Individual Written Assignment

Brand Management- Assignment Two

Brand Performance Appraisal
Student Name

Student Number

James Moring

09331141

Assessment criteria

Assessment

Criteria

Grade Indicators

A+ A A-

B+ B B-

C+ C C-

D+ D D-

F+ F F-

Structure,
content &
understanding

Content is both
complete and
highly relevant
showing
consistent
thought and
understanding
theories &
concepts in
brand
management

Content is
good and
shows clear
understanding
of the process
for context
analysis in
brand
management

Content is
satisfactory but
with some
omissions but
demonstrates a
reasonable
understanding of
the processes
underpinning the
project

Content shows
glaring
deficiencies in
basic
understanding of
the concepts and
issues involved in
the project

The response
fails to address
the task and the
issues involved
and consequently
there is a
complete lack of
understanding

A+ A A-

B+ B B-

C+ C C-

D+ D D-

F+ F F-

Excellent
critical analysis
and reflection
with
appropriate
integrated
argument

Clear critical
analysis
reflection and
evaluation of
relevant issues

Demonstrates
some critical
analysis and
relates to the
relevant issues of
brand
management

Limited evidence
of critical analysis
with some
tendency towards
description rather
than analysis

Lacks any critical

analysis content
or evaluation

A+ A A-

B+ B B-

C+ C C-

D+ D D-

F+ F F-

Appropriate
and clear use
of industry
sources fully
integrated &
evaluated with
evidence of
secondary data
collection

Some use of
integrated
examples with
clarity and
expression

Attempt to
evaluate some
examples and
limited reference
to secondary
data

Little use of
appropriate data
or examples

No use of any
examples or data

A+ A A-

B+ B B_

C+ C C-

D+ D D-

F+ F F-

Excellent final
outcomes and
real solutions

Good deductive
considerations
and logical
conclusions

Satisfactory
recommendations
but shows some
disparity in
justifying these
solutions

The base for

recommendations
is somewhat
dubious and
shows lack of
evidence to
support
conclusions

No solutions
offered and
recommendations
if any lacking any
substance

Analysis of
Literature &
Sources used

Appraisal of
research & Data
collected

Conclusions &
recommendations

MKT2006 - Brand Management Assignment 2

Branding Over Time and Brand Stretch / Extension for
Games Workshop Ltd.
Word count 2952

Within this report the growth of the Games Workshop brand shall be
analysed with two key areas primarily considered, academic literature
shall be analysed and critically appraised within each of these areas;
Firstly the way the brand has changed over time, with the addition of new
product lines, the effect technology has had on the business as well as
other ways in which the business has adapted to survive over time as the
business environment has changed. Secondly, the stretching and
extension, of the Games Workshop brand shall be analysed and appraised.
These two areas shall be closely linked throughout this report as the
introduction of new products occurring over time has lead to multiple
brand extensions latter over the life of the brand.
Games Workshop began its life in the UK but now has direct sales
operations not just within the UK, but in the United States, Canada,
France, Germany, Spain, Australia, Italy and Japan. With around 70% of
sales coming from outside of the UK, Games Workshop can be considered
a truly multinational company. Last year, 2011, Games Workshop had
sales of 122.8 million with an operating profit of 15.3 million, this was a
slight decrease from the previous year. Games Workshop is however a
very unique company, they do not have an advertising budget, instead
they rely solely on word of mouth, yet they are a transnational, multimillion pound company, one that has been going for over 30 years.
Some of the biggest, most powerfull and most well known brands have
been around for many years, Coca-Cola was born on 29 May 1887,
General Electric was brought together in 1890 and Ford Motor Company
has been around since 1903, but despite the great success these
businesses have had, a vast amount of companies cannot survive in these

turbulent times, over 300 well known brands have collapsed over the past
10 years, this list include the Lehman Brothers, Woolworths, Jenson
Motors and many others.
To go to discuss the brand positioning of Games Workshop, the question of
What is a brand? must first be answered, the most accredited answer to
this question is the American Marketing Associations definition (1960)
which states: "A brand is a distinguishing name and/or symbol (such as a
logo, trademark, or package design) intended to identify the goods or
services of either one seller or a group of sellers, and to differentiate
those goods or services from those of competitors." The Games Workshop
brand can therefore be properly identified as the company name, its' logo,
as well as the components to the Games Workshop brand that have
helped propelled them to become the largest and most successful tabletop
wargames company in the world; these include Warhammer and
Warhammer 40,000, as well as Black Library, Forge World as well as the
Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game, these shall all be discussed
further later within this report.
Games Workshop itself was founded more than 30 years ago by three
game fanatics who began selling handmade, classic wooden games from
their homes in London. They went on to develop a chain of general games
shops. In 1981 Games Workshop helped to found Citadel Miniatures
Limited, a manufacturer of metal miniatures based in Nottinghamshire. A
few years later the company moved closer to Nottingham and began to
develop and expand, producing wargame systems under the Games
Workshop name.
In October 1997, all UK based operations were relocated to the current
HQ in Lenton, Nottingham. As well as helping to consolidate their UK
businesses, the move provided Games Workshop with space to create
Warhammer World. These new facilities have allowed the UK business to
stage increasing numbers of gaming tournaments and special events, the
additional attraction of Warhammer World has lead to it being the single
most profitable store in the Country, with a yearly target of over 1
million. Today, Lenton is a vibrant and exciting Hobby base and has
become a place of pilgrimage for gamers from around the world.

