Designing and Implementing Branding

Strategies

A presentation by:
Varqa Shamsi Bahar
Presentation Outline
• Brand Architecture

• Brand Hierarchy

• Designing Branding Strategies.

• Cause Marketing

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Brand Architecture

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 What is a Brand Architecture?

• The brand architecture or a branding strategy

for a firm tells marketers which brand names,
logos, symbols, and so forth to apply to which
new and existing products.
• Discussion: What is a “branded house”? What
is a “house of brands”?

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Branding Strategy/Architecture in a simplistic
format

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 Brand Development Strategies

• Line extensions
– Minor changes to existing products flavors, forms, package sizes,
colors, ingredients. E.g. Bata: sandals, regular shoes, sport shoes,
premium shoes.
• Brand extensions
– Successful brand names help introduce new products Dove
deodorant, body wash, bar soap, shampoo. Kool shaving cream,
shaving foam, bodyspray, deotalc, after shave gel. Maggi noodles,
ketchup, soup
• Multi-brands
– Multiple brand entries in a product category Close up, Pepsodent.
OR Wheel, Rin, Surf Excel.
• New brands
– New brand for a new product category
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 The Brand-Product Matrix

A graphical representation of all the brands and products sold by the firm. The brands
are on the rows, and products on the columns.

Products
1 2 3 4
A
Brands B
C
the rows of the Brand-Product Matrix captures the brand extension strategy of the
firm. It emphasizes on the breadth of the firm’s branding strategy.
The column of the matrix captures the brand portfolio strategy in terms of number of
brands to be marketed in each category. It emphasizes the depth of the firm’s
branding strategy.

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Ford’s Brand Portfolio Case

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 Case: Ford’s Brand Portfolio
• Ford Motor Company, traditionally known for its American-made brands: Ford, Lincoln,
and Mercury.
• Ford expanded in the past two decades with a string of foreign automaker acquisitions.
• In 1987 purchase of British luxury automaker Aston Martin.
• Over the next decade, Ford purchased Land Rover, Volvo, and Jaguar. These moves
transformed Ford Motor Company into the world’s number-two seller by volume of
luxury cars.
• Ford’s portfolio of luxury brands catered to different types of buyers. For example Volvo
attracts buyers interested in safety, Land Rover appeals to four-wheel-drive
connoisseurs, and Jaguar represents tradition and British elegance.
• Victor H. Doolan, executive director for the PAG explained the benefit of the portfolio:
“We don’t have to stretch our brands beyond their core values”.
• Important points on depth of branding strategy:
• Minimize overlap and get the most out of the brand portfolio.
• Each brand in the category should be well positioned promising differentiated value.
• Each brand should have a separate target group to avoid cannibalization.
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 Some Important terminologies

• Product line
– A group of products within a product category that
are closely related – e.g. different television types.
• Product mix (product assortment)
– The set of all product lines and items that a
particular seller makes available to buyers – shaving
cream, after shave gel, body spray.

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 Some Important terminologies

• A brand line consists of all the products sold under a

particular brand (current + new category): Kool shaving
cream, shaving foam, body spray, after shave gel, after shave
lotion.
• Brand mix (brand assortment)
– The set of all brand lines that a particular seller makes available to
buyers – e.g. Spring, ZeroCal, Select Plus, White Plus etc.
• Brand Portfolio is the set of all brands that a particular firm
offers to sale in a particular category. E.g. Oral Care brand
portfolio of Square: White Plus, Freshgel, Magic.
• E.g. GAP has: Banana republic, Old Navy, GAP itself.
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 Brand roles in the portfolio
• Flankers: Also known as fighter brands. The purpose of flanker brands is to
create stronger POP (usually the price factor) with competitor brands so that
the more important (more profitable) flagship brands can retain their
desired positioning. Also to better compete with store brands/private label
brands. Precaution: should not take the sales away from the flagship brand.
• Cash cows: Some brands may be kept around despite dwindling sales
because they still manage to hold on to a sufficient number of customers
and maintain their profitability with virtually little marketing effort. E.g. the
pre-historic Nokia phones.
• Low-end entry-level or high-end prestige brands: Introducing line extensions
in the product category that vary in price and quality.
– Low end entry level enhances traffic via market penetration pricing strategy with the
hope that customers will move up the ladder via trade in approach.
– High end prestige brands also enhances traffic and builds an image which is disseminated
throughout the portfolio. E.g. Chevrolet’s corvette sports car; Meril Splash Xtra Fresh.

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Brand Hierarchy

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 What is a brand Hierarchy?

• A means of summarizing the branding strategy by

displaying the number and nature of common and
distinctive brand elements across the firm’s products,
revealing the explicit ordering of brand elements.
• A useful means of graphically portraying a firm’s branding
strategy.
Example: Dell (corporate name) + Inspiron (individual brand focusing on portability)
+ XPS (model number signifying gaming performance).

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 Brand Hierarchy Tree: SQUARE

SQUARE

Meril Kool Revive

Magic Senora Freshgel Zerocal Chamak Chaka Spring Whiteplus

Modifier of kool body spray: blue citrus, saint

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 Corporate brand

Corporate or company brand:

1. Many do not refer the company brand. But play an
small role in the marketing program. E.g. Sting energy
drink shows in it’s ads that it belongs to Pepsi.
2. For some firms, the corporate brand is the only brand
(HP or Dell) – branded house.
3. The corporate brand is invisible – no one knows about
its company but its part of the hierarchy. E.g. Black and
Decker does not use its name on DeWalt professional
power tools.
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Pepsico plays a small role in endorsing Sting Energy Drink

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 Family Brand.

