Brand Management Strategies of Unilever: A Case Study

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Brand management
1 | P a g e

Table of Contents
Introduction...................................................................................................................... 3
P1. Explain the importance of branding as a marketing tool and why and how it has
emerged in business practice.......................................................................................... 4
M1. Relevant theories of brand management.................................................................6
P2. Analyse the key components of a successful brand strategy for building and
managing brand equity.....................................................................................................9
M2. Apply appropriate and validated examples within an organisational context..........10
P3. Analyze different strategies of portfolio management, brand hierarchy and brand
equity management........................................................................................................12
M3. Critically analyze portfolio management, brand hierarchies and brand equity using
appropriate theories, models and frameworks...............................................................15
P4 Evaluate how brands are leveraged/extended over time domestically and
internationally................................................................................................................. 16
P5 Evaluate techniques for measuring and managing brand value over time..............21
Conclusion..................................................................................................................... 25
Reference list................................................................................................................. 26
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Introduction
Brand management could be defined as marketing function using different approaches
to increase perceived value of brand or the product line of an organization over a
period. Effective brand management practice enhances loyal customer base of the
organization. This loyal customer base could be generated by creation of strong
branding awareness. The strategic plan is created to increase the brand value and to
carry forward brand equity. To engage the customers of an organization, strong
branding has important positive influence. The brand image has essential impact on the
market share and sales volume of the organization. The experience of the consumer is
encompassed by strong branding image of organization. This helps to increase the
market leverage of the company. Integrated strategies of branding and marketing helps
to increase the market share in an effective way. Unilever has been chosen as an UK
based company in order to construct the present assignment. The head quarter of
Unilever is in London, UK. This organization belongs from industry of consumer goods.
Cleaning agents, personal care, beverages and foods are the key products of Unilever.
The objective of this informal report is to explain the brand management as a business
tool, key components of branding strategy, portfolio management strategies, techniques
to mange brand value and different techniques to manage brand value.
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P1. Explain the importance of branding as a marketing tool and why and how it
has emerged in business practice
Though Unilever is a well-known brand and their loyal customer base is significantly
strong, then also they are trying to strengthen brand for the further increase of market
share. The efficient brand management helped Unilever in following manner,
1. Creation of consumer preferences for the product of Unilever
A wide product range can create confusion in buying. Strong brand image of Unilever
motivates the customers to buy their products (Rosenbaum-Elliott et al., 2015). This
helps Unilever to manage their market share, trust and brand image in the market.
2. Generation of higher market shares and revenues
Brand name helps Unilever to capture higher market share and revenue.
3. Helps to survive in temporary crisis
Unilever was largely helped by their strong brand name in their temporary crisis. Brand
is directly related to the trust factor. This helps to recreate them after the temporary
crisis.
4. Strong barrier to the new competitors
The strong brand name provided Unilever a competitive advantage. They are getting
privileges from their competitors. This provides strong barrier to the new entrants and
the existing competitors (Jugenheimer et al., 2015).
5. Profitability with higher price
The customer does not hesitate to buy Unilever’s product with a higher price. The
quality and trust factors are associated with the strong brand name.
6. Cuts down the rate of employee turn over
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Employees have the general tendencies to retain their career with a strong brand
name. This reduces the rate of employee turnover within the organizations. This is also
applicable to Unilever as well.
7. Increase fresh investments
Investors always invest in the organizations with strong brand names. This helps to
inspire trust of the customers and the target audience. The investors do not want take
risk by investing in weak brands. Unilever gets this advantage of a strong brand ( Atwal
and Williams, 2017).
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M1. Relevant theories of brand management
A. Keller’s brand equity model or CBBE model
Brand is a reflective emotion of the customer’s preference. This preference to brands by
the customers could be defined as the brand equity. This brand equity could be further
defined as management, strategic and financial advantage for the organization like
Unilever. Effective brand equity of an organization helps customers to buy more,
creation of loyal customer base and brand popularity (Rauschnabel et al., 2016). Kevin
Lane Keller invented is theory to analyze customer based equity of the organization.
This model reflects the two different dimension of brand. They are as followed,
Brand image
Brand image could be elaborate as the impact of differentiation. The customer can
select between two or more similar products from different brands.
Brand awareness
This dimension plats an important role on the buying decision of the customers. The
awareness of the brands helps to decide a customer to make a purchase. The brand
knowledge and preference of the customers have important roles in buying decision.
4 steps to implement CBBE model
a. Brand identification
The objective of this step is to generate the brand awareness. To reach the objective of
this step Unilever is making an extensive research of the brand perception of the
customer in the market and the need of customer (Dessart et al., 2015). This research
also focused on matching between customer need and available brands in the market.
The evaluation is made on preference of the customers in the selection of brand in
respect of their competitor’s brands. Then Unilever identifies the problems and take
necessary steps to resolve the issues.
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b. Meaning of Brand
Unilever first identifies the customers experience from the performance of their
products. This experience measurement is done on experience level of their customers.
After that, the experience type of the customer’s experience is evaluated. This helps
Unilever to create the ‘brand personality’ (Sasmita and Mohd Suki, 2015).
c. Brand response
Customers always make judgments regarding the product they want to purchase. These
are of four types.
 Quality: The customer is done this, based on the actual and perceived quality of
the product and services.
 Consideration: Matching between the needs of the customers and the offered
products by Unilever is the focal point under this aspect.
