Brand Management Report: Toyota's Brand Portfolio and Hierarchy

This report delves into the core principles of brand management, exploring how organizations like Toyota build and maintain their brands. It begins with an overview of brand development, the brand pyramid, and the advantages of branding, including brand equity and its development. The report then examines the role of marketing in brand building and positioning. The main body of the report analyzes how brands are managed over time, including strategies for strengthening brand equity, brand extensions, and overcoming brand crises. The report further investigates brand portfolio strategies, outlining the house of brand and branded property models. Finally, it discusses brand hierarchy, including corporate, family, and individual brand levels, and their impact on brand equity. The conclusion summarizes the key findings and emphasizes the importance of branding as a crucial marketing tool.

BRAND MANAGEMENT
(HNC5)

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
LO1..................................................................................................................................................1
Building Brands......................................................................................................................1
Managing a Brand over time..................................................................................................3
LO2..................................................................................................................................................4
Brand portfolio Strategy.........................................................................................................4
Brand hierarchy......................................................................................................................5
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................7

INTRODUCTION
Brand management refers to the application of different marketing techniques for specific
products or product line or brand. Toyota is a Japanese multinational automotive company that
deal in luxury vehicles, commercial vehicles, auto-mobiles and engines. The following business
report includes a brief overview of brands and how they are developed. The report further
explains how brands are organised in portfolio and building of brand hierarchies and its
management is also discussed.
MAIN BODY
LO1
Building Brands
Brand and brand pyramid
Brands refers to a product that is manufactured by a organisation under a particular name.
Toyota is automotive company that manufactures different types of products such as commercial
and luxury vehicles, auto-mobiles and engines as well (Wijaya, 2015). Brand development refers
to the process of creating and strengthening of the professional brand services in the target
markets.
Illustration 1: Brand Pyramid
Source:(Brand Equity, 2018)
Brand Pyramid is a tool for defining the essence of the company's brand. The brand
pyramid is used while developing marketing strategies for the Toyota's brand, products and
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services. It aims at binding the customers and also ensuring that the customers choose the same
commodity from the said brand the next time (Finding brand equity: The search for commercial
value, 2018). The brand pyramid is divided in four levels of stages, that includes salience
performances and imagery, judgement and feeling, and resonance. Customer Based Brand Equity
(CBBE) model is Keller's brand equity model that aims at highlighting the four key levels
through which organisation can create a successful and effective brand.
Advantages of branding
Branding is a marketing tool and technique that is used by organisation for creating
name, design or symbol which can be easily identified as belonging of Toyota company. The
branding tool is absolutely critical for a business as it provides impact on the company (Anees-
ur-Rehman and et.al., 2018). It brings changes in people's perception towards products and
brands, it can also drive brand awareness. The benefits of branding also includes it helps in
generating new customers, improves business value and also improves the satisfaction and
motivation level of employees.
Branding also provides benefits to intermediaries as it helps in easier advertising and
promotions, it also establishes identity of products of company. Branding also ensures
repurchasing and that builds brand loyalty and trust in the minds of customers so it provides
competitive advantages.
Branding of Toyota provides benefits to consumers as branded products owns the
responsibility for the usefulness of products and its quality (Chernev, 2018). The branded
products are easily identified so it takes lesser time for shopping to consumers.
Brand Equity
Brand Equity is considered as the extra value or perceived value of the brand paid by the
customers for the products and services. The elements of brand equity include brand association,
awareness and perceived quality. Brand loyalty and trust of customers also leads to create brand
equity.
Develop and grow brand equity
Toyota aims at developing and growing the brand equity for its products in order to gain
more benefits. The company can develop and grow brand equity by providing excellent
experience to customers through brand (France and et.al., 2018). Toyota needs to first aim at
building the brand awareness in the target markets and then focus on association of brand and it
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could be with colours, employees, voice, language, advertisements, experience, etc. Toyota also
needs to focus on providing perceived quality to customers and providing them with best
experience so that target customers prefers the products of Toyota brands and it leads to create
loyalty of customers. All this factors helps in developing and growing of brand equity of
products and services.
Role of marketing in building brand equity and brand positioning
Brand Positioning aims at creating unique impression in minds of customers so that they
associate it with something specific which is distinct from other competitors. Marketing plays an
important role in building brand equity and brand positioning as different marketing programs
are related with merchandise products, price and distribution channels. Marketing can be done
through advertisements, promotions through radio, TV, magazines and newspapers (Kasemsap,
2018). Marketing provides flexibility in effectively targeting consumers and communicating the
message. The marketing can also be done through direct mails and emails that helps in boosting
the brand awareness of Toyota and also in building brand positioning and brand equity.
Managing a Brand over time
Strengthening brand equity, brand extensions, reinforcing and revitalising brands through
innovation.
Business organisation needs to focus on bringing innovation in the business activities and
operation in order to strengthen the brand equity, extension, reinforcing and revitalising the
brands (Liu and et.al., 2018). Brand extension helps in establishing brand name for innovated or
new products and brand revitalising is done for catering the needs of new customers. Brand
reinforcement and revitalising is the strategy that helps business organisation for recapturing the
lost sources regarding brand equity and also for identifying and establishing the new sources.
Toyota needs to focus on bringing innovation in its current products or developing new
products so that it can have benefits of increased market share and profits as well. The company
can make use of brand reinforce or extension in order to increase the brand equity (Theurer And