• Family brand is used in more than 1 product

category but is not necessarily the name of the
company or corporation.
Example: ConAgra’s Healthy choice family brand:
Packaged meat, soup, pasta,
Sauces, brands, popcorn. Etc.

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 Family Brand.

• If corporate brand is applied to a range of

products, then it is a family brand too and the
two levels collapse to one for those products.

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 Brand Hierarchy continued….

An Individual brand is a brand restricted to

essentially one product category, although it
may be used for several different product types
in the category.
It follows the law of contraction as it will have a
dominant position in its respective product
category.

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 Brand Hierarchy continued….

A modifier a means to designate a particular

version.
E.g. Skimmed milk, whole milk.
Yoplait Yogurt can come in “light”, “custard type”,
or “original”

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Designing Branding Strategies

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 Guidelines to construct the brand hierarchy to
build branding equity
Marketers must decide on the following factors:
1. The number of levels of the hierarchy to use in
general.
2. Combinations of brand elements from
different levels of the hierarchy, if any, for any
one particular product.

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 1. Number of levels of the brand hierarchy
• The first decision a marketer needs to make in defining a branding strategy is: Which
levels of the branding hierarchy to use?
• Developing brands at lower levels of the brand hierarchy allows the firm the flexibility
in communicating the uniqueness of its products. Example: Chamak, Chaka, Spring,
Zerocal of STL.
• Developing brands at higher levels of the brand hierarchy is an economical means of
communicating common attributes amongst the company’s products. Example:
Gillette of P & G.

• The practice of combining an existing brand with a new brand is called sub-branding:
Nestle KIT KAT, ACI PURE.
• The principle of simplicity is to give the right amount of information to consumers. The
more the hierarchy levels, the more the likability of consumers getting confused.
• Best will be to categorize products launches and for each category have a Individual
brand. E.g. of SONY: Vaio, Cybershot, Bravia, Walkman.

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 2. Combining brand elements from different
levels
• Combining multiple brand elements from different levels of the
brand hierarchy to brand new products, marketers must decide how
much emphasis to give each.
• The principle of prominence states that the relative prominence of
the brand elements determines which element becomes primary
(main positioning and POD) and which becomes secondary (POP of
additional POD).
• Class-work: Mojo launching a cola drink which contains vitamins.
• Discussion: What about Motorola Razr. Which is primary and which
is secondary?
– Sleek cutting edge design.
– Credibility, quality, and professionalism.

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Using Cause Marketing to Build Brand
Equity.

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 Cause Related Marketing

• A program in which a firm ties a marketing program in

with some type of charity in order to generate
goodwill.
• This type of partnership agreement between a not-for-
profit cause and a for-profit business is based on the
idea that consumers are more likely to purchase from
companies that are willing to help a good cause.
• Many marketers use cause related marketing to help
develop stronger brand ties and to move consumers
towards brand loyalty.
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 Research on Cause Marketing

• 78% of the consumers are more likely to purchase

a brand associated with a cause they care about.
• 54% would be willing to pay more for a brand
that is associated with a cause they care about.
• 66% would switch brands to support a particular
cause
• 84% indicated that cause related marketing
creates a more positive image of a company.

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Marilyn Monroe red dress designed exclusively for Macy's! 10% of sales go to the
American Heart Association’s Go Red For Women movement
 Cause Related Marketing

Today most companies want to know the tangible

benefit in engaging in cause marketing.

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 Cause Related Marketing

• Possible benefits/outcomes a company looks

for are:
– Additional customers
– Increased profits
– Consumer goodwill for the future
– Better relations with governmental agencies
– Reduced negative public opinions.

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 Green Marketing

• A special case of cause marketing is green

marketing.
• A concern for the environment is growing from
both consumer and firm’s perspective.
• Company’s are incorporating environmental
strategy into their marketing plans.

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 HEWLETT PACKARD – Green Marketing

• The company has a recycling program, which has

recycled over one billion pounds of electronic waste
since 1987.
• Gary Elliot, HP Vice President of Brand Marketing says
that “the company feels its customers are socially and
environmentally conscious and would prefer to buy
from a company that conducts business in a
responsible way”.

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 Case: Body shop and how it adopted cause related
marketing as the essence of its brand positioning.
• The body shop products are based on natural ingredients,
particularly fruits, vegetables, flowers and herbs.
• The body shop has made refilling and recycling of bottles an
integral part of the company’s overall environmental
stewardship program.
• The body shop avoids narrow images of flawless beauty which
is portrayed in traditional cosmetic advertising.
• The body shop is against animal testing, actively attempts to
minimize company’s impact on the environment, engages in
various cause related marketing activities.
• The body shop has a 5th P known as “profits with principles”

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 Strategic Brand Management Process
• Identifying and establishing brand positioning – ✓
• Planning and implementing brand marketing programs - ✓
• Measuring and interpreting brand performance - ✓
• Growing and sustaining brand equity - ✓

• We have learnt how to build brand equity.

• We have learnt how to measure brand equity.
• We have learnt how to grow and sustain brand equity.

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