Brand Management of Unilever: Strategies and Challenges

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BRAND MANAGEMENT
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Table of Contents
LIST OF FIGURES...........................................................................................................3
INTRODUCTION..............................................................................................................4
LO1.................................................................................................................................. 5
P1 THE IMPORTANCE OF BRANDING AS A TOOL OF MARKETING AND ITS
EMERGENCE IN BUSINESS PRACTICE AT UNILEVER...........................................5
M1 TO MANAGE THE UNILEVER BRANDS BY APPLYING THE THEORIES,
MODELS AND CONCEPTS.........................................................................................7
P2 THE KEY COMPONENTS OF A SUCCESSFUL BRAND STRATEGY FOR
BUILDING AND MANAGING BRAND EQUITY............................................................8
M2 TO APPLY THE APPROPRIATE EXAMPLES WITHIN AN ORGANIZATIONAL
CONTEXT.................................................................................................................. 10
LO2................................................................................................................................ 12
P3 TO ANALYSE THE STRATEGIES FOR PORTFOLIO MANAGEMENT, BRAND
HIERARCHY AND BRAND EQUITY MANAGEMENT...............................................12
M3 TO APPLY THEORIES, MODELS AND FRAMEWORK FOR PORTFOLIO
MANAGEMENT, BRAND HIERARCHIES AND BRAND EQUITY.............................13
LO3................................................................................................................................ 17
P4 THE BRAND MANAGEMENT OF UNILEVER BOTH AT DOMESTIC AND
GLOBAL LEVEL.........................................................................................................17
M4 THE USE OF DIFFERENT TECHNIQUES USED TO LEVERAGE AND EXTEND
THE BRANDS OF UNILEVER....................................................................................18
LO4................................................................................................................................ 20
P5 THE DIFFERENT TYPES OF TECHNIQUES TO MEASURE AND MANAGE THE
BRAND VALUE USING SPECIFIC ORGANIZATIONAL EXAMPLES.......................20
M5 TO EVALUATE THE TECHNIQUES THAT ARE TO BE APPLIED FOR
MEASURING AND MANAGING THE BRAND VALUE IN RELATION TO
DEVELOPING A STRONG AND ENDURING BRAND..............................................22
CONCLUSION............................................................................................................... 23
REFERENCES...............................................................................................................24
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LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1 Brands of Unilever............................................................................................. 6
Figure 2 Unilever's House Brand Model.........................................................................12
Figure 3 Unilever's Portfolio...........................................................................................15
Figure 4 Effect of Unilever's Brand Hierarchy................................................................15
Figure 5 Brand Value of Unilever...................................................................................23
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INTRODUCTION
Brand management is the composition of tangible and intangible products and services
that create loyalty and trust among customers. The organizations having a strong brand
name has the highest market share and market growth in the economy. Brand
management is all about capturing the market by selling high branded products and
services and forming the positive perceptions of customers about the product. In this
report, the well-known organization named Unilever, its branding strategies and
challenges faced for the improvement and solutions to be taken into consideration to
enhance the acceptability of its brands is being discussed. It also consists of how
Unilever manages the brand name in the UK economy and built brand equity in a short
span of time. This business report discusses the process of understanding the brand
formation and its management. It also focuses on the brand arrangement and
development of brand hierarchies. The techniques are being evaluated for managing
the brand value of the organization over time.
Unilever is the UK based company established in 1929 and headquartered in London,
UK and Rotterdam, Netherland. The products and services provided by the company
are food, personal care products, beverages, and cleaning products. It serves in more
than 190 countries. The main objective of Unilever is to fulfil the demands of the
customers by providing creative and branded products and sustain in the competitive
market. Due to all this, Unilever is the top brand in the UK.
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LO1
INTRODUCTION
As a marketing consultant of Unilever, in this segment, the demonstration of building the
brand name by overcoming the challenges is being explained. The importance of
branding by applying various marketing theories and concepts is also presented.
P1 THE IMPORTANCE OF BRANDING AS A TOOL OF MARKETING AND ITS
EMERGENCE IN BUSINESS PRACTICE AT UNILEVER
BRAND:
The identification of any products and services according to its value is known as a
brand. Nowadays lots of products and services are being offered in the market and
almost all are branded in terms of quality and quantity. The brand name of any products
and services creates trust and loyalty, faith and emotional connectivity. But all this
depends upon the marketing, advertising and promoting the brand. The brand creates
the value of a product by differentiating it from other products having the same features
(Heding et al., 2015).
