Brand marketing strategies

• Brand hierarchy.

• Designing branding strategy.

• Brand extension: Concept, Advantages and disadvantages.

• Evaluating opportunities of brand extension.

• Concept of Internal branding, Brand mantras, co-branding
 Brand Strategy Framework
• Brand strategy refers to the overall strategy adopted by the firm in marketing
a brand.
• The reason is to ensure that overall profitability is maximized
– The purpose of a low-cost brand, may be to retain price sensitive customers within the
firm e.g., TATA nano, Maruti suzuKi Wagon R, Dairy milk Shots costing Rs 2
– The purpose of a high quality brand may be to retain customers who want to upgrade to
a more expensive brand e.g., TATA Jaguar, Maruti Suzuki S-cross, Dairy milk slabs/bars
costing 170 Rs.
• The two main tools used for this purpose are
– Brand Product matrix -Brand Hierarchy
 The brand product matrix
• It is a graphical representation of all the brands and products sold
by the firm.
• The matrix has the brands of a firm as rows and the
corresponding products as columns.
• A brand-product matrix can be analyzed from two different but
related perspectives:
– A brand-product perspective
– A product-brand perspective.
 Brand-Product Matrix
Products
1 2 3 4
A
Brands B
C

• Must define:
– Brand-Product relationships (rows)
• Line and category extensions
– Product-Brand relationships (columns)
• Brand portfolio
 Important Definitions

• Product line
– A group pf products within a product category that are closely
related
• Product mix (product assortment)
– The set of all product lines and items that a particular seller makes
available to buyers
• Brand mix (brand assortment)
– The set of all brand lines that a particular seller makes available to
buyers
 Breadth of a Branding Strategy

• Breadth of product mix

– Aggregate market factors
– Category factors
– Environmental factors
• Depth of product mix
– Examining the percentage of sales and profits contributed by each
item in the product line
– Deciding to increase the length of the product line by adding new
variants or items typically expands market coverage and therefore
market share but also increases costs
 Depth of a Branding Strategy

• The number and nature of different brands marketed in

the product class sold by a firm
• Referred to as brand portfolio
• The reason is to pursue different market segments,
different channels of distribution, or different geographic
boundaries
• Maximize market coverage and minimize brand overlap
 HUL product- brand matrix

Personal deter Skin care Hair Oral care ayurve

wash gent care dic
Lux Surf Fair & Sunsilk Pepsodent Ayush
Lifebuoy Rin lovely clinic closeup
Liril Wheel Pond’s
Hamam vaseline
Breeze
Dove
Pears
Rexona
 Perspectives
• Brand-Product perspective help in assessing:
• Do we have brand extension opportunities?
• Can we leverage our current position in the
market to introduce new brands?
• Product Brand Perspective:
• For each product category, this helps in
identifying a brand portfolio strategy in terms
of characteristics and number of brands to be
marketed.
Branding Hierarchy Levels

• Brand hierarchy is an explicit depiction of a brand’s

portion in the context of products marketed by a firm

• Identification of a brand hierarchy serves at least two

purposes
 Brand
• The brand Dell Dimension Hierarchy
XPS R400 identifies it at four
hierarchical levels
– Corporate (Dell)
– Family (Dimension - desktop models)
– Individual (XPS)
– Modifiers (R400)
– Similar is the case with IBM ThinkPad A22M.
– Maruti Zen Estillo VXi
– A modifier is to designate a particular version or configuration of
the product.
• The level of hierarchy identified in a brand name
depends on the nature of the product

• In general, more levels are identified for technical

products (such as computers) than for non-technical
products (such as high-end cosmetics)
• The term hierarchy implies that the higher level lends
credence to the lower level.
Designing a branding strategy

• Number of levels of the brand hierarchy

• Desired awareness and image at each hierarchy
level
Designing a Brand Portfolio

• Basic principles:
– Maximize market coverage so that no potential
customers are being ignored
 BRAND STRATEGY DECISIONS
Product Category
Existing New

Existing Line Brand

Extension Extension
Brand
Name
Multibrands New Brand
New
Names
 Class discussion
• GSKCH owns brands like Eno, Iodex, Crocin,
Sensodyne , Horlics.
• launched brand extensions in the last few years
comprising noodles, biscuits, nutrition bars, flavoured
milk, oats…
• sports drinks Lucozade, Horlicks Nutribar, Horlicks Dood
and Horlicks Foodles have either been withdrawn or
scaled down…..Why?
 Analysis
• The company adopted a three-tier strategy
to grow.
1. investing in the original Horlicks and
keeping the promise relevant and the
imagery contemporary
2. Expanding the brand’s footprint into new
health drink extensions to tap consumer
segments not used earlier(eg Junior
Horlicks, Women’s Horlicks, Mother’s
Horlicks, Horlicks Lite etc)
 Analysis
3. Expanding the brand to new categories
like Horlicks NutriBar, cold milk, biscuits,
foodles etc.
• Extending to noodles which is considered
as junk food did the damage.
• It eroded the brand image of Horlicks.
• Moreover, Pediasure from Abbot
Laboratories is emerging as strong
competitor for malted drink Horlicks.