BRAND

RELATIONSHIPS
Introduction
• Understanding how brands are build and managed
require and understanding of how relationship-building
communications are created and managed.

• This chapter explains:

1. What a brand is,
2. Describes how brand are created, and
3. Looks at the characteristics of brand-customer
relationships.

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1. What Brand Means

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What Brand Means
• A brand is a “name, term, sign, symbol, or design, or
combination of them, intended to identify the goods and
services of one seller or group of sellers and to differentiate
them from those of competition.” (Keller, 2003)

• Brand is defined as “a perception resulting from experiences

with, and information about, a company or a line products.”
(Duncan, 2005)

• According to Interbrand, one of the top brand consulting

firms in the world, a brand is “a mixture of tangible and
intangible attributes, symbolized in a trademark, which, if
properly managed, creates influence and generates value.”

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What Brand Means
• What many people fail to understand is that brands
life in the heads and hearts of customers – not on
the side of a package (the image in a package is a
logo).

• What marketing communications are all about is

how to create, deliver, manage, and evaluate
brand messages.

• Brand messages are all the information and

experiences that impact how customers and other
stakeholders perceive a brand.

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What Brand Means
• A brand is basically a perception, not a logo on the
side of a package. A brand exists only in people’s
heads and hearts.

• In the marketplace, perceptions are the collective

results of everything a customers or other
stakeholders sees, hears, reads, or experiences
about a company and its brands.

• The Perception Process: Stimulus -> Attention ->

Interpretation -> Cognition. (Batra, Myers, Aaker, 1996)
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What Brand Means

•A perception can be influenced through

positive (and negative) communication
experiences, but not controlled.
•A brand differentiates a product from its
competitors and makes a promise to its
customers.

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Branding
• Branding, the process of creating a brand image that
engages the hearts and minds of customers, is what
separates similar products from each other.
• Logos, which are distinctive graphic designs used to
communicate a product, company, or organization
identity.
• Brand identity tells the source of a product and often
suggests a personality for the brand.
• Keep in mind that both companies and products have
identities and images that differentiate them from
competitors.

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Branding
• Customers and prospects are influenced by a wide
variety of messages that are sent by both the
tangible and the intangible attributes of a brand.

• Tangible attributes are characteristics you can

observe or tough, such as a product’s design,
performance, ingredients/components, size, shape,
and price.

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Branding Brand Image

Quality Value
perceptions Before perceptions
sales service

During After
sales service sales service
Function
Packaging
Design Intangible
Other user
Organization Guarantees Tangible CORE Delivery influences

Price Features
Availability
Warrantees
Efficacy
Advice
Add-ons
Reputation
Finance
Brand name

Corporate
image
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Branding
• All though brand managers have input on the messages sent
by these tangible attributes, brand managers’ primary
responsibility is to influence a brand’s intangible attributes,
such as its perceived value, its image, memories associated
with the brand, and even the perceptions and impressions
of those who use the brand.

• Intangibles are important in brand building for two reason:

they are hard for competitors to copy, and they are more
likely than tangible attributes to involve consumers
emotionally.

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Brands Live in Heads and
Hearts
• Although a company my own a brand name and
logo, and greatly influence what people think about
its brands, the actual brand meaning that influences
behavior resides in the heads and hearts of
customers and other stakeholders.

If no one were aware of a brand, the brand would

have no value because it would have no impact on
anyone’s buying decision.

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Brands Live in Heads and Hearts
Brand Characteristics

Tangible Attributes: Intangible Attributes:

Design Value
Performance Brand Image
Ingredients/Components Image of stores where
Size/Shape sold

Price Perception of users of

Marketing Communication the brand

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Brands Experiences
• Ultimately the meaning of a brand is based on customers’
experiences with the brand, either positive or negative.
These experiences lead to customer satisfaction or
dissatisfaction.

• It has been estimated that when customers switch brands,

three out of four times the switch has no thing to do with
product performance, but rather is a response to customer
services and other aspects of the brand experience that
consumers believe were less than satisfactory.

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Brands Transform Products
• A basic principle of branding is that a brand transforms
products – goods as well as services – into something larger
than the products themselves.

• A pair of Wrangler jeans is different from a pair of Levi’s

jeans, event if the are both made of denim.

• Wrangler and Levi’s have different personalities because of

brand images created primarily by marketing communication
messages.

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Brands Transform Products

• How powerful is branding?

A brand and what it represents can

affect what people are willing to pay
for a product.

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Brands Make Promises and
Set Expectations
• In term of consumer purchases, the essence of
brand is a promise.
• This promise sets expectations for what a person
considers likely to occur when using a product.

• A brand is also a contract, albeit a virtual one,

between a company and a customer.

• Knowledge of what a brand stands for and past

experiences with the brand allow customers to
make a quick and easy decision.
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2. How Brands are Created
and Maintained

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Building a Successful Brand
• Building a successful brand, whether for a company
or for a new product, requires strategic planning
and a major investment.

• The new company then spent millions of dollars to

create awareness and position the new brand.

• How is such a branding program undertaken?

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Building a Successful Brand

• Three steps lead to successful

brand strategies:
1. Selecting the desired brand position.

2. Developing the brand’s identification.

3. Creating the brand image.

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Selecting the Desired Brand
Position
• Brand position is the standing of a brand in
comparison with its competitors in the minds of
customers, prospects, and other stakeholders.

• According to Al Ries and Jack Trout, customer who

are aware of several brands in a product category
automatically compare and rank those brands
according to the differences they perceive among
them.