BRAND VS PRODUCT:
A product is a particular item that is sold in the market with the aim of earning profits.
While the brand is the name of the entity that reflects the characteristics of the product
and services and makes it different from other company’s products and gives the
valuable identity to the products in the market (Heding et al., 2015).
BRAND EQUITY:
Brand equity refers to the overall value of the brand as an individual asset. It is reflected
as per the perceptions of the customers towards the brands. A brand is an intangible
asset its effect is recorded in the financial books as market share, demand, prices and
profitability (Pahwa, 2018). Brand Equity of Unilever depends upon the brand
awareness, loyalty, brand associations, perceived quality and other assets like
trademarks, patents, etc. Brand equity fulfils the demands and requirements of the
customers of Unilever and maintains the relationship. Thus brand equity is much
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important for the brand not only to enhance the market share but also to enhance its
market valuation (Pahwa, 2018).
IMPORTANCE OF BRANDING AS A MARKETING TOOL:
The business of Unilever is based on brands that make the products different from other
products to consumers all over the world. Branding is not only to target a large number
of customers in the market but it also connects the customers to the products
emotionally and increases the credibility of the product in the marketplace. For the
successful branding of Unilever depends upon satisfying the needs and wants of the
customers. This can be done by implementing the strategies to research, define and
build the brand name (Lilleker, 2015).
For developing the marketing plan strategy, the brand served by the Unilever makes
understand the objective of the business and enables the company to line up the plans
with such objectives (Lilleker, 2015). Thus in a simple term, brand building can be
achieved by following the below steps:
 To establish the target market of Unilever and analyze the needs of the
customers that contribute to brand value.
 To determine the segment in which the brand values are to be established.
 To determine the competitors and their products and perceptions of the brand
among the customers.
 To ensure that the brand values provide satisfaction to the customers.
 To monitor the required changes in the company as per the competitors'
portfolios (Lilleker, 2015).
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Figure 1 Brands of Unilever
(Source: Murphy and Murphy, 2018)
Brands of Unilever provide a competitive advantage not in the domestic market but also
in the international market. It is impossible for the company to lead in the market with its
brand name without the marketing and brand management. The brand name cannot be
built without marketing strategies (Lilleker, 2015).
M1 TO MANAGE THE UNILEVER BRANDS BY APPLYING THE THEORIES,
MODELS AND CONCEPTS
In this segment, the theories of branding that are to be followed and implemented by
Unilever to manage the brand value in the market is being discussed.
Brand Loyalty Theory:
This theory explains the psychological relationship of customers with that of Unilever
brand. As per this theory, if a customer has a positive approach towards Unilever it can
be described in three aspects; it can be due to emotional attachment, brand evaluation
and behavioural aspect. If the customer is emotionally attached to the brand then
he/she will always opt the products of Unilever and will never change their perspective
(Heding et al., 2015).
In marketing at Unilever, brand loyalty includes the devotion, bond and commitment of
customers to continue the usage of the Unilever brand for a longer period of time.
Loyalty includes two types of components; attitudinal and behavioural. Attitudinal loyalty
reflects the willingness of customers to buy the products and services at any cost, while
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behavioural loyalty includes the re-purchasing of the products (Pappu and Quester,
2016).
Branding Theory:
At Unilever, this theory deals with the typical features of brand management (Heding et
al., 2015):
 Assigning a particular brand name for portraying the business standards.
 Spreading awareness of the brand among the people.
 Fulfilling the needs and demand of the customers.
 To establish relationships with the customers for a longer period.
 Sustaining in the market by gaining a competitive advantage by increasing the
valuation of the brand (Heding et al., 2015).
Value-based Brand Theory:
This theory describes that value-based brands such as Unilever are required to
establish a long-term customer relationship. All this depends upon delivering the brand
value to the customers. According to this theory, customers are the supreme priority for
Unilever to gain a competitive advantage. The operative strategy at Unilever states that
“Increase in customer leads to an increase in brand value and ultimately increases the
business" (Heding et al., 2015).
P2 THE KEY COMPONENTS OF A SUCCESSFUL BRAND STRATEGY FOR
BUILDING AND MANAGING BRAND EQUITY
Brands like Unilever are the recognized brands not only in the UK market but also
across the world. Its value is been recorded in the balance sheets of the company.
When Unilever pays the amount of goodwill or premium to purchase the brand, it is a
part of a strategic decision. Even the accountants of Unilever assign the value to every
asset of the company. Unilever follows the system of capitalizing the entire value paid
for the business acquisition and get it to depreciate over a long period (Adamkasi,
2018).