 Credibility: Likability, expertise and trustworthiness are the 3 different aspects
of deciding the credibility of product.
 Superiority: This is decided in respect of the market competitors.
First Unilever is examined the judgment aspects of the customers and based on that the
brand feeling are evaluated (Godey et al., 2016).
d. Brand resonance
For strengthening the resonance category, Unilever encourages the loyalty program for
their customers.
This model guided Unilever to build and manage their brand in an efficient ways. This
also provides set of assistance to assess the brand building and expansion effort. CBBE
model can be concluded as planning, implementation and interpretation of branding
strategies.
B. Umbrella brand strategy
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The concept of this theory represents the marketing approach, which incorporates
selling a number of related products under single brand name. This helps to create the
huge brad equity under same brand (Keller and Brexendorf, 2017). To enhance the
marketing capacity of the product this strategy is followed.
Unilever started streamline of their products in the year 2000. This helped Unilever in a
significant manner. This helped Unilever to gather huge market shares comparing to its
competitors. According to their senior management implementation of this strategy
helped Unilever to gain expected margins and faster growth. To meet the customer
needs and profit margins, Unilever consolidated 1600 brands into 400 (Ding and Tseng,
2015). This would help to strengthen their marketing efforts, simplify their business
methods and innovate products.
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P2. Analyse the key components of a successful brand strategy for building and
managing brand equity.
The key components are elaborated below,
1. Target audience
In B2B like Unilever, the target audience is the target buyers for their products. The
target audience selection is little bit tougher in B2B segments. The major concern in this
context is the selector of the target audience. The selector could be executive team,
purchasing manager or departmental manager (Herrero et al., 2017). Effective
organizational communication will help organization to select the target audience.
2. Brand promise
Product expectation message is conveyed to their customers as a promise.
3. Brand value
This states the components in the decision making process of the company. These
components are considered as the core value of the company and its brand.
4. Brand perception
This helps to evaluate the perception of the brand in past and in present. This will help
to determine the future perception of this brand. The strategies need to be changed in
accordance with market condition to stay competitive.
5. Brand positioning
This means the brand image in the customer’s mind. This also helps to determine the
position of the brand in comparison with their customers. The brand strategy is essential
for developing the brand positioning in the market.
6. Brand voice
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The brand image and the purpose come under the brand voice. There needs to be
relationship between the brand voices and the target audience (Brexendorf and Keller,
2017).
M2. Apply appropriate and validated examples within an organisational context
Unilever’s approaches for brand creation are described below,
1. Research on brand concept
This is done by creating a concept board that provides detailed and relevant information
related to new product. E.g. magnum gold passed through utilized testing before its
launch.
2. Use consumer’s feedback for product and brand innovation
Brand building is directly related to the customer’s opinion and perception on brand. The
announcement of Unilever revealed that the brands used this consideration by adapting
Sustainable plan of living grows 50 percent of their growth (Smythe, 2017). The growth
pace was 30 percent faster rather than the usual. Under this aspect Dove will be an
example.
3. The integrity of the Unilever
Telling real stories about people is the general trend of Unilever’s culture. This helps to
maintain the integrity and clarity of the product and their brand (Wijaya, 2015). They
were featuring Martin Luther king and Mahatma Gandhi In their advertisement. This
helped Unilever to draw attention of a large number of audiences.
4. Consistency in brand delivery
To maintain the consistency in brand delivery Unilever is promoting their key products
(axe, dove and lipton tea) on different electronic media. Brand research team of
Unilever is tracking the consumer perception, experience and awareness on periodical
basis. This consumers behaviors are monitored though the advertisement of their
brands on different electronic media.
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5. Monitoring the market
The impact of the brand could be evaluated by thorough analysis of consumer’s data.
The marketing strategies could be developed analyzing the engagement from various
channels (Roy and Sarkar, 2015). Efficient use of analytical tools could help to
understand the in-market monitoring process. Unilever is also getting benefits by
utilizing this method.
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P3. Analyze different strategies of portfolio management, brand hierarchy and
brand equity management.
Portfolio management strategies
Portfolio strategies refer to different approaches, which can be applied to enhance the
efficiency of portfolio by reducing the risk and increasing the profitability.
The strategies of portfolio manage are as followed,
Active portfolio strategy: This strategy helps to create maximum value to any
portfolios. This strategy helps to generate information regarding the best yield making
financial securities.
Passive portfolio management strategy: Passive portfolio management strategy
deals with ETF and mutual fund. Here the market index is reflected by fund’s portfolio.
Brand hierarchy strategies
Maslow’s Hierarchy and Brand Development
This is a pyramidal structure. The fundamental and largest level is at the bottom. ‘need
for self actualization’ is situated at the top. The four basic layer of the pyramid contains
the deficiency need. Esteem, physical need, security and psychological are coming
under the consideration of deficiency need. For the corporate, the deficiency needs are
slightly different. They are operational and profitability functionality like HR, project
manager, finance etc (Schivinski and Dabrowski, 2015). These basic needs of the
corporate needs to be fulfilled to increase the level of motivation and that will help to
reach the higher level need fulfilment. That is known as the B need. Business creativity,
branding and innovation come under this B need. According to Maslow,
 Brands (self-actualization) are of creative in nature.
 Brands (self-actualization) are spontaneous.
 Brands (self-actualization) are showing interest in problem solving.
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