CHOOSING BRAND ELEMENTS TO BUILD BRAND EQUITY

4.2

Building Customer-Based Brand Equity

• Brand knowledge structures depend on:

– The initial choices for the brand elements

– The supporting marketing program and the manner by which the brand is integrated into it

– Other associations indirectly transferred to the brand by linking it to some other entities

4.3

Criteria for Choosing Brand Elements

• Memorability • Meaningfulness • Likability • Transferability • Adaptability • Protectability

Marketer’s offensive strategy and build brand equity

Defensive role for leveraging and maintaining brand equity

4.4

Memorability

• Brand elements should inherently be memorable and attention-getting, and therefore facilitate recall or recognition.

MEMORABLE

• How easily is the brand element recalled and recognized.

Short brand names.

4.6

Meaningfulness

• Brand elements may take on all kinds of meaning, with either descriptive or persuasive content.

• Two particularly important criteria – General information about the nature of the product

category– Specific information about particular attributes and

benefits of the brand

• The first dimension is an important determinant of brand awareness and salience; the second, of brand image and positioning.

MEANINGFUL• Is the brand

element credible and suggestive of the corresponding category.

Inherent meaning.

4.8

Likability

• Do customers find the brand element aesthetically appealing?

• Descriptive and persuasive elements reduce the burden on marketing communications to build awareness.

LIKABLE• How aesthetically

appealing is the brand element.

Concrete brand names.

4.10

Transferability

• How useful is the brand element for line or category extensions?

• To what extent does the brand element add to brand equity across geographic boundaries and market segments?

• Which Country

Coca Cola across the world

4.12

Adaptability

• The more adaptable and flexible the brand element, the easier it is to update it to changes in consumer values and opinions.

• For example, logos and characters can be given a new look or a new design to make them appear more modern and relevant.

Google’s Up to date Adaptation

4.14

Protectability

• Marketers should:1. Choose brand elements that can be legally

protected internationally. 2. Formally register chosen brand elements with

the appropriate legal bodies.3. Vigorously defend trademarks from

unauthorized competitive infringement.

4.15

Tactics for Brand Elements• A variety of brand elements can be chosen that

inherently enhance brand awareness or facilitate the formation of strong, favorable, and unique brand associations.– Brand names– URLs– Logos and symbols– Characters– Slogans– Packaging

Visuals Of Brand elements

4.17

Brand Names

• Like any brand element, brand names must be chosen with the six general criteria of memorability, meaningfulness, likability, transferability, adaptability, and protectability in mind.

4.18

Brand Naming Guidelines

• Brand awareness – Simplicity and ease of pronunciation and spelling• Chevrolet

– Familiarity and meaningfulness – Differentiated, distinctive, and uniqueness

• Brand associations– The explicit and implicit meanings consumers

extract from it are important. In particular, the brand name can reinforce an important attribute or benefit association that makes up its product positioning.

Naming the Brand

• Suggestive• Suggestive of a benefit

– Head and Shoulders Shampoo– Close-up toothpaste

• Descriptive• Function described literally in the brand name

– Singapore Airlines– Overnite Express– Amul dairy whitener – Sugar free

Naming the Brand

• Compound – Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company.

• Classical– Jatra– Balaji Telefilms

• Arbitrary (real words without direct connection)– Apple– Orange– Mango

• Fanciful – Pepsi– Ariel

4.23

Brand Naming Procedures

• Define objectives • Generate names • Screen initial candidates • Study candidate names • Research the final candidates • Select the final name

1. Define the branding objectives in terms of the six general criteria

2. Generate as many names and concepts as possible

3. Screen the names on the basis of branding objectives. Eliminate names-– that have unintentional double meaning– are unpronounceable, already in uses, or too

close to an existing name etc– having legal complications

Naming Procedures

Contd: Naming Procedure

4.Collect extensive information on each of the final 5 to 10 names

5. Consumer research is conducted to test the memorability and meaningfulness of the name

6. Choose a name and the register it.

4.26

URLs

• URLs (uniform resource locators) specify locations of pages on the web and are also commonly referred to as domain names.

• A company can either sue the current owner of the URL for copyright infringement, buy the name from the current owner, or register all believable variations of its brand as domain names ahead of time.

