A

Report On
Brand Analysis of BONDS

Executive summary:

The whole report is prepared on the topic of Brand Analysis of Bonds where we
have tried to figure out Bonds brand positioning, characteristics, customer benefits,
brand equity and other important factors regarding the brand.
First, I have selected a particular category and target market for my report as it was
recommended. It has helped me to continue my report in an efficient way.
Next, I have discussed about brand positioning of Bonds, which is all about Bonds
positioning strategy. It reflects different effective method that Bonds follows in order
to position its brand in customers mind. I have illustrated this part by looking at
Bonds market segmentation process followed by its target market. I have focused on
some related issue like Bonds frame of reference, its brand mantra etc. to analyse
its brand positioning and values thoroughly.
Then I have defined Bonds brand characteristics. I have tried to emphasize on
several elements like personality, organizational associations, symbols, selfexpression and emotional benefits etc. of customers and how these are perfectly
satisfied by Bonds products.
Next section is customer benefits. In this section, I have elaborated how Bonds
satisfies its customer by focusing on some benefits provided by Bonds such as
functional, emotional, self-expressive and social benefits.
In the brand communitys part, I have basically discussed how Bonds has made a
strong community by concentrating on existing communities, arranging events,
maintaining relationship with personal communication and creating community
consumer identity.
In the final section which id brand equity, I have tried to analyse Bonds brand equity
critically in the light of Kellors brand equity model.
Throughout the report, I have used some information of renowned writers from
different journals in order to complete Bonds brand analysis more appropriately.
I have ended my report by giving conclusion on the overall report and providing a
short reflection of my understanding from the report.
Table of Contents

1. Introduction:.............................................................................................1
2. Brand positioning and values:...................................................................2
2.1 Brand positioning for Bonds:................................................................3
2.2 Bonds success on positioning:.............................................................4
3. Brand Characteristics:...............................................................................4
4. Customer benefit:......................................................................................6
4.1 Functional benefit & customer satisfaction:...........................................6
4.2 Emotional benefit & customer satisfaction:............................................6
4.3 Self-expressive benefit & customer satisfaction:....................................6
4.4. Social benefit & customer satisfaction:....................................................7
5. Brand communities:..................................................................................7
5.1 Using brand communities as a tool of success:.....................................7
6. Brand Equity:............................................................................................8
7. Conclusion:............................................................................................12
8. Reflection:..............................................................................................13
9. Reference list:.........................................................................................14

1. Introduction:
Bonds is the most famous underwear and hosiery brand in Australia. It is a part of
the Pacific Brand Corporation. Bonds is under the Underwear and Hosiery portfolio
of Pacific Brand Corporation. It is the leading brand of Australia providing worldwide
service. It was established by George Bond in 1915. Keeping the vision and
determination of the founder, Bonds has now promoted itself into Aussie icon of
Business. With the slogan-, "We don't work for each other. We work with each other",
Bonds is working for the best fits since last ninety-eight years.
The sleepwear and underwear clothing manufacturing industry is facing a hard time
over the years. There is continues contraction trend since last five years for
Australian manufactures. Several factors cause this situation namely continues
international completion, low wage cost of other countries, high rates of Aussie
manufacturers, reduction of trade tariff etc. This industry has faced an annualised
decline of 6.4% since last five years. Moreover, the global financial crisis also
negatively affected consumer willingness to savings rather than spending on
apparels & fashion accessories. The downward trends continues when its last years
revenue declined by 6.5%.
This declining portent is also noticeable in the Pacific brand corporation. Its yearly
sales declined by 6.6% in the first six months of FY 2012-2013. Surprisingly our
focused brand Bonds managed to increase its sales by 1.4%. This brand is
committed to creating products that meet the changing needs of consumers. I have
selected Women Undergarments for the further discussion in this report. The women
underwear industry is very much competitive now. At one end, Pacific Brands, which
owns some of Australias oldest, brands such as Berlei, Bonds, Playtex and
Holeproof. On the other end, the heavyweight Bendon has enjoyed enormous
success in both Australia and the UK. There are also other tough competitors namely
the Gazal Group, which includes Oroton Intimate, Kookai, Virgin Ware and Lovable.
Now, let us turn around to the customers. Lingerie for women is now not only an
undergarment it has become a fashion accessories nowadays. It generates higher
margin than apparel. The customers are ranging from all ages- younger to older.
Younger woman wants to look stylish and attractive while older woman wants

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comfort and respect. This industry is growing very fast compare to other apparel

industry. The largest customer age group is from the age 45-54 years old followed by
the age group 25-34 years old. The lowest share of all age group represents 65
years and older group. It is a matter of fact that, older women are not constantly loyal
to one particular brand when it comes to shopping for underwear. There is variety of
product offered by Bond in this category namely: Bikini, Maternity, Hipsters, Lacies,
Panties, and Sleepwear etc. Worlds market shares of these products are shown
below:

Figure 1: Category breakdown Undergarments [Business Insider, 2013].