Branding is the concept which is similar to equality, success or justice. There are no
particular components to be described for the success of brand management but the
managers at Unilever has comprised some components that contribute to the success
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of brand name (Adamkasi, 2018). Some of the similar elements of strong brand
strategies are mentioned in terms of tangibles such as website, product, logo and
packaging design. According to the branding definition provided by American Marketing
Association (AMA), “Branding is a name, design, term, symbol or any other feature that
provides the identification of products and services that differs from various sellers”.
To guide the marketing efforts of Unilever, it is necessary to build the results-oriented
strategy. The company is required to foster components like public relations, digital
marketing, search engine optimization and social media for the development of the
brand strategy at Unilever (Adamkasi, 2018).
Following are the key components for developing the successful brand strategy at
Unilever:
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Public Relations:
Having strong public relations provides the reputation in the management of Unilever
through corporate news, leadership promotion and various types of other contents. To
establish the business goals, measuring the primary performance and defining the
target audiences is the initial step to build the strategy of public relations. Once the
audiences are identified, then the reporters, social media influencers and analysts are to
be identified. The detailed list of the targeted segments based on coverage area,
position and outlet should be created (Alhaddad, 2015).
Digital Marketing:
To promote the brand value and strategy, the Unilever can hold marketing principles. It
becomes critical to generating the contents and resources such as blogs, leadership
content, white papers which can be used at Unilever by the experts. The white paper
can be promoted with the help of digital marketing techniques like pay per click
campaigns and ads of remarketing (Alhaddad, 2015).
Search Engine Optimization:
Another component for developing the brand strategy is search engine optimization. It
depends upon the high-quality contents and provides authority by topmost search
engines. When the search of the brand name like Unilever increases, it becomes easy
to find the company’s website (Alhaddad, 2015).
Social Media:
It is the most valuable component that allows sharing the Unilever's perspective and
engages the customer by influencing at a personal level. Starting with a few important
channels and building a valuable presence with useful contents and maximum followers
(Alhaddad, 2015).
Apart from the above-mentioned components some basic elements that are to be
considered by Unilever for the successful brand strategy are (Adamkasi, 2018):
 Having the brand name with a clear vision.
 Maintaining an effective communication channel across the world.
 Extension of the brand name all over the company.
 Creating emotional connectivity with the brand.
 Encouraging loyalty to the brand (Adamkasi, 2018).
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M2 TO APPLY THE APPROPRIATE EXAMPLES WITHIN AN ORGANIZATIONAL
CONTEXT
For building a brand at the global level, a company needs more than developing a
website into various languages. Here are the successful companies who focus on global
strategies for building the brand consistently and to be accepted universally (De Mooij,
2018).
When Airbnb was launched, it faced lots of challenges to convince and influence the
people across the world for staying at stranger’s house. But the company's CMO
Jonathan Mildenhall took the company to global success and recently they cover
around 190 countries all over the world. The key global strategy of Airbnb was to create
trust among the host communities and travellers. The successful brand introduced a
logo named ‘Belo’ that states belonging to the people across the world (De Mooij,
2018).
Another example is Apple. It is the most successful brand at the global level. Its
products are designed in such a way that the size of it is suitable for all. Apple’s minimal
and instinctive approach resulted in the global demand for the products. To provide
services to the local as well as international customers, Apple has translated the site for
all the customers and has also tailored the worldwide stores for serving the local
customers (De Mooij, 2018).
Taking another example of Starbucks the powerful brand in the world with
approximately 20,000 stores in almost 63 countries and is the most famous coffee
house which had the mark from China and Brazil. Though having the cultural
importance of tea, Starbucks maintained brand consistency and made the customers
feel it is a local coffee house. When China dislikes the coffee, the company overcame
the situation by providing free coffee drinks. In Asian countries, due to the seating
arrangements of the coffee house, it got a remarkable presence (De Mooij, 2018).
Coca-Cola is the oldest company that operates at the global level with a valuable brand
name. the company always focused on values like ‘happiness’ and ‘sharing’ which
made the company successful and recognized brand internationally. During the FIFA
World Cup, the company featured the local celebrities as well as referenced to the
culture which enhanced the brand name of Coca-Cola (De Mooij, 2018).
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CONCLUSION
So in this segment, it has been figured out that the for developing the brand value in the
market, marketing strategies are important and to build the brand name at the global
level, there should be a right balance among international messaging and localized
strategies.
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