et.al., 2018).
Overcoming brand crisis
Brand crisis is a form of product harm crisis in which negative event centres on specific
brand of company and the incident may damage or affect the reputation and image of the brand.
The company can recover or restore the brand through making use of trans-media branding and
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specific communication strategies. Trans-media branding is a branding across media and through
various connected media that can effectively help organisation to recover and restore the brands.
Toyota faces the brand crisis in the year 2009 and had to recall many of its vehicles
which affected the brand image and loyalty of target customers. The company aims at
overcoming brand crisis by effectively by making use of trans-media branding and effective
marketing strategies (Uggla, 2015). The company can make use of social media, company
website and blogs for restoring the brand and overcoming crisis. The organisation needs to be
focused and calm in the time of brand crisis and effectively coming up with the strategies for
resolving the brand crisis. The strategies need to be taken action on and the organisation also
needs to nurture the culture of company and focus on raising the bar for brand.
Exploiting converging technologies to engage customers
Technology convergence is where different technologies are combined in single device,
tablet computer is one of the example of converging technology. Organisation needs to make use
of convergent technology in order to effectively engage customers. Toyota aims at attracting
customers and also enriching their experiences through using various convergence techniques
and technologies.
The use of technology helps making the experience of customers more personalized,
which may bring effective results and outcomes for organisation to effectively attract and engage
customers (Wijaya, 2015). Technology can also help Toyota in simplifying the process and
engaging customers. The customers can be engaged effectively if organisation focuses on
resolving their problems and issues and technology can help business organisation to do this.
LO2
Brand portfolio Strategy
Brand portfolio strategy is defined as a field of growing importance in the organisational
world with most contemporary companies having multiple brands in their portfolio. Brand
portfolio strategy allows the brand of Toyota to develop further and to build and support the
company in new way or cost effective ways. Toyota can use the house of brand and branded
property model strategy of brand portfolio for organising their brand.
House of Brand
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Toyota build a different brand set up for market through using house of brand strategy of
the brand portfolio. In the framework of the house of brand strategy, different products lines of
the Toyota represent their own brand identity and positioning. Toyota can organise their brand in
an effective way through presenting different product with different identity (Uggla, 2015).
Branded property model
This model defines that various product of the company produce under only one single
brand for accomplishing desired level of results. Toyota organise this model of brand portfolio
through sharing same vision and values at the all business units, it requires better relationship
and cooperation among company headquarter and their various business units.
Brand hierarchy
Brand hierarchy defined as process of graphically portraying a firms branding strategy by
presenting number and nature of common and distinctive brand element across the firms product.
Toyota organise this brand hierarchy for achieving company goals through attracting consumers
by displaying the various new and existing product of the company with their price and quality.
Toyota organise the corporate brand level of brand hierarchy through presenting
company name somewhere on the products, although the name of company subsidiary may
appear instead of the Toyota. Family brand used in more than one product category but is not
compulsory the name of the company. Toyota use the family brand level for efficient means to
link common association to multiple but distinct products. Toyota can effectively introduce a
new brand cost as lower through applying existing family brand which results in increasing the
demand of new product. Individual brand level defines that individual brand are restricted to
only one product category. Through using this individual brand level Toyota can customize the
brand and also using its supporting marketing activity to meet the specific requirement of the
consumers (Wijaya, 2015.).
Brand equity plays an important role in building a different level of the hierarchy because
it presents the total value of the brand as a separate assets in the organisation. The brands equity
of Toyota is usually based on the brand awareness, loyalty, perceived quality and strong brand
association. It also fulfil the consumers need and maintaining the relationship well with their
consumers.
Customer based brand equity model is a significant tool for managing and developing the
brand of the Toyota because it includes the four level of brand equity pyramid such as identity,
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meaning, response and relationship which helps in building a better brand image of the company
at the market place through providing product information to consumers.
Market research also plays an important role as key brand management tool which
analyse the data about product and services of the firm. Toyota use this tool for improving brand
image through open ended communication or survey and also getting feedback about its
products.
CONCLUSION
The brand management is used for creating a clear image in the minds of target
customers. Brand equity helps business organisation to achieve the trust and loyalty of
customers. Importance of branding as a marketing tool and how it has emerged in business
practices are explained in the report. The report also explains the different Brand portfolio
strategies and hierarchy building.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journal
Anees-ur-Rehman, M. and et.al., 2018. How brand-oriented strategy affects the financial
performance of B2B SMEs. Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing. 33(3). pp.303-
315.
Chernev, A., 2018. Strategic brand management. Cerebellum Press.
France, C. and et.al., 2018. Customer brand co-creation behavior: conceptualization and
empirical validation. Marketing intelligence & planning. 36(3). pp.334-348
Kasemsap, K., 2018. The roles of corporate marketing strategies and brand management in the
global retail industry. In Digital Marketing and Consumer Engagement: Concepts,
Methodologies, Tools, and Applications (pp. 294-325). IGI Global.
Liu, Y. and et.al., 2018. Brand management in mergers and acquisitions: emerging market
multinationals venturing into advanced economies. International Marketing
Review. 35(5). pp.710-732.
Theurer, C.P. And et.al., 2018. Employer branding: a brand equity‐based literature review and
research agenda. International Journal of Management Reviews. 20(1). pp.155-179.
Uggla, H., 2015. Aligning Brand Portfolio Strategy with Business Strategy. IUP Journal of
Brand Management. 12(3).
Wijaya, B. S., 2015. The development of hierarchy of effects model in advertising. International
Research Journal of Business Studies. 5(1).
Online
Finding brand equity: The search for commercial value. 2018. [Online]. Available through:
<http://fabrikbrands.com/finding-brand-equity/>
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