From the figure 1 presented above, we can see that the Bras & Panties are holding
the greatest market share in Undergarments industry. While Bras market share is
46% almost half of the total undergarments industry. Therefore, this is the most
important product in the existing industry.

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2. Brand positioning and values:

According to Rooney (1993), branding is a powerful tool for a business organization.

One of the most useful models of todays very much competitive business world for
positioning a firms brand in the right place is Keller's Brand Equity Model. The idea of
the Brand Equity model is not really that much complex. According to this model if
someone wants to build a strong brand, he should gauge how customers perception
about the product. Bonds should try to build the right type of experience around its
target consumers in order to create a positive views, opinion and feelings about its
product.

Figure 2: Strategic brand positioning [Upsaw, 2005]

The six elements of figure 2 represent basic elements of brand positioning. These
elements are very much vital in order to position the brand in the right place. Bonds
should focus on these elements more carefully in order to get the expected position
of its products.

2.1 Brand positioning for Bonds:

Before making an integrated plan for the brand positioning, Bonds first must decide
its target customers. Usually, in undergarment industry, a product can be segmented
in many parts. It can be based on:

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Based on age group (Young age, middle age, old)

Based on income (Lower income, middle income, higher income)
Based on necessity (Housewife, athlete, job holder, business personnel)

 Based on occasion and use (Daily use, festival use, and wedding party).
In order to hold a position of the product in customers mind, Bonds authority must
clarify what the product or brand is all about. It also describes the uniqueness of the
product to the customer and describes why customer should pay for the product.

2.2 Bonds success on positioning:

In order to get success on brand positioning Bonds must concentrate on some basic
issues. According to Fill, (2002:321) positioning is not about the product rather what
the consumers think about it. Bonds must determine the target Consumer,
competitors, similarities and dissimilarities of its products. Bonds has positioned itself
quite strongly in the market. It has observed a steady growth in recent years in spite
of continues contraction of the overall industry. Profit should be the greatest indicator
of any brands success. Bonds has earned an EBIT recently that is 9.9% higher than
previous six months.
Frame of reference is important to indicate the success of brand positioning. It
determines in which category the product is competing with its competitors. Bonds is
supposed to select a frame of reference corresponding to points of parity and points
of difference. Points of difference are unique, desirable and favourable brand
characteristics that differentiate its brand from its competitors. On the other hand,
points of parity refer to a situation when a product becomes identical or similar
quality in the eyes of the consumer. Points of difference come with the points brand
mantra. A brand mantra captures the essence of a brand in three to five words
(Keller, 2003).
Brand mantra often helps in identifying where a product should expand and where it
should not. It helps in determining the field of business of Bonds.
From the above discussions we can certainly tell that, Bonds has successfully
positioned their brands in Womens mind.

3. Brand Characteristics:
A brands characteristic is somewhat similar to human characteristics. Brand

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characteristics are associated with some human characteristics. A brands

characteristics can be defined as something to which the consumer would have their
perception towards the brand. It is a set of real human characteristics that can be
attributable to a brand.
Bonds women underwear might characterize in the following way:
BRAND
CHARACTERISTIC

Bonds Traits

Explanation

S
PERSONALITY

Youthful, Spirited

ORGANISATIONAL

Famous brand,

Bonds

women underwear is the sigh of youth

athlete-tough image.

Bonds is a part of pacific brands- one of the lea

ASSOCIATION

large and reliable

brand in the country

SYMBOLS

The famous logo

Bonds is the sign of trust and comfort of Aussie wom

for most of the

women.
BRAND/CULUTRAL
RELATIONSHIPS

A brand that
serving people

Bonds underwear is serving the women from 191

brand that is allied from so long.

since 98 years.
SELF EXPRESSION

Example: Buying

It is the image of the product that buying Bonds m

&

the best clothes

buying the best product

EMOTIONAL

BENEFITS

and underwear.

USER IMAGERY

Tough, younger &

It is perfect for outdoor and under sun. Encourage

perfect for outdoor. sporty women.

COUNTRY
ORGIN

OF

Australia- Native

Bonds is a Aussie-originated product. It is expect

product. Expect

meet the country requirements at first.

them to meet local

need.

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4. Customer benefit:

Several benefits provided Bonds & its links to customer give satisfaction below:

4.1 Functional benefit & customer satisfaction:

A functional benefit can be explained as a core benefit or core service of a product. It
is appealing because customers should judge the product rationally. If customers are
rational, they will persuade to buy product for functional benefit like performance,
comfort.
As it is the core service of Bonds, it is linked with the customer satisfaction, because
if the customers are not satisfied with this, they should not even think about other
benefits.