Warhammer World has been redeveloped with not just gaming facilities,
but with a bar, restaurant, shop and even "The Hall of miniatures" which
shows models from every area Games Workshop deal in, all painted to an
incredibly high standard.
In their paper, Gardner and Levy (1955) wrote that the long-term success
of a brand depends on marketers ability to select a brand meaning prior
to market entry, and viewing that meaning in the form of an image, and
then maintaining that image over time. Since the first introduction of
Warhammer in 1983 when they released their first home grown game
consisting of a boxed set of 3 black and white books, the meaning of the
brand was clear, refocused on a younger, more family-oriented market
rather than the older generation of "Dungeons' and Dragons" gamers.
Games Workshop has undergone many changes, it has massively grown,
undergone many different changes, faced off against multiple competitors,
redeveloped its rules and game play systems and introduced many new
games, including owning the rights to the Lord of The Rings miniatures
and rules. Despite this vast amount of change that the business has gone
through, the business message and the brand meanings remains
constant.
Burger King are a good example of how being distracted away from the
initial brand image can be detrimental, Burger King was started in 1950,
and through the 60's and 70's they were competing with McDonalds to be
the number one fast food provider in the world, they have now dropped to
third, firmly behind both McDonalds and Subway (QSR, 2011, online).
The reason for this has to do with there being seven CEOs in 11 years and
six advertising agencies over the past 20 years. With each change a
different set of ideas was brought into the business, this has lead to both
the brand identity and advertising execution to be inconsistent. There has
been no clear brand perception in the minds of the consumers and this
has affected the brand extremely negatively. Short-term market driven
factors, such as, current consumer needs as well as competitors, were
used as a basis for managing the brands image/position, David Aaker
(1982) states that this can lead to no strategic orientation, which Burger
King are only now starting to recover from. A consistent brand message is

necessary to maintain, and increase, brand image, this is carried through

in the signage, merchandise, fixtures, and overall concept of the stores.
The brand can then be tailored to speak to different regional populations
through the service, materials, and messaging provided in store (Alvarez
2002). Games Workshop have done a very good job at maintaining the
same image throughout all its stores, and in fact, through all its products.
All stores, regardless of size, stock the same goods, the larger stores
simply stock larger quantities of the more popular items. Within each
store there is a web terminal, this gives access to all the items that do not
get stocked in store. Furthermore the stores have the predominantly the
same displays, showing the same starter packs for sale with all models
out, painted, on display. In addition to this all merchandise sold by the
company bares its logo and a very similar theme. Keller (1998) states that
with different messages, different core benefits and alternate positioning
statements, an inconsistent brand image is portrayed. Games Workshop
have managed to maintain a very strong brand image, and despite
undergoing significant change, growth and development over the years
have done a very good job to keep the brand unified.
Since its first boxed game was launched by Games Workshop in 1983 they
have been working to extend their brand further, by introducing new game
systems and even new subsidiary companies they have tried to expand
the Games Workshop brand.
The term "Brand Extension" was first coined in 1979 by Edward M. Tauber,
he used it to describe using the leverage of a well known brand name in
one category, in this instance Games Workshop, to launch a new product
in a different, but related category. Games Workshop have done this in a
number of ways starting with their initial product the Warhammer range.
As stated above was first introduced in 1983, a second edition was
released in 1984 which was a boxed-set of three black and white books,
with colour covers whith re-designed rules in, for someone to continue
with their hobby they needed to get the new rule books, in 1987 the third
edition of the game was published, this was a single hard back book with
more complex rules in it, once again significantly changed from the
second edition. This version of the rules lasted until 1992 when 4th edition

was released, this was sold as box sets containing not only the rulebooks
and a variety of other play aids but also sufficient plastic miniatures to be
able to play the game "out of the box". There was also another major
change where individual army books were released containing army
specific rules, this book was essential to playing the game. The 5th edition
released in 1996 and was very similar to the 4th, but introduced two new
armies, and these new armies were included in small starter forces within
the 5th edition box set, this encouraged more people to get started with
the new armies, increasing takings dramatically.
In 2000 the 6th edition was released, once again, a new rule book was
published, available as a large hard back version on its own with a large
amount of history of the fantasy world and races, or as a smaller soft back
copy for sales with a starter box set, the was the first time the rule book
could be bought separately from the starter box, and it proved to be very
popular with the existing gamers, whilst the smaller version and starter
box set was the perfect start into the hobby. The 7th edition of
Warhammer was very similar to the 6th, and was released in 2006, once
again there was a new rule book and new box set once again, by this time
the amount of miniatures available in the 7th edition starter box had
swelled to two different armies containing over 100 individual plastic
models between them to get started. The latest edition / most current
edition to be released was in 2010, 8th edition, which encourages larger
armies and once again a new rule book and new starter box set.
Research into the area of brand extension looks positively on the actions
of Games Workshop, as Shocker (1995) states that " co-branding and
other strategic uses of brand names represent a fruitful area of additional
inquiry". Games Workshop has been able to not just co-brand itself with
the additional companies introduced below, but also with the use of the
Games Workshop brand on its Warhammer products, and almost the
introduction of Warhammer itself as a brand in its own right, then the
expansion into Warhammer 40,000.
With each change in rule book happening around 4 years apart, the
company was able to keep their business updated still, constantly
releasing a stream of new models for the existing armies as the materials

