Brand Management

Perhaps the most distinctive skill of marketers

is their ability to build and manage brands.
A brand is a name, term, sign, symbol, or
design or a combination of these, that
identifies the maker or seller of a product or
service.
Consumers view a brand as an important part
of a product and branding can add value to a
product.
Branding has become so strong that today
hardly anything goes unbranded. Salt is
packaged in branded packets, so is milk,
biscuits and wood.

Definition
The AMA defines a brand as a name, term,
symbol or design or a combination of them
which is intended to identify the goods or
services of one seller or a group of sellers and to
differentiate them from those of competitors.
Lux, Lifebuoy and Pears are the brand names
used by Hindustan Unilever for the bathing
soaps manufactured by the company
Thus branding facilitates product differentiation,
thus reinstilling its primary objective.
It is essential in this age of mass production and
distribution of identical goods.
This brings us to now understand the various
advantages of branding

Advantages of branding
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

To consumers:
Develops confidence
Easy identification
Regular supply
Fixed prices
Shopping convenience

Brand Equity
Some analysts see brands as the most enduring asset of
a company.
John Stewart co-founder of Quaker Oats once said: If
this business were split up I would give you the land ,
bricks and mortar and I would keep the brands and
trademarks and I would fare better than you.
A former CEO of Mc. Donald's agrees: If every asset
we own, every building and every piece of equipment
were destroyed in a terrible natural disaster we would be
able to borrow all the money to replace it very quickly
because of the value of our brand The brand is more
valuable than the totality of all these assets.
Thus brands are powerful assets that must be carefully
developed and managed.

Brand Equity definition

According to Edward Taumber, brand equity means the
incremental value of a business above the value of its
physical assets due to the market position achieved by
its brand and the extension potential of the brand.
Brand equity as an asset appreciates continuously over
a period of time.
A powerful brand has high brand equity in terms of brand
loyalty, brand name, awareness and son on.
Brand equity provides value to the firm in the form of
price premium or competitive advantage.
It provides value maximization for the firm by improving
effectiveness in marketing, enhanced brand loyalty, high
price, brand extension, trade leverage and competitive
advantage
E.g.. Protinex,colgate toothpaste, Godrej
Strorwel,Amul,surf, maggi, Cadbury.

Elements of brand Equity

Brand Loyalty
Brand name and Awareness
Brand association : association is anything which is deep seated in
customers mind about the brand. It is the extent to which a
particular brand calls to mind the attributes of a general product category.
For example, asking for 'Pampers' when one wants disposable diapers.
Amul for butter, cadbury for chocolates.Brand should be associated with
something positive so that the customers relate your brand to being positive.
Brand associations are the attributes of brand which come into consumers
mind when the brand is talked about. It is related with the implicit and
explicit meanings which a consumer relates/associates with a specific brand
name. Brand association can also be defined as the degree to which a
specific product/service is recognized within itsproduct/service
class/category. For instance- Hyatt Hotel is associated with luxury and
comfort; BMW is associated with sophistication, fun driving, and superior
engineering. Most popular brand associations are with the owners of brand,
such as - Bill Gates and Microsoft, Reliance and Dhirubhai Ambani.
Brand quality
Brand asset.

Advantages
To Customers:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

Confidence
Pride
Willingness to accept a new product
Assured quality
Better standard of living's

To manufacturing firms
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.

Customer loyalty
Support from dealers
Increased profit margin
High price
Sales promotion
Facilitates easy acceptance of new product introduction

Branding Decisions
Branding provides independent identity of products and also
facilitates large scale marketing. Branding is not an end in
itself. The responsibility of a marketer is not over simply by
giving a brand name to its products. Selection of a brand
name has to be done very carefully.
Faulty branding decisions may lead to reduction in sales
and reduction in the popularity of thru branded products.
When a new product is given a familiar and established
brand name consumers are likely to feel more confident
about the new product such as HUL extended the Lux
name to introduce its shampoos . However HULs brands
Signal toothpaste) and Blue Seal (peanut butter) failed as
most people didnt even know these were from Hindustan
Unilever Ltd.
Therefore product branding decisions are critical to an
organizations success. It thus becomes appropriate for us
to enlist some of the questions cited By Philip Kotler himself
for making decisions especially for consumer products

Questions
Should the product be branded at all?
Who should sponsor the product?
What quality product should be built into a
brand?
Should the product be individually branded
or family branded?
Should two or more products be
developed in the same product category?
Should the established brand be given a
new meaning?

Brand Extensions
A brand extension extends a current brand
name to new or modified products in a
new category.
For example Nirma washing powder is
extended to Nirma soap . Similarly Nivea
mosturising lotion to Nivea soap or Nivea
deodrant.
The original brand is kept alive and is
used more effectively through extensions.
It simply means extending the same brand
name to more products.

Benefits of Brand Extension

The new product gets instant brand
recognition in the market
It is more economical than launching a
new brand
Premium pricing.
No need for Advertising, selling and
distribution and publicity.
Helps to build the original brand into a
super brand.

Types of brand extensions

Line Extension/ extending the same Brand name to other items in
the same product line:
A line extension often involves a different flavor or ingredient
variety, a different form or size, or a different applications for the
brand.
eg. Head & shoulders Anti dandruff shampoo, line extension- Head
and shoulders Dry scalp shampoo, head and shoulders anti hair fall
shampoo.
Line extension is the simplest and the easiest form of brand
extension . Here the benefits of the parent brand ( head and
shoulders shampoo) is made available to new products introduced..
This is known a s principle of benefit transfer. The new items
introduced also get the same benefits as the parent brand.
Surf is the parent brand of HUL It relates to detergents. The
company extended the brand to other products in the same product
line . The new products are surf ultra, surf excel, surf excel matic,
international surf.
Similarly colgate, lifebuoy,pantene, sunsilk , kissan tomato sauce,
etc.

Extending the existing brand name to

items in a related product line:
In this type of brand extension the brand
name is extended over different products
but the products are related in some
manner.
Eg. Maggi was initially a brand of noodles
but later extended to other products such
as maggi ketchup, Maggi Soup, maggi
pasta etc.
Sunfeast Marie biscuits, sunfeast pasta.

Extending brand name to products in an

unrelated line:
The brand name is extended across
completely new and unrelated products
falling under different product lines
categories
Eg. Reliance industries was originally cloth
manufacturer and then experimented into
various product lines like reliance super
market, reliance energy,reliance
infrastructure etc.
Tata

Requirements for successful brand

extension
Consistency
Brands area of expertise
Benefit transfer
Brand proliferation: This is the opposite of brand
extension. Under this more products are
introduced with new brand names. As a result
the firm has different brands in the same product
category.
Eg. P & G, HUL etc.

Brand portfolios
Brand portfolio suggests the number of brands of a firm.
The portfolio will be bigger / wider if the total number of
brands are many. For efficient brand management the
brand portfolio of the firm should be small and
manageable.
The firm should not have too many products under its
portfolio as it becomes costly and also becomes difficult
for the management to manage different types of brands.
Dabur previously had 30 brands spread over different
product lines. It affected its marketing efficiency. As a
result the company has pruned down to 3 product lines
with only 12 to 15 brands.