4.2 Emotional benefit & customer satisfaction:

Customers are far from emotional (Ariely, 2006). In most cases, customers lack the
motivation, time & judgement power to buy products. In these cases, products
commercial success depends on emotional appeal. Bonds emotional benefit relates
to the ability to feel something special about its product when buying it.
Emotional benefit is important for customer satisfaction. It depends on customer
attachment with the product. It makes the customer loyal & builds a lifetime value of
a customer. It is actually what a consumer feel about Bonds.

4.3 Self-expressive benefit & customer satisfaction:

It is the symbol of a persons self-concept or perception. It is hard to create but it has
long lasting impression on consumers mind. It is the perceived value of a customer
what she actually feels while she using it.
When Bonds can create self-expressive positive perception, its customer satisfaction
should be increased & the relationship between Bonds with its customer is likely to
be strengthened. If customer perceived value about Bonds product is positive,
customer satisfaction would essentially increase.

4.4. Social benefit & customer satisfaction :

Social benefit is somewhat different concept. It refers to benefit when customer finds
her friends, colleagues, family and other groups all are together for common interest
or common product. It intense customer affection towards a product if she finds that

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her peer groups are also using the same product.

Social benefit makes the customer satisfaction intense and deeper. It helps in
creating a profound loyalty towards Bonds product.

5. Brand communities:
Brand community can be defined as highly valuable customer relationship
management tools. It is basically a community formed for the customer of particular
product or service. This concept focuses on customer relationship and customer
behaviour. Bonds profitability or success depends largely on maintaining huge brand
communities.

5.1 Using brand communities as a tool of success:

There can be several ways. Some ways are discussed later:

Concentration on existing communities:

BONDS should concentrate on their existing communities rather than focusing
on increasing it. Existing consumers may feel them less valuable if the
company loses their focus on her. This will ultimately hamper the customer

satisfaction.
Start consumer friendly event:
BONDS should introduce events that might be interesting to the consumer.
This will eventually increase customer engagement and increase customer

loyalty.
Engage in personal communication:
Bonds should engage in personal communication with their customers. They
should be keep in touch with their female consumers because women will

customer. Customers will fill themselves a part of the brand. They also feel the
motivation to become a loyal customer.

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appreciate it if they feel themselves valuable

.
Create community consumer identity:
Consumer identity for regular consumers gives a sustaining identity to its

6. Brand Equity:
The brand equity, which means the value of a brand, is usually the actions, thoughts
and perception of the customers. When they purchase products, which product and
brand they should give priority is completely depends on their own decisions.
Different company might define brand equity in different way, but every company has
a common principal regarding brand equity-it is mostly dependent on the brand
knowledge of customers. The ultimate power of a brand is in the mind of customerstheir belief, experiences and feelings. The brand knowledge determines how
customers react to products as well as prices. Because of these reasons, Bonds
main source of brand equity is customer-based perception, which refers to the
differential effect that customer brand knowledge has on their response to brand
marketing activity (Keller, 2003).

Figure

3:

Kellers Brand Equity Model

A famous model regarding brand equity concept is Kellers Brand equity model
(Figure 3), which is also known as customer-based brand equity model. According to
this model, Bonds has to shape how customers think and perceive its products in
order to build a strong brand. Bonds is giving its customers the right experience
about its products in such a manner that the customers have solid and positive
attitudes toward Bonds.
How Bonds builds strong brand equity in the shade of four steps of Kellers model is

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illustrated below-

Step 1-Brand Identity: In this step, Bonds creates brand salience, which means
brand awareness. According to Aaker (1996), the brand awareness is about the
strength of a brands presence in the consumers mind. First, Bonds tries to identify
its potential customers. It researches the market and understands how people prefer
its brand. Then it realizes that different customer segment has different needs from
the brand. It starts to identify the factors that determine customers choice and the
way of differentiate different brands. It realizes that people will prefer Bonds wear if
they find them comfortable and stylish. Bonds becomes able to capture a particular
customer need by its unique selling proposition.
Bonds is already familiar with these needs, but it always communicate with
customers to know how they feel about the brand and whether it is satisfying them or
not. At the end of this step, Bonds compares whether customers perceive its brand
as it wants them to or it should go for other way to communicate with them.
Moreover, it identifies the steps it should take.
Step 2-Brand Meaning: In the second step, Bonds defines the meaning of its brand.
Performance and image are the major parts of this step.
Performance includes five major components according to Kellers model. They are
product feature; durability and reliability; the efficiency and effectiveness of service;
price; and design. Bonds brand performance reflects its reliability. People know that
its products are well-designed and durable with a reasonable price. Some of its
services like free shipping all over Australia and free return attract more new
customers to try Bonds. Brand performance decides how people will perceive its
brand. Perceived quality can be build up by showing that the quality is superior to a
competitors (Aaker 1996, 123).
Brand image comes from the relationship of customers that they hold toward brand.
It reflects how well the brand satisfies customer needs. As Bonds always provides
superior products and services to its customers, it has a good brand image on
customers mind. It enhances its image by its constant quality of product, services as
well as participation in social and environmental programs. According to Bonds,
people are not only wearing its brand, they are loyal to the brand. Its brand image

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makes it able to start delivery to many countries in 2012.