models were made out of changed and the quality of the models also
increased greatly. Initially the models were lead cast, however this caused
certain hazards, therefore they were changed to white metal, interestingly
this was the only time in the company's history where there has been a
sale to sell the last of the lead models before the law prevented them
from selling them. With increased technology plastic moulds were
becoming more common and the amount of models that could be
produced increased greatly, the newest, and their greatest, advance in
casting of their models has been "Finecast" where the models are made
out of a resin plastic mix, this allows the models to be much finer quality,
also this has lead to the re-release of models that some customers
already have leading to an increase in sales.
In 1987 the company branched out from the historical fantasy world, with
magic and monsters, to release a brand new game - Warhammer 40,000.
This is set in the 41st millennia, where mankind has taken to the stars to
explore worlds and battle with alien races. This appealed to a similar
market but aimed more towards the younger generation. Warhammer
40,000 has similar rules to the Warhammer game, and a similar strategy
has been used to drive sales for Warhammer 40,000. It has undergone a
vast amount of changes over the years and is now on its fifth edition,
there were initially four armies that were released in 1987 for Warhammer
40,000, that has increased to fourteen now available to purchase.
The brand extensions employed by Games Workshop has worked well, and
given research carried out into the area of brand extension was relatively
low risk, as "a liked or disliked extension seemed to have no reciprocal
impact on the liking of the parent brand at a later time." (Farquhar et al.
1992).
By keeping the brand of Games Workshop, the background to the hobby
the same, and having a unity with all stores it has allowed a standard,
singular brand message put across to the customer which has not
changed since 1981, yet it has allowed the company to change with the
time and with improvements in technology.

Further to this Games Workshop has taken brand extension further by

introducing two new companies under the Games Workshop brand, these
are Black Library and Forge World. Black Library was founded in April
1997, it started by producing a bi-monthly digest-sized anthology of short
stories, comic strips and features from the Warhammer worlds. This did
become less popular and by 2005 Black Library was primarily devoted to
solely publishing novels and audio books, set in the Warhammer and
Warhammer 40,000 universes. Forge World, created in 1998, and was
originally created to design Warhammer Terrain (hence the name) and
limited edition, large scale collector's edition models. Since then Forge
World has expanded to create variant vehicles, large scale models and
variants for armies for the passionate collector. Both Black library, and
Forge World act closely with Games Workshop and they all keep to the
same background, and same key thoughts behind their businesses. This
allows them to keep the same Games Workshop brand image across
everything they produce.

References
Allan D. Shocker (1995), "POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE EFFECTS OF
BRAND EXTENSION AND CO-BRANDING", in Advances in Consumer
Research Volume 22, eds. Frank R. Kardes and Mita Sujan, Provo, UT :
Association for Consumer Research, Pages: 432-434.
Alvarez, E. (2002). Follow the lead of Major retailers by giving
brand some flexibility. American Banker. 167: 16.
Burleigh B. Gardner, Sidney J. Levy (1955). The Product and the
Brand. Harvard Business Review 33(March-April): 33-39.

C. Whan Park, Bernard J. Jaworski and Deborah J. Maclnnis (1986)

Strategic Brand Concept-Image Management, The Journal of Marketing
Vol.50, No.4, pp. 135-145
David A. Aaker, J. G. Shansby (1982). Positioning your product.
Business Horizons 25(May-June): 56-62.
Farquhar, Peter H., Paul M. Herr, and Russell H. Fazio (1990), "A
elational Model for Category Extensions of Brands," in Marvin E. Goldberg,
Gerald Gorn, and Richard W. Pollay (eds.) Advances in Consumer
Research, Vol.17, Provo UT: Association for Consumer Research, 856-860.
Keller, K. L. (1998). Building, Measuring and Managing Brand
Equity. New Jersey, Prentice Hall Inc.
QSR (2011) The 2011 QSR 50, available from
http://www.qsrmagazine.com/reports/2011-qsr-50 [accessed 20/03/12]
Tauber, M.E., (1981) Brand Franchise Expansion: New Product
Benefits From Existing Brand Names, available from:
http://www.brandextension.org/articles/bfe_bh.pdf [accessed 20/03/12]