Branding

Lecture 4: Brand extension, brand

hijacking, brand research…
Dr. habil. Kovács András, Ph.D.
associate lecturer
Kovacs.Andras2@uni-bge.hu
Office hours: Tuesday, 9:00-10:00 AM., 2nd
floor, Office 219
• BRANDS MAKE PRODUCTS UNIQUE AND
DISTINGUISHABLE.
...A specific combination of signals (color,
voice, form) that augments the characteristics of
the product and form a unified picture in the
minds of the customers.

• “Selling is diversification”
 Brands have…
• Past

• Destiny
• Personality

• Style
• Spirit
• Circle of friends
Brand extension

Source: Sass I.
Brand hijacking

Alex Wipperfürth:
• Brand hijack means that the customers and other stakeholders staert to
form the meaning and feelings connected to a specific brand.
• Brand becomes „free good” that is defined and controlled by a
community
 Internanional brands in other countries and
cultures
• Irish Mist – Mist means „dung” in German
• IKEA Gutvik – in Germany „Gut fick”…
• Coca-Cola in China - „ke-kou-ke-la” – „bite the wax tadpole.”
• Colgate Cue – in France Cue is (or was) a porn magazine
• Pöttyös – try to pronounce…
• Seat Ronda…
Ronda=uggly
in Hungarian
Product characteristics and properties are
important too…
Brand research
Methodological possibilities in brand
research
• Quantitative researches
• Questionnaries
• Observations
• ….

• Qualitative researches
• interview
• Focus groups
•…
Limitations in researches
• Problems connectd to questionnaries:
• Consists data from the past (compare to altering trends)
• Big data – amounts of data and a few time for analysis

• Problems in focus groups and interviews:

• Non-professional vs. Marketing expert
• Problems from this (based on Papp-Váry):
1. Searching for rational causes instead of irrational. Experts want to find
expalanations on our brand decisions, but in most cases our decison is based on
emotional feelings.
2. Expected behaviour in the group or in front of the moderator (social expectations)
3. People lie. E. g.: We say that we would buy something but in the reality we have
not enough money for it. (House M. D.: „Everybody lies…”)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZR2k5c_198
https://www.slides
hare.net/RanaElSh
erbiny/the-failure-
of-new-coke-1985