Step 3-Brand Response: Customers response toward brand consists of two

categories-their judgments and feelings.
Judgment is customers evaluation and personal opinion about the brand, which is
dominated by brand Bonds performance and image. Though customers usually do
all sorts of judgment, four categories are most important

Quality: Bonds makes its brand powerful satisfied by providing the actual
quality products its promise, it never compromises with quality.

Creditability: Bonds has achieved brand credibility as its products are

innovative, interesting and dependable which satisfy three dimensions of
creditability-trust, likability and expertise.

Consideration: Bonds makes its products in such a manner that best suits
customers needs and they find this brand appropriate.

Superiority: Bonds always tries to sell products that are so different from
competitors and unique that customers prefer the most.

It is very important for Bonds whether customers feel positively or negatively its
brand. It is simply their emotional reaction and responses. It is also related to the
social aspects. Bonds makes its customers feel themselves by its marketing and
other strategies. These feelings might be light or intense. There are six positive
brand feeling-fun, warmth, social approval, security, excitement, and self-respect
(Kahle et al., 1988).
Step 4-Brand Resonance: It is placed at the highest level of Kellers brand equity
model, because it is the hardest part to achieve thus most desired part. Bonds has
reached to this part as its customers feel a long lasting psychological relationship
with it. Keller shows the brand resonance in four componentsLoyalty: Bonds has a lot of loyal customers. They are so loyal to this brand
that forces them to purchase products of Bonds repeatedly as well as
regularly. Bonds has achieved this loyalty because it keeps its promises and
fulfils customers expectations.

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Psychological Attachment: Bonds customers love its product so much that it

becomes a special brand to them. All credits go to its high quality product and
continuous improvement in comparison of competitors.

Sense of Community: Bonds customers feel a sense of community with other

customers of the brand as well as with the people who work or joined with
Bonds. This community spread outside Australia now.
Active Engagement: Bonds takes place in its consumers mind so strongly that
they are attached with the brand even when they are not purchasing its
product actually. Some activities includes following the brand on social sites,
passing time in its online stores, joining its relating clubs etc.

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7. Conclusion:
Bonds is one of the leading lingerie brand in Australia. It has observed an impressive
growth even in period of economic downturn. Nonetheless, it has some drawbacks
too. One of major issues that should be looked carefully by Bonds authority is their
advertisement of women underwear. It is a common complaint and, in fact, a fact
they used to use young women in their advertisement campaign. This is criticized by
many consumers in their official blog and Facebook page. It can also be harmful for
the growth of Bond in a sense that it limits the overall consumers and narrows it only
to younger consumers. The authority should look after this matter carefully. However,
The approximate undergarments industry is about $29 million worldwide. As Bonds
is going global now, it has now much more potential to expand its business and
becoming a global brand. It has a great chance to capture the huge market of the
world. In order to sustain in the competitive world market and hold a larger market
share, it should try to continually improve itself and be more innovative. In addition,
reducing customer dissatisfaction and issues would certainly drive the brand towards

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greater success.

8. Reflection:
After completing the assignment, I have some clear views on the basics of business
brand analysis. Completion of this assignment is of great academic value. I also
have a significant insight about various real life business issues. While working on
this assignment, I learnt about the ins & outs of brand positioning strategy and how
to get success on it. I learnt that no matter how well my brand is, if I am unable to
make my target customers feel positive, it will be difficult to turn out my struggling
brand to a successful one. Next, the analysis of characteristics of a brand can help
me to analyse a brand in real life and is useful for identifying a products core benefits
and other benefits of a brand. This assignment has given a chance to understand the
importance of brand communities and the ways of maintaining effective and large
brand communities. Finally, the most important concept of brand equity model which
is very essential for branding a product effectively in real life. This model teaches
how to make a brand strong in a competitive market as well as make understand
about many factors that are necessary to shape customers feelings and perception
toward a brand. Working with this model with real life brand will certainly enhance my
ability to position a brand more effectively in real life. As a whole, this assignment is
a chance to apply the academic knowledge in real life and an experience of work-life

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brand analysis.

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o Business Insider. (2013). Everything you need to know about the red hot
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o Customer Engagement Strategies, Inc. Available at
http/www.customerengagement.com
o Howard, J.H. (1989). Buyer Behavior in Marketing Strategy (2nd ed., pp. 2742) Prentice Hall.

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o Keller, K.L. (2012). Strategic Brand Management (4th ed.). Prentice Hall.

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