BRAND BUILDING AND MANAGEMENT

Name : M.Parthiban

Class : I Yr MBA A sec

Vmm No. : 683

Subject : Seminar

Sub code : 571192

Seminar Topic : Brand Building and Management

College : Vel Tech Multi Tech Dr.Rangarajan

Dr.Sakunthala Engineering College.
 BRAND BUILDING AND MANAGEMENT

BRAND

A brand is the perception of value that a customer believes they receive in purchasing a
particular product, service or experience from a particular organization.
A brand also represents the specific value that a potential customer believes they will
receive if they purchase a specific product, service or experience from a particular organization.
Consequently, a great brand effectively retains customers while simultaneously
attracting new ones.

A BRAND IS

EXPERIENCES

 A composite of all experiences, encounters and perceptions a customer has with

a brand

 The net impressions and expectations developed through a multitude of

interactions and experiences with a company and its offerings.

 The relationship and emotional connection between a company and its

customers

What factors are important in building brand value?

Professor David Jobber identifies seven main factors in building successful brands, as illustrated
in the diagram below:
Quality

Quality is a vital ingredient of a good brand. Remember the “core benefits” – the things
consumers expect. These must be delivered well, consistently. The branded washing machine
that leaks, or the training shoe that often falls apart when wet will never develop brand equity.

Research confirms that, statistically, higher quality brands achieve a higher market share and
higher profitability that their inferior competitors.

Positioning

Positioning is about the position a brand occupies in a market in the minds of consumers. Strong
brands have a clear, often unique position in the target market.

Positioning can be achieved through several means, including brand name, image, service
standards, product guarantees, packaging and the way in which it is delivered. In fact, successful
positioning usually requires a combination of these things.

Repositioning
Repositioning occurs when a brand tries to change its market position to reflect a change in
consumer’s tastes. This is often required when a brand has become tired, perhaps because its
original market has matured or has gone into decline.

Communications

Communications also play a key role in building a successful brand. We suggested that brand
positioning is essentially about customer perceptions – with the objective to build a clearly
defined position in the minds of the target audience.

All elements of the promotional mix need to be used to develop and sustain customer
perceptions. Initially, the challenge is to build awareness, then to develop the brand personality
and reinforce the perception.

First-mover advantage

Business strategists often talk about first-mover advantage. In terms of brand development, by
“first-mover” they mean that it is possible for the first successful brand in a market to create a
clear positioning in the minds of target customers before the competition enters the market.
There is plenty of evidence to support this.

Think of some leading consumer product brands like Gillette, Coca Cola that, in many ways,
defined the markets they operate in and continue to lead. However, being first into a market does
not necessarily guarantee long-term success.

Long-term perspective

This leads onto another important factor in brand-building: the need to invest in the brand over
the long-term. Building customer awareness, communicating the brand’s message and creating
customer loyalty takes time. This means that management must “invest” in a brand, perhaps at
the expense of short-term profitability.

Internal marketing

Finally, management should ensure that the brand is marketed “internally” as well as externally.
By this we mean that the whole business should understand the brand values and positioning.
This is particularly important in service businesses where a critical part of the brand value is the
type and quality of service that a customer receives.

Think of the brands that you value in the restaurant, hotel and retail sectors. It is likely that your
favourite brands invest heavily in staff training so that the face-to-face contact that you have with
the brand helps secure your loyalty.

Building a Successful Brand:

How can an organization build an effective, sustainable brand?

Whether you work at a very large and established corporation or at a one-person start-up
company, the following steps can be implemented in rather short order to lay the foundation of
an effective brand. However, it takes a minimum of two years to truly establish a new brand.

Six Keys to Build a Successful Brand

1. Identify Your Customers

2. Clarify What Is Important To These Customers
3. Narrow The List To Their Top Four Priority Outcomes
4. Gear Every Decision And Activity Toward Delivering These Top Four Priority
Outcomes
5. Stay Boringly Consistent And Thoroughly Innovative
6. Market To Resonate

1. IDENTIFY YOUR CUSTOMERS

Peter Drucker once wrote, "The purpose of a business is to create a customer." In order to
create a great brand, you need to know whom you want as customers.

It doesn't really matter as long as you are able to describe the customers you want to
work with. Make a list of the different types of customers you want. This might include
your current customers and it might not.

2. CLARIFY WHAT IS IMPORTANT TO THESE CUSTOMERS

Since a brand is based on perceived value and the only perception that matters is the
customer's and the potential customer's, then the starting point is to find out what is of
value to these people. Find out what turns them on and what turns them off. If you run a
casino, an exciting experience is expected. If you want to brand a private high school,
you want to make sure that students gain the ability to go on to the University of their
choosing. Since any organization could easily have 10 different types of customers who
want 10 different outcomes, you will quickly develop a list of 100 or more desired
outcomes that customers want. Write them all down. The key is to clarify the desired
output, not a specific input.

3. NARROW THE LIST TO THEIR TOP FOUR PRIORITY OUTCOMES

This stage requires courage, focus and commitment. After you have interviewed a
significant number of customers and/or prospects, studied the trends of these people and
identified what they want, the next step is to narrow your focus to the three or four
outcomes that matter the most them. By doing this, you begin the process of separating
yourself from the masses. You start the movement from being a commodity to an
 effective brand. The three to four priority customer outcomes that you select will
dramatically impact every decision you make so select them carefully.