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Selecting the Desired Brand
Position
• Because brand position hinges on a brand’s
meaning, changing a brand meaning can allow a
company to move and enlarge its brand position.

Positioning Strategies:
• A positioning strategies is generally based on one of
several variables: (1) category, (2) image, (3) unique
product picture, or (4) benefit.

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Positioning Strategies
1. Category Positioning:
• This type of positioning is possible anytime a brand
defines, creates, or owns a category or sub-product
category.

• Similar to category positioning is preemptive

positioning, brand positioning based on generic feature
that competitors have not talked about.

• Pre-emptive positioning is often used by commodity

products, goods and services that have very minor or no
distinguishing differences.

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Positioning Strategies
2. Image Positioning:
• This type of positioning differentiates on the basis of a
created association.

• It is similar to pre-emptive positioning in that any brand

can attempt to create a differentiating image for itself.
• Often these attempts fail, however, because the image
is not realistic, not creatively constructed, or not used
long enough to actually build up an association
between the brand and the desired image.

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Positioning Strategies
3. Unique Product Feature Positioning:

• This type of positioning is based on an element that is

unique to the product or company.

• Product features are tangible or intangible attributes of

a good or service, and they provide a basis for
positioning.

• Price and how it translates into value is an intangible

feature, that is the basis Bilo Supermarket’s position as
the low price leader in consumer retailing.
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Positioning Strategies
4. Benefit Positioning:
• This type of positioning is based on benefits,
advantages that allow a product to satisfy
customers’ needs, wants, or desires.

• Most benefits are experiential, functional, or

symbolic, any of which can be the basis for brand
positioning.

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Positioning Strategies

• Positioning by Product Attributes and Benefits

• Positioning by Price/Quality
• Positioning by Use or Application
• Positioning by Product Class
• Positioning by Product User
• Positioning by Competitor
• Positioning by Cultural Symbols
• Repositioning
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Managing a Brand’s Position
• Marketing managers may develop positioning
statements, such as Rockport’s “Leader in walking
fitness.” But such statements don’t really mean
any thing if they are not in customers’ mind.

• To determine how customers perceive a brand and

its competitors, one thing market researchers do is
ask a sample of customers to participate in
perceptual mapping.

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Managing a Brand’s Position
• Perceptual mapping is a visualization technique
that indicates how customers perceive competing
brands in terms of various criteria.
• Maps like this indicate how a sample of customers
ranked each brand, from low to high, on selected
criteria, which for products could be comfort,
performance, quality, price, or style.
• Numerical rankings for each criterion are averaged
and plotted. The map enables brand managers to
quickly see how their brands compare, in the minds
of consumers, with competing brands.
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Perceptual Map

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Repositioning a Brand
• Sometimes brands need to be repositioned
because the original position no longer fits the
modern-day culture.

• Repositioning may also be used when a brand

extends its product line and needs to redefine
itself in term of its new goods or services.

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3. Characteristics of The Brand

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Developing Brand
Identification
• The brand name and symbol chosen to represent a
brand need to reflect the position of the brand, and
they must work as identification cues.

• Names and symbols are what customers look for

when shopping, whether in stores, in catalogs, on
the internet, or, in the case of B2B products, at
trade shows and exhibits.

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Developing Brand
Identification
• The more memorable and relevant the brand name and
symbol are, the fasters and less costly it will be to create
awareness of a brand, position it in customers’ mind, and
develop an image for it.

• Making it easy to find and repurchase a brand is an

important factor in customer retention.

• Thus the more specific and less ambiguous brand-identity

cues are, the more they help customers save time looking
for a product, which adds value to the brand.

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Brand Names
• Although choosing a memorable name is more
art than science, successful brand names
generally are the result of extensive research.

• Successful brand names share several

characteristics that help make them memorable.
A good brand name usually communicates one or
more of the following characteristics: benefit,
association, distinctiveness, and simplicity.

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Brand Names
• Benefit: Slim-Fast promises weight loss (Slim) and
promises it immediately (Fast).

• Association: Subaru chose Outback as the name for its

rugged off-road SUV, hoping it would evoke the fun and
adventure of the Australian wilderness.

• Distinctiveness: One way to communicate

distinctiveness is to use a simple word that is completely
unrelated to the product, such as Apple (computers) or
Charlie (perfume).

• Simplicity: Names that are not difficult to say or spell are

not likely to be remembered.

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Brand Symbols
• We live in visual world. Having a symbol for a
brand can greatly increase a brand’s
recognition.
• In the realm of products and companies, a
distinctive logo is used to indicate a product’s
source or ownership.
• A trademark is similar to but broader than a
logo. A trademark is an element, word, or
design that differentiates one brand from
another.

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Creating a Brand Image
• Giving a brand an identity and a position is not
enough to make the brand come alive and connect
with customers.
• Think of people you have met. Simply knowing their
names, physical traits, and occupation doesn’t tell
you much about their personalities.
• What tells you more are the images of these people
you have in your mind.
• A brand image is an impression created by brand
messages and experiences and assimilated into a
perception or impression of the brand.

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Managing a System Brands
• As companies grow and expand the number of
products they make, they not only extend their brands
to these products but often give these products
separate brand names.

• Multi-tier branding is the use of two or more brands

(all owned by the same company) in the identification
of a product.

• A corporate brand name is the mother brand, or

umbrella brand. A product brand name identifies a
specific product or line of products.

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