively and in partnership
For domestic level:-
 Celebrity expertise:- M&S usually have valuable customers that are evangelizing its
products as brand advocates. Company have to put efforts in order to find these

customers and make them engage in order to build an effective relationship with the
customers. Company can take help of celebrities that are having well known face in the
society as people have trust on them and they listen to their advice and follow them.
Company can have partnership with them and can make them their brand ambassadors as
it will increase the brand image in eyes of the customers. This can help M&S to manage
the brand collaboratively at domestic market.
For global level:-
 Make use of Social media customer base:- M&S have to reach out its customers base
with the help of creative ideas so that their needs and wants can be identified in an
effective manner. This will help in knowing what customers think about the brand and
the organization can reward to the customers who are giving their precious time for
giving feedbacks. It is not possible to handle the international customers without having a
proper social media platform. Company have to make its site attractive and informative
so that international customers feel friendly to use the site and platform that M&S is
providing them in order to view their offering. This also helps the organization to know
about the feedback of the customers so that respective changes can be brought into the
products.
LO4
P5 Various types of techniques for measuring and managing brand value with the examples of
companies
Different techniques for measuring and managing brand value are:-
Cost based approach:-
According to the approach the actual sum of money that is being spent in order to
establish a brand of the company is generally analysed under this approach as it estimates the
brand value on bases of the cost incurred to create the item. It is tough enough to analyse and
compute historical expenses that were incurred in creating the brands but it become easy to
identify the external marketing expenditures and it may also include promotional expenditures.
The main task is to adjust the respective expenditure with respect to inflation(Gaustad and et.al.,
2019). This approach is further divided into following methods:-
 Accumulated cost:- In this method the historical marketing cost is aggregated that is
developing the brand as actual brand value. It is generally used at the initial stage of

brand creation that is M&S used this technique at its initial brand creation and its benefits
were tough to identify at that stage. It is sometime tough to recapture the historical cost
related to development of the product this method also avoid long term investment and do
not involve quality control, specific expertise etc.
 Replacement cost method:- This method states that respective investment required for
replacing brand with new one. Here cost of launching a new brand is divided by its
probability of success of established brand. First brand of M&S have natural advantages
over the other brands as the company offered. With every new attempt the probability of
success get decreased(Toms and Zhang, 2016)..
 Use of conversion method:-This method estimates the amount of awareness that is in
need to be generated by M&S in order to achieve the sales. There is flaw in this method
that there may be differential in the purchase pattern of generic and branded products and
this indicates that awareness of product is not at only the key driver of sales of the
product.
Income based approach:-
It is the valuation of future net earnings in order to identify the brand value. This method
is used my M&S in order to determine the future potential of the brand and it is generally
compared with open market valuation. Different methods under this approach are as follows:-
 Royalty relief method:- This method is most popular method used by M&S where value
is first determine underlining base for the calculation and it determines the appropriate
royalty rate and growth rate for the brand.
 Differential of price to sales ratio:- In this method differential of price to sales ratios
calculates brand value as the difference between the price estimated with sales ratio for
branded company and for un branded company and then it is multiplied by the sales of
branded company.
 Price Premium method:- This approach is used my M&S as in this approach product is
sell for a premium over generic product. But there is fault in this method as if product
does not command a price premium, the benefit arise on cost and market share
dimensions(Gaustad and et.al., 2019).

CONCLUSION
From above stated study it is been concluded that importance of branding generally
includes Recognition and Competitive advantage. The three steps that branding procedure
includes are Design and strategic positioning. The key components of successful brand strategy
involves customer satisfaction, Transparent narrative, Personalized customer experience and
Human interaction. Further report includes that Brand hierarchy elements are corporate brand,
family brand, individual brand and modifiers. The most common model for brand equity is
Keller's model that includes Salience, Performance and imagery. Strength of M&S related to
brand is that its is having strong offerings in line with latest industry trends and is having highly
effective CSR. Weaknesses are Public perception and Need more investment for technology.
Ways brands managed collaboratively and in partnership are through Celebrity expertise and
Make use of Social media customer base. Company also uses Cost related approach and income
related approach for managing the value of the brand.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Çifci, S and et.al., 2016. A cross validation of Consumer-Based Brand Equity models: Driving
customer equity in retail brands. Journal of Business Research. 69(9). pp.3740-3747.
Davis, M., 2017. The fundamentals of branding. Bloomsbury Publishing.
Gaustad, T. and et.al., 2019. Too much of a good thing? Consumer response to strategic changes
in brand image. International Journal of Research in Marketing.
Keller, K.L. and Brexendorf, T.O., 2017. Measuring brand equity. Handbuch Markenführung,
pp.1-32.
Scott, P. and Walker, J.T., 2017. Barriers to ‘industrialisation’for interwar British retailing? The
case of Marks & Spencer Ltd. Business History. 59(2). pp.179-201.
Toms, S. and Zhang, Q., 2016. Marks & Spencer and the decline of the British textile industry,
1950–2000. Business history review. 90(1). pp.3-30.
Zhang, Y., 2015. The impact of brand image on consumer behavior: A literature review. Open
journal of business and management. 3(1).
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Customer based brand equity. 2019. [Online]. Available. Through
<http://upfrontanalytics.com/what-is-customer-based-brand-equity-and-why-should-you-care/>