4. GEAR EVERY DECISION AND ACTIVITY TOWARD DELIVERING

THESE TOP FOUR PRIORITY OUTCOMES

Once you have decided on the three to four most important priority outcomes to your
ideal customer, begin to work backwards. Ask yourself what you and your organization
need to do to deliver these outcomes. STAY FOCUSED. If you believe that long-term
reliability of your product is the number one desired customer outcome, then focus on
improving the quality of the product. Gear all of your efforts toward improving the
process of making your product so that it can sustain all kinds of wear and tear.
Essentially, this is what Toyota and Honda did. Notice how strong their brand names are
today. Equally as important, notice that Toyota and Honda did not try to make the
flashiest car. They focused on reliability over the long-term. Eventually they moved into
the luxury car division and now are looking to take over the family sedan market, but
only after they clearly had met a specific high priority customer outcome in a sustainable
way.

Any decision that you need to make should go through the following filters:

 Will this improve our ability to deliver at least one of our customer's highest
priority outcomes?
 Is there a way we can implement this idea that will synergistically strengthen our
brand in more than one way? (Think of The Walt Disney Company in the 1950's
and how they combined The Mickey Mouse Show with the Disneyland Theme
Park and the animated films so that everything cross-promoted everything else.)
 Will this initiative allow us to stay focused on what we want our brand to
represent? (At one point, Ford Motor Company stepped into the Aerospace
industry only to find out this diluted their brand. Of course, they have found other
ways to dilute their brand in recent days.)

5. STAY BORINGLY CONSISTENT AND THOROUGHLY INNOVATIVE

Don't try to be all things to all people. The more outcomes you try to deliver, the greater
your chances are of weakening your brand. Have the courage NOT to do things. Stay
focused on delivering these three to four priority customer outcomes. The delivery of
these carefully selected items represents the golden goose for your business. Far too
often, corporations get caught up in worrying about their short-term P&L and give in to
the temptation of making short-term cash by selling a product, service or experience that
does not connect with what they have determined to be the customer's highest priority
outcomes. In the end, it hurts their business. Stay the course and be loyal to what you
have decided to focus on.
 Stay true to the path you have selected for yourself. Just make sure that the path is
focused on what matters the most to your customers, not on what matters the most to you.

Then, within the boundary of the highest priority customer outcomes, innovate as much
as possible. Constantly search for ways to deliver better results in the areas that mean the
most to customers

Innovation is the process of identifying ways to add more value to your customers. In
order to build a powerful brand, the key is to stay focused on innovating within this
narrow focus of high priority outcomes.

6. MARKET TO RESONATE

The key to branding is reminding the customer of what you want them to remember
about your brand. After Drucker said the purpose of a business is to create a customer, he
then wrote, "Consequently, there are only two business functions: marketing and
innovation." Marketing is letting the customer know that you can add value in specific
ways to meet specific needs..

Make sure that every interaction with a customer or potential customer reiterates what
your brand is about.

Here is a visual representation of...

The Brand Building Process

Brand management
The total approach
Brand management starts with understanding what 'brand' really means. This starts with the
leaders of the company who define the brand and control its management. It also reaches all the
way down the company and especially to the people who interface with customers or who create
the products which customers use.

Brand management performed to its full extent means starting and ending the management of the
whole company through the brand. It is simply far too important to leave to the marketing
department. The CEO should be (and, in fact, always is) the brand leader of the company.

Creating the promise

Creating the promise means defining the brand. A good brand promise is memorable and
desirable. It cannot be effective if nobody remembers it, and is no good either if nobody wants it!

A good brand promise evokes feelings, because feelings drive actions. Volvo offers feelings of
safety. Mustang offers feelings of excitement.

The promise must be unique and identified with you alone. Within an industry, promises can be
very close, but if you want any hope of success, you must stake out the very specific territory of
your promise and know clearly how it is different from the promises of other firms.

The right promise is not just something you make up on a Friday afternoon. It comes through a
deep understanding of your marketplace and your customers. It also comes from a deep
understanding of the capabilities and motivations of the people in your company. Creating a
promise you cannot consistently keep, year after year, is plain suicide.  

Making the promise

Once you have created the promise, the next (and not so trivial) step is to somehow inject it into
the minds of your customers, your staff and everyone who receives anything from you or has any
impact on what you deliver.

This is where marketing people come into their own. Although it is still not their sole preserve, a
large part of marketing, which includes advertising and PR, is about positioning the company
and its products in the minds of customers and against your competitors. 
Keeping the promise
Ah, now. Creating and making the right promise is one thing, but then you have to keep it. If you
do not, you brand will still exist, but now the promise will be of slipshod products and
inconsistent delivery.

Keeping promises means managing capability. It means consistent processes that are capable of
delivering what is required. It means technology and systems which are reliable and usable. It
means motivated people who are willing and able to deliver the goods.

Managing brands is a key part of the product strategy of any business, particularly those
operating in highly competitive consumer markets.