URLs• Keep it as simple as possible• Avoid Clichés • Reinvent a real word • Make new words

4.28

Logos and Symbols

• Play a critical role in building brand equity and especially brand awareness

• Logos range from corporate names or trademarks (word marks with text only) written in a distinctive form, to entirely abstract designs that may be completely unrelated to the word mark, corporate name, or corporate activities

Types of logos-• Corporate names or trademarks written in a

distinctive form, e.g. Coca-Cola, Kit-Kat• Abstract logos that are unrelated to the word

mark, corporate name, e.g. Mercedes. These are called symbols.

Logos and symbols

Recognized Trademarks and Symbols help in Promotion

Benefits:• Logos and symbols are easily recognized• They are versatile. Nonverbal logos can be updated

with time and generally transfer well across culture.• When the name is long and cumbersome, logos

could more easily appear as an identification device.

Logos and symbols

4.32

Characters• A special type of brand symbol—one that takes on

human or real-life characteristics • Some are animated like Pillsbury’s Poppin’ Fresh

Doughboy, Peter Pan peanut butter’s character, and numerous cereal characters such as Tony the Tiger, Cap’n Crunch, and Amul girl.

• Characters represent a special type of brand symbol-one that takes on human or real life characteristics.

• Because they are often colorful and rich in imagery, they tend to be attention getting.

• Brand characters can be so attention getting and well liked that they dominate over other brand elements.

Characters (Fido Dido of 7-up, Loui of Mortein)

4.35

Slogans

• Slogans are short phrases that communicate descriptive or persuasive information about the brand.

• Slogans are powerful branding devices because, like brand names, they are an extremely efficient, shorthand means to build brand equity

• What the brand is?• What makes it special?

Benefits• They help to build brand awareness (e.g.

Lux:Beauty bar of film stars)

• Make strong links between the brand and product category(“Frooti : Fresh N Juicy)

• They can help to reinforce the brand positioning and desired POD (Thanda Matlab Coca Cola)

Slogans

Packaging involves the activities of designing and producing containers or wrappers for a product.

Objectives of packaging:• Identify the brand• Convey information• Facilitate product transportation and protection• Assist at home storage• Aid product consumption

Packaging

Benefits:• Assist in product recognition• Packaging can create strong POD that

permits a higher margin (e.g. perfume).

• Packaging changes can have immediate impact on sales

Packaging

The Body Shop

• In breaking with the conventions of packaging, the Body Shop went beyond graphics. The existing category players believed that since body products essentially represented a product category where the packaging was actually what you paid for.

• Anita sold her products in cheap plastic bottles-she was aiming for a different kind of emotional value.

• Making the bottle unimportant threw attention on what is inside the bottle and what is outside.

• The packaging for soft drink Tango is BLACK. Black is a colour that’s rejected for food since its associated with rotting and disease.

• The colour black gave the product the required drama– It stood out in the shelves– Highlighted the fruit graphic – Aroused a strong reaction

Tango

4.43

Packaging Can Influence Taste

• Our sense of taste and touch is very suggestible, and what we see on a package can lead us to taste what we think we are going to taste.

4.44

Packaging Can Influence Value

• Long after we have bought a product, a package can still lead us to believe we bought it because it was a good value.

4.45

Packaging Can Influence Consumption

• Studies of 48 different types of foods and personal care products have shown that people pour and consume between 18% and 32% more of a product as the size of the container doubles.

4.46

Jingles

• Jingles are musical messages written around the brand. Typically composed by professional songwriters, they often have enough catchy hooks and choruses to become almost permanently registered in the minds of listeners—sometimes whether they want them to or not!

• Jingles are perhaps most valuable in enhancing brand awareness.

4.47

Packaging Can Influence How a Person Uses a Product

• One strategy to increase use of mature products has been to encourage people to use the brand in new situations, like soup for breakfast, or new uses, like baking soda as a refrigerator deodorizer.

• An analysis of 26 products and 402 consumers showed that twice as many people learned about the new use from the package than from television ads.

4.48

Putting It All Together

• The entire set of brand elements makes up the brand identity, the contribution of all brand elements to awareness and image.

• The cohesiveness of the brand identity depends on the extent to which the brand elements are consistent.